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Event Description
Kingston Multicultural Festival
6/5/16 Kingston Multicultural Festival at Andy Murphy Midtown Neighborhood Center
As long as we remember, the last 3 festivals at T.R. Gallo Park we had attended in the past in Kingston were so hot that we literally had to move our chairs along with shades. But it rained this year so the Festival was held indoors instead at Andy Murphy Midtown Neighborhood Center. The hall was large enough to accommodate a big festival-sized crowd and was certainly different atmosphere than in the Park. First of all, it was very noisy as all sound were echoed around while people started coming in, and the smell of different ethnic food started floating around as well. We had less items to sell this year so we focused on the Origami table since it was very popular last year. While teaching we get to know the kids; some talked to us in freshly learned Japanese. Many times we noticed some kids had natural talent in hands and learned very quickly. We secretly believed these kids could become quite successful for whatever they chose to be. One of the speakers from the organizer told the audience in his speech that the Origami technique was used in a part of space shuttle. It’s amazing to think some people could adopt the simple idea in such a complicated mechanism. Although we were doing only basic forms, I couldn’t help but felt somewhat very proud in presenting Origami as Japanese culture.
We’d like to give special thanks to Geoff-san and the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture & History for inviting us to participate again at this wonderful event, and for a honorarium they provided to the exhibitors like us for providing entertainment for kids. Actually, many adults seemed interested and were as much enthusiastic to learn Origami. I’m sure many of them also enjoyed being like kids. Many thanks to our precious volunteers for their dedicated work as always. I guess we should keep our program as long as we could hope one of the kids we taught may be influenced by Origami and become a rocket scientist one day.
Midori Shinye
Project Leader
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