Vol. 10 , No.3 June 2000

Club News

The 10th Annual Nippon Club Picnic

The Nippon Club annual picnic was held on Saturday, May 20th at Morrisville Community Park. Approximately 500 people gathered on the hot summer day under beautiful clear skies. We served Japanese traditional festival food such as yakisoba (stir-fried Japanese noodles), grilled corn on the cob, and cotton candy. Children enjoyed fishing for water balloons, and clowns amused them with their skillful drawing and by making animals out of balloons.

This year, Nathan Ray Sensei and his students from World Karete-Do of Knightdale performed karate, and impressed us with a strong and beautiful performance, including breaking four cement blocks! The raffle at the end of the picnic was also very exciting with many nice prizes given away. Our heartfelt appreciation to the sponsors who provided the prizes and the volunteers who prepared the picnic.

We were not able to arrange a pig-picking this time, but we hope to bring it back for next year's picnic. Also we apologize to those who were left nonplussed by the Karate performance due to lack of English explanation. If we have a similar performance event next year, we will make sure someone is available to translate. We are also thinking about creating more chances for people to interact with each other by playing some games next time. We would like to make next year's picnic even more enjoyable than this one. Please send your comments and suggestions regarding the annual picnic to the Nippon Club.

Sponsors and Contributions (alphabetical order)

Angus Barn Restaurant: wine gift set
Continental Airline: two pairs of round trip tickets, RDU-Narita
Deja Vu Cafe: twenty $10 coupons
Honda R&D Americas: a push mower
IBM: five mugs, and many other items
JAL/JAL PACK: a pair of business class round trip tickets, Dallas-Narita
Japan Travel Advisor: three free memberships, and many other items
Midway Airline: a pair of round trip airline tickets
Mitsubishi Electronics America, Inc.: $500 (used for ice cream, water balloon fishing, and cotton candy)
Sumitomo Electric Lightware Corporation: four sets of logo shirts and caps
Teriyaki & Shushi A: five $20 coupons
Toshiba Battery U.S.A.: ten packs of 80 batteries
Toyo -Shokuhin: saki, calpico, soy sauce, and many other items
World Karate-Do of Kightdale: karate demonstration

Adopt-A-Highway

We will be participating in another Adopt-A-Highway clean-up on July 15. We salute all of you who came for the previous Adopt-A-Highway clean-up. Thank you! We are looking forward to seeing many of you this time as well. What we will be doing is to pick up trash alongside a road for about 2 hours. The more people we have, the faster the job will get done. On the day you come to the clean-up, please bring your own gloves. We will provide gloves for those who have forgotten or don't have them. Whether you have done it or not in the past, anyone 13 or older can participate. We encourage all of you to come to join us and bring your friends along. In case of rain, the event will be cancelled.

Date: Saturday, July 15th
Time: 9:15 AM (Clean up to start at 9:30 AM)
Place: Eatman's Carpets rear left parking lot off from Glenwood Avenue, 5 miles north on US-70, off of Raleigh Beltline I-440. Eatman's Carpets is at the corner of Westborough Drive and US-70/Glenwood Avenue.
Contact: Francis A. Moyer at NC Japan Center
Tel.: (919) 515-3450

Community News

One-day Mobile Service in Charlotte by the Consulate General of Japan

The North Carolina Arts Council has published a free guidebook listing information about summer music and theatrical The Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta will come to Charlotte on July 29 (Saturday) to provide services regarding passport renewal and voting registration for overseas Japanese. If you wish to renew your passport, you need to send all the necessary documents such as your photographs and a copy of your visa to the Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta by July 14 (Friday). For voting registration of Japanese overseas, contact the consulate in Atlanta by July 24 (Monday). For further written details, please contact the NC Japan Center in Raleigh (address below).
Also, the consulate plans to provide one-day mobile consular service in Raleigh on October 28 (Saturday), even though they do not know the details at this point. Please make a note of it.

