Two years after being named Arkansas Cherry Blossom Princess, Hot Springs native Belle Neilson has finally traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in the National Cherry Blossom Festival.
Neilson, the daughter of Hot Springs Sister City Foundation Executive Director Mary Zunick, was named the state's princess in 2020, but COVID-19 delayed her reign.
"I'm very excited that I'll be able to participate and participate fully. The week that it was supposed to happen in 2020 was literally the week that everything shut down. They had planned out the entire event, we had all the outfits I needed, the train tickets, the plane tickets, everything to get there and to put on the festival and then everything shut down," Neilson said in an interview prior to her trip.
On Saturday, Neilson was scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C., where she will be the Arkansas representative this week in the Cherry Blossom Princess Program and the Princess Program. The events offer different cultural, educational and professional development opportunities and were started to celebrate the friendship between the United States and Japan.
While she had the opportunity to participate in 2021, Neilson said she wanted to wait for a return to normalcy.
"They had a festival last year but it was an abbreviated program and I thought just waiting another year, maybe things would be back a little bit more to normal and thankfully they are. It's pretty much going to be a normal program this year and I'm very excited to finally be able to participate," Neilson said.
Neilson will also get to travel around the nation's capital and participate in various workshops and tour various places.
"There are a few workshops that we do as far as women's empowerment and different events like that ... but we're going to the Japanese Cultural Center and the Japanese ambassador's residence and the Japanese Embassy to get to know more about Japanese culture as well as Japanese cultural demonstrations such as ikebana; they'll do an ikebana workshop and we'll also do some volunteer events in the community, as well," she said.
"Each year during the Washington, D.C., Cherry Blossom Festival, the national state societies -- so basically state organizations from all of the states in the U.S. -- each of those state societies nominate a cherry blossom princess, so a person from their state goes to Washington, D.C., and they visit different meetings," Zunick said.
"There's a tea for them, they visit embassies and they'll have a reception at the Japanese ambassador's residence, a legislative reception where (U.S. Rep.) Bruce Westerman will be her escort for the legislative reception that's at the Google headquarters one night, and then kind of the big event is the end of the week, and it's the Cherry Blossom Ball and one of the princesses is selected the National Cherry Blossom Princess, and the way they do that is they spin a wheel with all of the states on it and whatever it lands on, that's the Cherry Blossom National Princess," she said.
"She's been preparing. They take lapel pins from their state that they will share with the other princesses. They select a book about their state that they read on video," Zunick said, with Neilson selecting "Grandma's Garden" by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.
Neilson said she is excited for the ball.
"I'm really looking forward to, there's a ball at the end of it where we kind of recap the week and we wear our big white gowns and they spin the wheel to find out who the Cherry Blossom Princess is to see who will be the queen and travel to Japan as the queen. That event I'm very much looking forward to," she said.
"I'm proud of her that she was selected. She filled out the application and was selected, and I'm a bit biased, but I think she will be a lovely representative of our state," Zunick said. "She's a Junior Health Sciences major at Hendrix College, a graduate of Lakeside. Our family moved to Arkansas when she was 6 months old, so she has grown up in Arkansas and will be, even with my biased opinion, I think will be a lovely representative of our state."
While Neilson flew out Saturday, Zunick, and her husband, Robert, will join her on Monday after the Arkansas Cherry Blossom Festival has ended.
This will be Zunick's first time to attend the National Cherry Blossom Festival, but she noted, "I've been in D.C. at the very end of the blooming season for the cherry blossoms, and it is magnificent, such a wonderful part of our Japanese American connection heritage."
As her mother is deeply involved with Japan, Neilson said Japanese culture has been a part of most of her life, but it was her experiences in high school that deepened her understanding of Japanese culture.
"Japanese culture, it's always been a big part of my life because of my mom's job and being raised around -- hosting kids every year and things like that -- but when I was in high school I ran Lakeside's sister school program for three years, which they send kids from their sister high school Hanamaki Higashi to Lakeside, and that program I think is where I really got the most experience," Neilson said.
"I was able to see my friends that I've grown up with basically, make bridges and friendships across the world that become their siblings basically and just, through the media and everything else you'd think that the people who live so far away are going to be so different than you, but through this program, the sister city program, when you get to spend time and get to know people from these foreign places, you get to know that they are really not that much different than you," she said.
"You're all just kids trying to figure things out and you can relate to a lot of different things, and it really opens your eyes to the world," she said.