Portland has important building and monument although it is the largest city between San Francisco and Seattle. Portland has a nickname called a “City of Rose” and this nickname became the city's official nickname in 2003. The slogan of Portland is “keep Portland Weirdo”. It means the people in Portland don’t want to be usual. They want to be unusual with others. I like this slogan very much. I went to Portland from November 15th to 18th and I visited many places for four days. Among them, Columbia Basin College, McLoughlin House and Japanese-American Memorial were standing out in my memory.
First, CBC (Columbia Basin College) has interesting major and plan, and I met the students. This college was located in Pasco and established in 1882. It is a community college and it has 7,000 students so it isn’t large college. It is famous for that there is wine major. I had never heard “wine major”. I really want to know how the students who are taking wine major are learning about wine. Next, CBC is an Equal Opportunity Employer and operates under an Affirmative Action Plan. It means all students can get job equality. That’s sounds good. I agree this plan. When I visited CBC, I talked the one of the men who is studying Japanese. I talked him about my presentation topic ”Miyajima”. He listened my presentation interestingly. He sometimes said to me, “I didn’t get what you said” because of my pronunciation was bad. He taught me exact pronunciation every time I made mistakes. I actually lost confidence but he said to me, “There is no reason that you lost confidence. You are doing wonderful works. You should have confidence in your presentation.”This phrase gave me goose pimple and something in my mind changed. He gave some great advices so I was grateful to him.
Second, Dr. John McLoughlin is called “The Father of Oregon”. I visited to his house and knew why he is called “The Father of Oregon”. He was a trained physician who helped travelers on the Oregon Trail by providing supplies for settles during winter. The McLoughlin home was known as “The House of Many Beds” because he borrowed bedrooms for new pioneers and visitors to sleep. In addition, he donated land for schools and churches. His wife Marguerite was known as “one of the kindest women in the world”. She opened her home to the needy. As you can see, they were really great people and everyone loved them. I respect them and I want to be great person like them. I was happy to visited their house and could know about them.
Finally, the Japanese-American Memorial tells an important story of the Nikkei in Oregon. During World War Ⅱ, Japanese-American were detained in camps. I learned about it through the book “Weedflower” in a class before I visited to Memorial. The stones of this Memorial engraved with short poems of internment camps emphasize the story of Japanese-Americans. I read these poems, and I could know so well how Nikkei felt fear and sadness. I impressed by one of the short poems. The poem is “With new hope, We build new lives. Why complain when it rains? This is what it means to be free.” When I read it, I thought that they really wanted to be free and had human right but they couldn’t them because they had some Japanese blood. I couldn’t imagine how Japanese-American had a bitter experience during the war. I learned about World War Ⅱ when I was elementary school student. However, I didn’t learn about Japanese-American, so it was a good opportunity to know about them. I thought I have to never forget about World War Ⅱ.
In conclusion, I could learn about interesting college, important building and need-to-know history through this trip. This trip had meaningful for me. I enjoyed to do shopping, of course, but I was more enjoyed to learn about Portland.
Second, Dr. John McLoughlin is called “The Father of Oregon”. I visited to his house and knew why he is called “The Father of Oregon”. He was a trained physician who helped travelers on the Oregon Trail by providing supplies for settles during winter. The McLoughlin home was known as “The House of Many Beds” because he borrowed bedrooms for new pioneers and visitors to sleep. In addition, he donated land for schools and churches. His wife Marguerite was known as “one of the kindest women in the world”. She opened her home to the needy. As you can see, they were really great people and everyone loved them. I respect them and I want to be great person like them. I was happy to visited their house and could know about them.Finally, the Japanese-American Memorial tells an important story of the Nikkei in Oregon. During World War Ⅱ, Japanese-American were detained in camps. I learned about it through the book “Weedflower” in a class before I visited to Memorial. The stones of this Memorial engraved with short poems of internment camps emphasize the story of Japanese-Americans. I read these poems, and I could know so well how Nikkei felt fear and sadness. I impressed by one of the short poems. The poem is “With new hope, We build new lives. Why complain when it rains? This is what it means to be free.” When I read it, I thought that they really wanted to be free and had human right but they couldn’t them because they had some Japanese blood. I couldn’t imagine how Japanese-American had a bitter experience during the war. I learned about World War Ⅱ when I was elementary school student. However, I didn’t learn about Japanese-American, so it was a good opportunity to know about them. I thought I have to never forget about World War Ⅱ.
In conclusion, I could learn about interesting college, important building and need-to-know history through this trip. This trip had meaningful for me. I enjoyed to do shopping, of course, but I was more enjoyed to learn about Portland.