{"id":30017,"date":"2013-05-05T10:32:01","date_gmt":"2013-05-05T14:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=30017"},"modified":"2013-05-05T10:37:54","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T14:37:54","slug":"jq-magazine-cultural-heritage-soars-in-san-franciscos-japantown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2013\/05\/05\/jq-magazine-cultural-heritage-soars-in-san-franciscos-japantown\/","title":{"rendered":"JQ Magazine: Cultural Heritage Soars in San Francisco\u2019s Japantown"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Under the Peace Pagoda at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, San Francisco, April 2013. (Preston Hatfield)<\/p><\/div>\n

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By Preston Hatfield<\/a> (Yamanashi-ken<\/a>, 2009-10) for <\/i><\/b>JQ magazine<\/a>. Preston received a B.A. in English literature with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in Japanese at the University of California, Davis. After spending an amazing year on JET in Yamanashi, he spent a year writing and interning with book publishing companies in New York. He currently lives in Marin County, where he continues to cover local Japan-related stories for <\/i>JQ, and teaches English as a second language at an international school in San Francisco. <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

This April marks the forty-sixth time that San Francisco has hosted the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival<\/a>. As one of the world\u2019s top annual festivals of its kind and one of the largest Japanese American events in the country, the festival has made quite a reputation for itself, and each year it\u2019s bigger and better. Whether you\u2019ve been to Japan before and need a fix of your favorite street food, or you\u2019re a newbie interested in exploring the culture, the NCCBF offers a comprehensive and top-notch Japan experience that includes traditional and modern elements.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been to other festivals, you already know to expect tea ceremony demonstrations, doll exhibits, taiko performances, and cosplay competitions, but pay attention and you\u2019ll also notice a powerful sense of community in every act and exhibit. Excepting a handful of wonderful guests from Japan (including this year\u2019s Grand Marshal, renowned singer and actor Teruhiko Saigo<\/a>), the NCCBF is put on wholly by the Bay Area\u2019s Japanese American community, including some 300 volunteers, 50 organizations, schools, and groups, and is sponsored by a number of local businesses. In some respects, it\u2019s their way of making a statement, as Allen Okamoto, co-chairman of the NCCBF, explains:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons I continue to volunteer with the festival is that Japantown is rapidly changing. The demographics of the community are changing with the intermarriage and lack of migration from Japan. I consider the festival as an institution the same as the Japanese language schools, the churches and other community organizations like the Japanese Community Youth Council<\/a>, Kimochi, Inc.<\/a> and the Japanese Cultural & Community Center<\/a>. We are all continuing the culture and heritage of things Japanese.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The festival has become something of a culture treasure here, and it\u2019s no wonder. San Francisco, with a formidable but recently declining Japanese American population, is home to one of the last \u201ctrue\u201d Japantowns in the U.S., but some locals think that\u2019s debatable. \u201cI saw [at the festival] a hardworking community [bringing] culture and fun to Japantown, which for the rest of the year is slowly being eaten by non-Japanese businesses. Koreatown sometimes feels more appropriate,\u201d said Bay Area resident and JET alum Mikeal Gibson.<\/p>\n

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Ironically, the festival\u2019s success and massive crowds (around 200,000 annually) belies Japantown\u2019s need for preservation. To the once a year visitor, the hordes that gather would appear evidence that the community is booming. What they don\u2019t see is longtime neighborhood installments closing their doors (most notably in 2011 when the Uoki Sakai Market<\/a> closed after serving the community for 105 years).<\/p>\n

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San Francisco Taiko Dojo draws a crowd in Japantown. (Preston Hatfield)<\/p><\/div>\n

As the festival continues to diversify and expand, its influence and prominence in the city is further solidified\u2014Okamoto reflected that one of the positive changes taking place in the festival in recent years has been the increase of gay Asian groups and anime groups. This year, the neighborhood appears somewhat rejuvenated thanks in part to new cherry trees, which were planted by volunteers from the Japantown Youth Leaders<\/a> organization along Laguna and Sutter Streets.<\/p>\n

