The Faces of Pearl Fu's Final Local Colors

The queen herself: Pearl Fu looking lovely.

Love this shot. The kid's from the Phillippines.

These Japanese children love the camera.

North Cross School students represented a bunch of countries.

Puerto Rican and proud of it, by golly.

Can anybody spell Lichtenstein?

These kids are celebrating France.

Here's a Korean peace sign for you.

Lovely young woman holds her flag (don't recall her country).

I think this guy represented Norway.

The feather says "Germany!"

Young woman represents Bangladesh.

Father and son break out the big hats.

Schoolgirls show their colors.

My pals Morgan, Jenny and Rob Clark.

Now THAT is face painting, boys and girls.

The ladies of Burundi.

A pretty smile in any language.

This little guy loved the camera.

You want color? We got color.

Maddie's friend, Jeff Rigdon, Viking.

There's an immeasurable sweetness in this face.

Hey, Mom, look what I can do!

I believe these kids said "Brazil."

More red. More yellow. More color.

Somebody's mama has a great face.

Scandanavia, I think.

A beautiful Russian.

Yolanda Rodriguez Puyana founder of the Latin Festival in Roanoke.

This Russian, to my mind, was the prettiest woman at today's festivities. Just beautiful.

The obligatory redhead. (Love 'em.)

Burundi, as I recall.

Flower child.

Flower adult.

Love the hat, ma'am.

An exotic Syrian.

These are some of the faces from today's Local Colors in downtown Roanoke. Those of you wanting to know why there are more women than men in this collection (and you know who you are) get two responses: 1. there were more women than men in costumes; 2. my camera likes to take photos of women more than it likes to take photos of men. So there.

Virginia has some great festivals, coast to mountains, D.C. to South Boston, but none comes close to this one, because of what it says about us. We love our diversity; we celebrate it; we embrace it. That is a grown-up attitude that plays well for everybody involved (save for a few nutjobbies on the far right who don't seem to like anybody). The countries were all cheered as their delegations were introduced and I'm talking Iraq, Syria, Somolia, Russia, China ... all of them. I love what that says about us.

Regardless of how you feel about the gender breakdown here,though, I don't think you'll argue that it looks like a hell of a lot of fun. It is. Promise.