Our ikebana activity this weekend was at the 16th Atlantic Canada Japanese Language Speech Contest held at St. Mary's University last Saturday, March 8th.

Ikebana, of course, was not the main event. It was a speech contest! But we were happy for the opportunity to create ikebana arrangements for the event. The speech contest was co-organized by St. Mary's University and the Consulate General of Japan at Montreal, with support from the Japan Foundation and Mitsui Canada.

Miyako called some of her advanced students to help create a few arrangements. Here they are in action!

And here are their works, displayed in various places around the Scotia Bank Theatre in the Sobey Building.

...and two more.

A collaborative effort by Miyako and Susan Robertson, who could not be there during the actual preparations.

As the contestants battled it out, we hope the flowers made the battleground a bit more welcoming. :-) We salute all the students who joined the contest. Their speeches were high calibre, made even more commendable because we knew they had not been learning Japanese language for a long time...and we could only imagine the efforts of their teachers to help them reach such a high level! Congratulations to the winners!

Speech contest winners with Consul General Tatsuo Arai.

Our special thanks to Dr. Alexandre Avdulov of the Japanese Language and Culture Program, Department of Modern Languages and Classics of St. Mary's University, for giving us this opportunity.

Thank you Val, Patti and Jean for your time and wonderful work! Like all true ikebanistas, we know you enjoy creating arrangements...whenever and wherever!