NC Japan Center:
5 Rosemary Street, Raleigh, NC 27607
Tel.: (919) 515-3450

Consulate General of Japan:
100 Colony Square, Suite 2000, Atlanta, GA 30361
Tel.: (404) 892-2700
Extension 25 (passport renewal)
Extension 39 (voting registration for Japanese overseas)
E-mail: ryoji@cgjapanatlanta.org (can read/write in Japanese)

Information about the Bon Festival Dance in Charlotte

The customary Bon Festival Dance organized by the Japanese Association in Charlotte will be held again. A platform will be set up in the center of the festival site where you will be able to enjoy listening to taiko drumming, eating yakisoba, corn, kakigori (crushed ice with sweet flavored syrup over it), goldfish scooping, yoyo fishing, and so many other things typical of Japanese summer festivals. In addition, there will be a tea ceremony, flower arrangement and calligraphy lessons, and the sale of small Japanese items and second-hand Japanese books. Around the end of the festival, a raffle will be held with grand prizes including round-trip tickets to Japan. We encourage you to go and have fun!

Date and Time: Saturday, July 29th, 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Place: Two First Union Center
301 S. Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC 28282
Entrance fee: $4 (free for children 12 and under)
Contact: The Japanese Association in Charlotte
Tel.: (704) 333-2775

Forth of July Fireworks Display

In Japan, fireworks are called one of the necessary items for summer nights. Here in the U.S., many fireworks are set off on the evening of July 4th, celebrating the declaration of America's independence from England in 1776. Many people spend this holiday with their families and friends, having picnics and cookouts, going to outdoor concerts, etc. Many events are planned in the RTP area. Depending on where you go, we recommend that you take ground sheets, portable chairs, and so forth. As an example, many people go to Regency Park to picnic with food and beverages and enjoy an outdoor concert and fireworks. You should plan on arriving well in advance in order to get a seat - the events will be crowded!
(Please see the detailed information on the Japanese newsletter. Information is written in English.)

Day Trips and Weekend Trips

Seasonal Flower Appreciation - The Sarah P. Duke Gardens

Duke University is well known for its beautiful surroundings and one of them is the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. These gardens were started with the passionate concept of Professor Frederic M. Hanes of Duke University and the first plants were planted in the early 1930s. Dr. Hanes convinced his friend Mrs. Sarah P. Duke, the widow of Duke University founder Benjamin N. Duke, to fund the project with $20,000. In 1935 40,000 irises, 25,000 daffodils and other kinds of flowers blossomed here for the first time. Unfortunately, they were washed away by a summer storm, and in 1936 the year when Sarah P. Duke passed away all of the remaining flowers were destroyed. Dr. Hanes then convinced Mrs. Duke's daughter, Mary Duke Biddle to create new gardens which were then created with the help of the pioneer landscape designer Ellen Shipman.
Currently there are three gardens: the Terrace Gardens with their peripheral areas, the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants in which flowers of the Southeastern United States have been gathered, and Culberson Asiatic Arboretum where many East Asian flowers are seen. You can enjoy an abundant variety of flowers here at different seasons throughout the year. You will also see people enjoying walks, sunnin themselves and reading. For further information, please call (919) 684-3698 or visit http://www.hr.duke.edu/dukegardens .

This newsletter is the last one for me to work as the editor. Over the past year that I have been volunteering as editor, I got to know many people, had a lot of support, and got valuable opinions from the readers. I would really appreciate your honest opinions concerning the newsletter one final time. I will read them carefully and pass them on to the next editor-in-chief so that we can continue to change to better serve you. Thank you.

Editors:
Tomohiro Fujiyama Carol Parker
Margie Reinitz Kayo Teramoto
(Eriko Baxter) Editor-in-chief

Translator:
Hisano Bell

nippon_club@geocities.co.jp

June/25/2000 Copyright (C) Nippon club of the Triangle All Right Reserved.