Do you know a great role model for women and girls?

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Yukari

This post is part of YummyMummyClub.ca‘s support of the Dove® Celebrate Mom Contest. I received compensation as a thank you for my participation. This post reflects my personal opinion about the information provided by the sponsors. You can nominate inspiring moms here: www.CelebrateMom.ca.

Here’s a very interesting stat: Only 9% of Canadian girls—ages ranging from 10 to 17— are the most comfortable using the term “beautiful” to describe their own looks.

However, a positive role model can make a world of difference by helping a girl develop a positive relationship with beauty and encourage her to achieve her full potential. When girls feel they have a role model, they are less likely to let anxiety about their looks hold them back.

I’m thrilled to be working with YummyMummyClub.ca again to spread the word about the Celebrate Mom contest with Dove! The contest: Nominate a mom who is a great role model for women or girls. Four inspiring women will win $2,500 for themselves AND an additional $2,500 to be donated to the charity of their choice!

So here goes. I am nominating my really good friend Véronique for this contest.

I met Véronique probably about three years ago. She is the founder of Girls Night Mixer, an event to provide an opportunity for women to connect and fundraise for worthy causes. She is well respected in our community as a businessperson, community leader and philanthropist. Girls Night Mixer has been supporting Bridges for Women, a nonprofit to help women who have gone through abuse or trauma, and also been a big supporter for Dirty Wall Project, another charity to help “See A Need and Fill It”—mostly children in slums and orphanages in Saki Naka, India.

I know Véronique feels passionate about helping other people. When Haiti was hit by earthquake in 2010 she organized “To Haiti With Love” fundraiser, and also when Japan was hit by the earthquake and then Tsunami, she was one of the first to offer help to organize a fundraiser “Hope Love Japan.” She has contributed to countless fundraisers like these. She is an extremely giving person.

Véronique is also an amazing mother. She is a mom to her beautiful daughter Sofia. She and I had gone through a legal separation at around the same time and she has been lending her ear and been very supportive of me. So I feel a special connection to her.

Originally from Montreal, she was a model from the age of 13 to 18. She knows the harsh realty of “beauty” that the media imposes. She was recently in the “Owning Your Beauty” panel at Breathe Now conference. I loved her story about how she makes a point of not hiding her naked body around the house after a shower to demonstrate to her daughter that we shouldn’t be ashamed of our own body.

She is beautiful inside and out. And I am truly honoured to call her my friend.

I have nominated Véronique as an amazing role model. If you know of any other remarkable mom, here is how you can nominate her:

Visit www.CelebrateMom.ca by September 4th to nominate a mom who’s an inspiring role model to women and girls in the Dove® Celebrate Mom Contest. Four inspiring women will win $2,500 for herself and $2,500 to be donated to the charity of her choice.

And check out more stories on YummyMummyClub.ca about amazing role model moms: www.yummymummyclub.ca/family/mummy/celebrate-a-mom-in-your-life

The man who biked across Canada

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Yukari

Last week, I had a privilage of meeting Ryo Ambe, Japanese man who cycled across Canada.

I didn’t know anything about his trip until I got an email from Mike Abe, president of Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society, and well respected leader in Japanese-Canadian community in Victoria. Soon after that, I found Ryo on Twitter and made contact with him. And I attended the press conference at the city hall the next day.

There were about 20 people gathered, most of them wearing Support Japan T-shirts. Ryo talked about his trip and showed us some slides from his massive photo collection.

Unfortunately, I was unable to accompany the group of cyclists to Mile Zero, Ryo’s official goal of this trip, but you can see the clip from CTV here.

The next day I took Ryo out to lunch at Daidoco (Best Japanse lunch spot in Victoria in my opinion) and got to chat about his experience.

Ryo used to work at the department store Isetan. But after losing his friend to cancer,who told him to follow his dreams, and after the 311 earthquake and Tsunami, he decided to come to Canada, his favourite country, and bike across it from Halifax to Victoria to thank the people in Canada for their support. He started in May, and arrived in Victoria in late September. That’s 7900Km!

We talked about a lot of different things, my living in Canada, his experience in Canada….we both agreed that this is a very fine country.

He is going back to Japan in October, and hopes to do another quick bike trip in Taiwan, which also helped Japan so much after the disaster, to thank the people there.

He also said he wants to write a book about his ride in Canada. Good luck Ryo!

You can read his blog (mostly in Japanese) here. http://transcontinentaldiary.blogspot.com/

Some days..

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Yukari

Have you ever done Myers-Briggs Personality Test?
According to the test, I am a type ENFJ, meaning I tend to have following qualities – (E)Extrovert, (N)Intuition (F)Feeling (J) Judging.

But as my friend Jamie once told me, I’m an Introverted Extrovert. I like to go out and meet people and be social, but at the same time, some days I hate people.