With only a scant few blocks around Peace Plaza, the neighborhood is drafting a document called the Japantown Cultural Heritage and Economic Sustainability Strategy<\/a>, which is designed to help maintain Japantown\u2019s cultural integrity and boost its tenuous economic stability. Participants from the Rosa Parks Elementary School\u2019s Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program<\/a> have also been working to have Japantown included in District 5 for city redistricting in order to keep the community united.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve helped the community \u2018rediscover\u2019 its link to Rosa Parks and are building new connections through our JBBP program and activities,\u201d said program co-chair Deborah Hamilton. \u201cWe feel that it is important for us to actively [help] sustain the authentic cultural character of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The JBBP, whose founding principles according to Hamilton were to \u201chelp the Japanese American community retain the Japanese language and cultural heritage that was in danger of being lost after the internment and the dispersal of the community by redevelopment,\u201d has been involved in the festival for the last 30 years, participating in the parade and selling Sakura Popcorn.<\/p>\n

While numerous groups like the JBBP are staples of the scene, there are always a host of new artists and performers representing different facets of Japan\u2019s identity. Enter American J-rock band and first-time festival participant, akai SKY<\/a>. This edgy foursome treated a Saturday afternoon crowd to a unique sound born out of the American and Japanese rock traditions and proved unequivocally that J-rock isn\u2019t a plant for just one kind of garden.<\/p>\n

Asked about the band\u2019s direction and approach, Hayashi, the band\u2019s guitarist, explained, \u201cWe don’t write [our] music because want to reach a specific type of person. I think we write the music because that’s who we are.\u201d Who they are are Americans from multicultural backgrounds who play songs with Japanese lyrics and leverage music\u2019s power to overcome cultural barriers. They are, in many ways, indicative of what cherry blossom festivals are all about\u2014celebrating identity and uniting cultures. Indeed, even as the local Japanese American population ebbs, the number of Americans taking part in Japanese culture has been steadily rising. And as Umi, the band\u2019s bassist points out, you don\u2019t have to be Japanese to celebrate the culture:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re not a Japanese band\u2026but I think our fusion of American and Japanese rock and the fact that we’re San Francisco-based made perfect sense for the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival. We’re a band that could have only been born here.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s certainly something to be said for local color. San Francisco has its own immutable identity and progressive values that have, for better or worse, shaped us as individuals into a greater community that is every bit as iconic as any of the city\u2019s landmarks or fashion trends. In another city, maybe akai SKY never exists, the JBBP is decommissioned, and Japantown doesn\u2019t endure the test of time. As San Francisco goes, so too does the festival.<\/p>\n

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akai SKY performing at the festival. (Preston Hatfield)<\/p><\/div>\n

Although Japantown\u2019s fate remains to be seen, the 46th<\/sup> annual Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival was a smashing success, a celebratory extravaganza fit for a shogun\u2019s court. Bay Area residents can rest assured that they can look forward to another festival next spring. Until then, they can sustain themselves on the wonderful afterglow of this fantastic event\u2014the amazing food, the party atmosphere, and of course, the community that shared their culture with them; or better yet, they can hop on down to that lively little nook next to the Western Addition (look for the pagoda on the skyline) and treat yourself to whatever Japanese indulgence you desire.<\/p>\n

Special thanks Allen Okamoto, Jeffery Kimoto, Steven Hirabayashi, Deborah Hamilton and the JBBP, and the members of akai SKY for helping with this piece. Click here<\/a> for a list of akai SKY\u2019s upcoming shows, and for anyone interested in participating in next year\u2019s festival, here is akai SKY\u2019s vocalist, Ryuusei, sharing his impressions as a performer: \u201cThe crowd was enthusiastic and I particularly appreciated the audience members who started dancing during our set.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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  By Preston Hatfield (Yamanashi-ken, 2009-10) for JQ magazine. Preston received a B.A. in English literature with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in Japanese at the University of California, Davis. After spending an amazing year on JET in Yamanashi, he spent a year writing and interning with book publishing companies in New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,53,369,291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-events","category-japan-local","category-jq-magazine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-7O9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30017"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30024,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30017\/revisions\/30024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}