On December 21st, I posted a column titled ‘The Dragon Cherry Blossoms (in Japanese) of Dhaka – They Did it Again’, which I wrote on 20th.
The main character of this story, Mr. Saisho, passed the screening of the ‘Dream Award 2010’ (in Japanese) from so many candidates to remain among the 5 finalists, and on 21th, the day after I drafted the above column, the final speech competition took place at Hibiya Public Auditorium. I heard about this from Mr. Saisho himself because I met him the day before, on 20th near Hibiya, where the event took place.
I was told by the organizer that the speech by the wonderful 5 finalists were all very moving, but surprisingly Mr. Saisho won both the ‘Best Watami Dream Award’ and ‘Special Watami Award’ (in Japanese). Mr. Saisho’s presentation can be seen on the web (in Japanese) within the timeframe of 01:57:55-02:12:33 and the announcement of the winners during 02:19:15-02:25:30.
A transcript of the interview of Mr. Saisho (in Japanese) is on the web, too.
The Dragon Cherry Blossoms is an outstanding project in terms of its scope, the big gap between now and the goal, and the strong ability to take actions to carryout the plans.
The impact of this project is huge because they, together with the youths of the poor village in Bangladesh, actually proved in real life that a big dream can become true.
I sent an e-mail to Mr. Saisho right away to say ‘I am proud of you. But let’s be careful not to be too flattered by those series of good things that keep happening recently.’ The next day, he sent me a reply: ‘Yes, I will keep telling myself that praise is the biggest trap!’. Good!
He will leave for Dahka on December 26th.
I wrote an e-mail to him: ‘Have a nice holiday season in Dhaka. Take care’.