Past few weeks I have been feeling introverted. I was frustrated and disappointed with few of my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues.
I was watching the film Norwegian Wood, (Hoping to do a blog post on this book as it’s one of the most important books in my life), and there is a scene where Midori asks Toru, the protagonist;

Midori: You enjoy solitude? Travelling alone, eating alone, sitting by yourself in lecture halls…
Toru: Nobody likes being alone that much. I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.

.. I couldn’t agree more.

Some days, I get tired of meeting other people’s needs (great post by Chris Brogan on this topic here).
Some days, I feel like nobody cares about my needs.
Nobody cares about your success and happiness. All they care about is their own.
That’s why, you need to be strong, you need to believe in yourself and work hard to make yourself happy.

But then again, some days I feel so fortunate to have many great friends and opportunities.
Last night and this morning were couple of those days.
I’m grateful for these days. They are like a little treasure, like a beautiful sea glass in sand.

What I Wish More People Knew About Me

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Yukari

I just read Amber‘s latest blog post and had to write it myself. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend you go read it here first.

I met Amber last month at Social Media Camp. I’ve written about my experience at SMCV11 here, but there was definitely something about her that I really liked. When I read her post today I got kind of teary. Something about the post struck a chord with me. Maybe that is why I really like her.I can honestly say I had a really great time with her at SMCV11. I do hope to see her again soon.

So here is my “What I Wish More People Knew About Me” list.

Like Amber, I fear that people might think I’m just so self absorbed to write a post like this. But as I was trying to create the list, I realized, for me, this is more like a confession than just a list of things I wish people knew about me.

You see, I have written many times here about my journey to live wholehearted life and to embrace vulnerability. I am completely “nobody” -I am not a social media rock star or published author or anything. (With due respect to all those people). I am just this Japanese girl who spend way too much time on social media. So why do I have to have a list like this? Because I want to be honest about who I am.

Some are totally random, and some you might already know. But here goes;

-Friendships are one of the most important things in my life.

This is probably not a surprise to many of you, but I am a very emotional person. I make decisions based on my gut feeling. When I make friends, I don’t do that just because the person is nice, but rather because I’m attracted to the person. I do have great friends and every day I am grateful for them, and quite often I cry, thinking about them. No joke.

-I feel that I am never smart enough.

There are so many things I do not understand in this world and I do feel insecure that I’m not smart enough. Not smart enough to be a business owner. Luckily, I am a very optimistic(you might call it something else) person, so usually this does not limit me. But yes, I feel this way all the time.

-Ethics and fairness are important to me.

I cannot stand unfairness. I hate cheating. I’m only human, and sometimes I hate something/somebody so much. But when I attack, I always attack fairly. If you have something to say, say it to my face. I don’t like confrontations, but I loathe backstabbing even more.

I believe in good in people and I am attracted to good people, rather than cool or smart people.

-I love miniature houses and such.

When I grow old, I am SO collecting those miniature Christmas village. When I turn 65, I’ll start accepting them as birthday gifts.

-I am a big fan of Haruki Murakami.

I read all of his books. I read Norwegian Wood when I was 13 and I still re-read them. Such beautiful, and sad story. I am very very excited to see the movie. My first born son’s Japanese name is Haruki. This was back in 1997 and Internet wasn’t that crazy yet, so I got to email him directly and told him that I named my son after him. I did receive a reply, and he said “Congratulations, your son will be a very healthy, and forgetful boy”.

-I’m kind of a loner.

I don’t mind being alone. Recently I took the Myers-Briggs test and I am ENFJ- meaning I am an extrovert. But my friend Jamie called me “Introverted Extrovert”, which is so true! I love going out on the town and have fabulous time, but at the same time I’m happy sitting at home alone in front of the computer, or read.

-I love Sex and the City.

Duh. My TV taste is very boring….no Glee or True Blood or Game of Thrones…I’m perfectly happy watching SATC reruns. I know it’s a chick show, but their writing is SO good, and so much truths in the show….on life, relationships, friendship and more.

-I can be kind of a snob.

I just talked about this on the latest Getting Engaged episode, but I hate making small talks with people. When I’m out and about, I have to admit, I am a bit of a snob. I don’t talk to cab drivers, cashiers and servers. It’s not that I look down on them. Far from it. I am always polite, but I just rather be left alone sometimes. I find, maybe because I’m a bit different (meaning Japanese living in Canada? I really don’t know) people seem to ask me a lot of questions and sometimes I get tired of it.

This sort of leads into the next one…

-I LOVE words.

I love reading, and although I don’t think I’m particularly good at it, I enjoy writing. I love getting any form of messages in writing- letters, emails, text messages. I love good quotes(I’m guilty of those quote tweets) and write many down to memorize. Words are so important to me, and I love words of affirmation. (That is my love language if you know the book)

This is all I could think of for now. I’d love to see your list too. Please comment or email me.