Given the small size of San Francisco’s Japantown, they manage to throw down an annual grandiose cherry blossom festival, celebrating the coming of spring and giving the Chinese New Year festivities a run for their money. Sui and I had wanted to check out this party years prior, but this time we finally went with like-minded individuals; thanks to Jeff for organizing the trip.
(For those unwilling to read through my usual event-oriented rants, you can go straight to the pictures)
For Sakura fest ’08, the normally dead Japantown came alive with tourists, sight-see’ers, and corporate sponsorships. It embodies the good and bad of Americanized Japanese culture; the art and craft exhibits still make a showing, but are pushed off into the less frequented parts of the town while companies holding free raffles take center stage. It’s encouraging to see local community groups fundraise by selling Japanese food to the hungry masses, but most of the food was barely Japanese and the one grill with authentic snacks (grilled octopus balls, or takoyaki) held a line a block long.
I guess cosplay (1) works just as well in Japan as it does here. Although some of the costumes were overly obscure, I suppose geek cred goes to whoever identifies the references.
The picture album is sorted in reverse chronological order, so to walk along our route for the day:
- Began by going through a shameless “souvenir” market of mostly Chinese merchants. Selling, well, junk you’d find in Chinatown.
- Had lunch at On the Bridge, famous for its spicy curry. Went for the “mild” variety as I am weaksauce.
- Made our way to Hotel Kabuki, which held a number of exhibits on arts and crafts including origami, paper dolls, and bonsai trees. Old little Japanese ladies sat behind the tables, but there were also a surprising number of white, middle-aged men and women volunteering and offering their expertise on traditional Japanese arts. I suppose it’s Pokemon for adults.
- Caught most of the parade. Maybe I haven’t been to a parade in a while, but for every authentic chant + drum + performance, there was a pageant float, a corporate/political car with awkwardly waving CEO/politician, and a random group of people just strolling down the street with no purpose whatsoever. The highlight was the two-man thong-and-temple “float” at the end, carried by supposedly 100+ people; they really do look like they’re having a lot of fun.
- Finished the day by visiting the food bazaar (with the aforementioned ridiculous lines) and checking out the results of a cosplay contest and a too-embarrassing-to-watch “Sailormoon special” performance.
We’ve decided to not come back for another 10 years.
- short for “costume play”, which is like a permanent Hallowe’en for some, dressing up as favorite anime/game characters which the vast majority of people will not get and thus earn many curious stares (↩)
unfortunately … japantown’s people work very hard and most of the people are volunteering their time so that all the people visiting have a good time. As for the sailor moon event … it was for children not adults.
Well, I have no problem w/ arts and crafts, and I did appreciate their volunteerism and how they presented Japanese culture; I was less impressed with the various corporations (Sega, Kikomen’s), the obviously NON-Japanese wares, and politicians with no connections to Japantown participating in the parade.