Tag Archives: oregon

en Taiko: Japanese drumming at its finest

I’ve been exposed to Japanese taiko (太鼓) drumming from a young age, having seen several performances at the Morakami Japanese Museum & Gardens in South Florida. While I do enjoy watching taiko performances, to be honest I started getting a bit bored of them; not only because they seemed to change little from year-to-year, but… Read More »

Oregon Monogatari: One year living in Portland, Oregon (with notes on Japanese culture there)

It’s been a little over a year since I’ve moved with my family to Portland, Oregon. It’s no exaggeration to say that one of the main reasons we chose this area because of the relatively large proportion of Japanese people, at least compared to South Florida where we came from. I’ve already written a few articles… Read More »

Event Review: Mochitsuki 2017: 21st Annual Japanese American New Year Celebration (もちつき)

Around May last year, my family and I moved to Portland, Oregon from South Florida. One of the reasons was it’s active Japanese culture, and I recently attended an event which truly personified this culture:  Mochitsuki 2017, held in Downtown Portland today (Jan 29). Mochitsuki (餅つき or もちつき) is a tradition in Japan which involves pounding glutinous rice to… Read More »

Report: Meetup at Kale for The Portland Japanese Language Exchange (ポートランド日本語交換会)

A few days ago I wrote about an upcoming meetup at the Kale (カレー) restaurant in Portland for the “Portland Japanese Language Exchange” group. It was 6pm-8pm today and I just got back, so I thought I would write a summary of how it was. All in all, I had a really fun time, having… Read More »

Meetup this Saturday at Kale for The Portland Japanese Language Exchange (ポートランド日本語交換会)

When we lived in Florida, I had attended a Meetup for those studying Japanese. While it was fun, I wasn’t motivated enough to go back a second time. However, having recently moved to Meetup now I have the opportunity of attending Portland’s own version of that, which seems somewhat active with over 200 people registered.… Read More »

Are you into Japanese culture? Consider moving to Oregon!

My family and I have decided to move from Florida, where I’ve been my entire life, to Oregon. The response I get from most people who I tell this to is: “You’ve moving to be closer to your extended family, right?” No. (Actually the opposite) “You’ve moving because of your job, right?” No. (Will be… Read More »

Richmond Elementary School: one of the few true Japanese immersion programs in the US

We recently went to Oregon to visit some friends and decided to check out a special school we had recently discovered: Richmond Elementary School (which I’ll abbreviate here as RES). Richmond, for those of you not familiar with the area, is a neighborhood of Portland in the southeast part of the city. Japanese immersion programs… Read More »