\n\t\t\t\t2015 Miss Marianas Jian Joyner joins her mother, Yasuko, for a photo yesterday. Jian will be celebrating her birthday this Sunday and her mother will be celebrating her birthday next Thursday. (STELLAR MARIANAS)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nTwo atomic bombs were flown by the U.S. military from Tinian and dropped on the two cities on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, and brought the end of World War II.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wondered what flashed before my grandmother\u2019s innocent, little girl\u2019s eyes in Japan on those fateful days when she was told that it was the bombs falling, and about the rising, spectacular mushrooms, and the violent shaking of her island. I wondered what she was told about the then-relationship between Japan and the Marianas,\u201d said Jian.<\/p>\n
This revelation struck a cord in Joyner\u2019s mother, Yasuko, as she was born on Aug. 6 and as a child, she learned to associate the celebration of her birthday with the national ringing of bells in Japan to recognize each anniversary of the Hiroshima devastation.<\/p>\n
The connection was too overwhelming. This Sunday, Jian is celebrating her birthday, while Yasuko follows on the 6th and on Aug. 10 is the 17th death anniversary of her grandfather, Masakazu Harada. Her grandmother, Toyoko Harada, still lives in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow she thought of her grandparents at this time and made this connection was important to me. I really thought what a great opportunity to share this and help further develop our relationship between our islands and Japan,\u201d said Yasuko.<\/p>\n
Born in the small prefecture of Aomori, Masakazu moved to Tokyo to study at the university and met Toyoko, who was also born in a small town of Gunma. Together, they built a family packaging company.<\/p>\n
When Yasuko decided to move to Saipan to work at Kaizue\u2019s Boutique in the 1990s, she did not imagine her one-year stay would turn into over 20 years of marriage to an American, Dr. John Joyner, with whom she has two children, Jian and Jehn.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs second-generation Japanese, I did not make the immediate historic connection of the islands to Japan\u2014to me, it was a nice place to work,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n
Every summer, Yasuko would take the children to visit their grandparents and the closeness of the family grew despite being an ocean apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cI recall how earnestly my grandfather prayed to delay his cancer and let him live a few more years. He wanted to teach his two Japanese-American grandchildren, me and my brother Jehn, about peace in the world,\u201d said Jian.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that I know what skydiving is all about, I would like to have taken my ojiichan skydiving. He would have found peace in that great view\u2014and the being above it all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As a third-generation Japanese-American and as 2015 Miss Marianas, Jian has decided to make this connection and revelation her platform as the islands\u2019 ambassador for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n
As she celebrates her birthday, her gift to the islands, to Japan, and to the rest of the world is to share the gratefulness and importance of peace.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter seeing and hearing stories of what our grandparents and their parents went through, we are so fortunate to live in a time of peace and we have to work constantly to ensure that we never forget the horrors of war,\u201d said the young queen.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy skydive flash-before-my-eyes experience helped me to see that, perhaps, I am destined, along with international supporters of peace in the world, not only to strengthen the relationship between the Marianas and Japan, but also reach out to all in helping to promote peace and goodwill locally and globally,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This November, Jian will be competing in the 2015 Miss International Pageant in Tokyo, Japan. (Stellar Marianas)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plummeting to earth while skydiving with Skydive Saipan recently, 2015 Miss Marianas Jian Joyner was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":206851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[170,6302,6303,545],"class_list":["post-206820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-and-style","tag-japan","tag-jon-crammer","tag-skydive-saipan","tag-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}