Virtual Hanami Celebration

In celebration of Asian Heritage Month, the VNCS will be holding a virtual event over Zoom:

Sunday, May 30, 2021

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM PDT

Recording of the Virtual Hanami Celebration
 

Questions?

If you have anything you’d like to ask our presenters, send your questions to info@vncs.ca prior to or during the presentations. We will do our best to have them answered during the event.

 

Ikebana Lesson

Michiko Seguev– originally from Tokyo, she started to have a strong interest in Ikebana in her early childhood as she accompanied her mother to her (Mother’s) Ikebana lessons at Ohara School. Later on at her work in an advertising agency, her passion for Ikebana was rekindled when she had a chance to arrange flowers for work.  She resumed studying Ikebana under Sōraku at Sōgetsu School and obtained a teaching certificate. She has been teaching Ikebana since her arrival in Victoria and providing VNCS Ikebana classes for more than 15 years.

 

Sake Tasting

Shino Yamashiro – Shino is a sake specialist, certified as an International kikisake-shi by SSI (Sake Service Institute in Japan) and a menu developer at “E:ne raw food + sake bar”, where more than 50 selections of sake are served and is the very first “sake bar“ in Victoria. Shino was very much inspired and fell in love with the unique world of sake 4 years ago. Shino found that many local guests love wine and also have a great curiosity towards sake when she introduced them to all the breadth and complexity that sake has to offer. Introducing sake and making it more approachable to people became her passion. She wants to encourage people to enjoy sake “as is” or by pairing with varieties of food, not just Japanese food. Shino hopes that a sake menu becomes more and more popular at restaurants.

 

Shino will be sampling two types of sake during her presentation:

Nigori – Hakutsuru Sayuri (300ml, $9.49)

Sparkling – Yoshi No Gawa Awayuki (300ml, 13.99)

Pick up one or both bottles ahead of time and taste along with her from the comfort of your home! Check for local availability using the “Where to buy” button in the BC Liquor Store links provided.

 

Support the Community

We encourage you to help support our community however you are able, perhaps by ordering take-out from your favourite local restaurants, making a donation to the VNCS, or simply attending as we celebrate Asian heritage and culture this May.

It’s time to stand against racism

It’s time to stand against racism

We at the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society are deeply troubled by recent reports across the country and from our neighbours to the south about the rise in anti-Asian racism.

As a society, we must stand against racism of any type. As we have seen again and again, unchecked racism is a blight on society. It harms individuals. It harms communities. It harms the very fabric of our nation.

Here in Canada, we have seen the consequences of anti-Asian racism in our history. In the Second World War, Canadians of Japanese heritage living on the West Coast were sent to internment camps and stripped of their property – homes, fishing boats, businesses. Members of Victoria’s Japanese community lived through these times, and many more had parents who were impacted.

Sharing our culture is woven into the very fabric of the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society, and we hope that one day we can see an end to anti-Asian and all forms of racism. We encourage everyone – Asian and non-Asian – to take part in rallies taking place to voice concerns about racism.

There are useful online resources with tools to confront racism below. They also provide tools to help report hate crimes, something that is critical if authorities and the community are to get a true understanding of the extent of these incidents.

National Association of Japanese Canadians Confronting and Reporting Racism (http://najc.ca/confronting-and-reporting-racism-the-najc/)

Elimin8hate (https://www.elimin8hate.org/)

B.C. Government anti-racism resources (https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/anti-racism)

President’s Message – Season’s Greeting


To say that 2020 has been a difficult year is an obvious understatement. Even if the Coronavirus did not infect you or someone close to you, the impact of the pandemic has played havoc with all aspects of our lives. So for most of us the end of 2020 could not come soon enough. It is heartening that we now have a COVID-19 vaccine. Hopefully by the summer of 2021 we will be able to get back to a more normal life.

In the meantime, I wish everyone a joyous Holiday Season. May your Holiday be blessed with the love and warmth of family and friends even if its only via Zoom. Please continue to keep safe and healthy and hopefully we will see you at some VNCS event in the not to distant future.

Tsugio Kurushima
President

2020 Obon Grave Washing – THANK YOU!

Volunteers at the 2020 Grave Washing.

Thank you so much to all of the wonderful volunteers who were able to come and make this year’s grave washing an amazing success. We had a great group of around 20 volunteers clean all of the graves of early the Japanese pioneers and Japanese-Canadians buried there. In addition so many flowers were donated that we even had some left over. Arigatou gozaimashita!