Renee Cabalbag: Earthquakes in East Asia

By MIU KIKUCHI

Diversity comes in different forms. Whether it’s racial, religious, or personality-wise, everyone has experienced it in one way or another. Hawaii is a very racially diverse state. Growing up, and even now, my classmates were of all different races and ethnic backgrounds. For some people living outside of Hawaii, it may come as a shock. However, as someone who’s lived here my whole life, it’s the norm. When I went to Japan, I hardly ever saw anyone who wasn’t from Japanese descent. In comparison to Hawaii, the amount of diversity in Hawaii is outstanding. Diversity is a very important thing in life; it would be very boring if diversity didn’t exist. Many stories set in a dystopian world depict them as lacking diversity, such as in “A Wrinkle in Time.”

The play was when I first met Renee, where she played a mersister in the musical “The Little Mermaid.” Unlike many other seniors, she is best friends with many of the kids. Most times when we go to the ASC, she’s somewhere talking to her friends. Renee has been to Japan countless times since when she was an infant. Her grandma and other family members live there and she visits them often. She is also fluent in Japanese, as am I. In Japan, she’s been to spots all around the country like Akihabara, Tokyo, Harajuku, and more. One day, while visiting her grandma, she experienced a severe earthquake and had to evacuate the area. To her, this was very scary, but her grandma was unfazed.

“I was in fourth grade and I went on a trip to Japan and me and my mom and my grandma were at a department store and somehow while we were walking the ground was shaking. We had to evacuate immediately because my grandma was in a wheelchair. We had to find a hotel to stay at because we couldn’t go back home. So, we were waiting and waiting for like five to ten hours to get a room. Once we got a room we were watching the news. How bad the earthquake was.”