Japanese culture

Photo Gallery of 2019 Tucson Japanese Festival

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Our Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition sponsored our 6th annual New Year’s Tucson Japanese Festival on Jan. 20, 2019 at the a new location, the lovely Tucson Chinese Cultural Center, 1288 W. River  Rd. We seemed to have outgrown PCC Downtown where we hosted the 3rd, 4th and 5th festivals.

The highlight again was the mochi pounding (from rice), making and sampling.

This festival was a huge success with about 2000 people attending, and several dance/music performances, martial arts group demos, exhibitors (including Southern Arizona Koi Assn.), tea ceremonies, the art of kimono, children’s games (Go, kendama, fukuwarai), and of course, delicious Japanese food for sale and sample. As publicity chair, I was astounded at the # of attendees, considering that most information went out via FB or online, and not in print.

Photos below taken by M. Fumie Craig, founder of Tucson Origami Club and MC Louis Rivera, except for one by volunteer Teena Werley, which are all captioned.

Mochi display for New Year’s, courtesy M Fumie Craig
Volunteers serving mochi samples with kinako, courtesy M Fumie Craig
SAJCC Director Yuki Ibuki welcoming the audience, courtesy of Louis Rivera
koi on display by Southern Arizona Koi Association, courtesy of M  Fumie Craig
Tucson Japanese Language School display, courtesy M  Fumie Craig

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Tucson Japanese Festival 2019

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If you don’t know what takoyaki balls (made from octopus) are, check out our 6th annual Tucson Japanese Festival, which was previously called the Tucson Mochitsuki for the mochi (rice) pounding event highlight. Our Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition (SAJCC) is still pounding & making mochi, but we feature other Japanese activities and performances as  well.  Here’s the flyer and schedule of events below.

NEW location — Tucson Chinese Cultural Center, 1288 W. River Rd. (between Oracle and La Canada Drive) –no longer at PCC Downtown, where it was for past 3 years).

 

Enjoy the ramen and my favorite, spam musubi (very popular back home in Hawaii, where it is ubiquitous). It is cooked rice, covered by a wrapping of nori (seaweed) with fried spam inside.

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Christmas message 2018

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As we celebrate Christmas 2018, let us reflect upon the wabi-sabi of life. This is a Japanese term about accepting and celebrating the imperfect and temporariness of life.  From Wikipedia:
“In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.[2] The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”.[3] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching…”
The reason I am urging this concept is that as the years go by, we all age (and physically deteriorate as we become elderly). I feel the impermanence due to the recent deaths of Tucson activists whom I knew along the campaign trail, Claudia Ellquist and Dave Ewoldt, Green Party members who ran (respectively) for Pima County Attorney and  State Senate. It’s hard to believe both are gone, as well as strong Democratic educator Georgia Cole Brousseau, formerly on the PCC Governing Board. Their powerful voices for social justice, education, and the environment will be missed.

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Spring Ikebana Festival at Yume Japanese Gardens

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“Once again Yume Japanese Gardens will be throwing open the doors of Yume Japanese Gardens for a week to the talented adepts of five different schools of Ikebana practice. The result: elegant floral displays throughout our grounds, museum, and art gallery that capture the harmony, discipline, and refinement of traditional Japanese flower arranging. Our Spring … Read more

Annual Tucson Japanese Festival on January 20, 2018

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Want to sample & eat Japanese food? Watch taiko & dance performances and kendo demonstrations? Learn to fold origami? Draw calligraphy? Learn about origins of manga and anime in Japan?

All this and much, much more at this 2018 New Year’s celebration, the fifth sponsored by our Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition and Odaiko Sonora.  Name change from Tucson Mochitsuki to Tucson Japanese Festival last year, so hence it is the 2nd Annual.  Performance schedule flyer (updated 1/17/18) below.

Mochi making and pounding from rice will be demonstrated.  Join us to learn about Japanese culture in Japan and in the U.S.

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