The Hyogo Business and Cultural Center cordially invite you to an evening lecture and discussion on Japanese culture. Wine and light refreshments will be served as we spend time looking at a facet of sumo and Japanese culture seldom presented in our area.
Location: The Hyogo Gallery (1st floor of Building 2 of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington)
Event Schedule:
6:30-6:40: Welcome and Refreshements
6:40-7:30: Presentation: The Art of the Belly
7:30-7:45: Break
7:45-8:30: Discussion
About the Event: Inherent in travel is the need to trust intuition and gut instincts. No matter how many guide books you read, classes you attend, or experts you hear, you ultimately still encounter situations for which you have no intellectual clues to follow. The Art of the Belly uses the ancient sport of sumo to navigate Japanese culture at this gut level. It is a journey of insight and misstep, of cultural awareness through immersion in a very foreign sport, and ultimately of metaphor as we focus on Japan through the lens of sumo.
When Steven first lived in this oft-baffling culture, he learned to follow my instincts and, in these moments of ambiguity, discovered something new about himself and his adopted home. This process of discovering Japan, of practicing “the art of the belly,” coincided for him with discovering sumo, Buddhism, and Shintoism. The more he learned about Japan, the more he learned about sumo; the more he understood sumo, the better he understood Japan.
This was my first SakuraCon, and I was a little overwhelmed with all the amazing people and activities. There were booths full of cool figurines, manga, and other goods as well as panels with voice actors, concerts, and video-game tournaments. There was really too much to do all at once.
Ooh! Suzumiya Haruhi, the manga set in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo!!
Booth full of cute items.
I made some new like-bodied friends at this party.
Even our booth was full of action! We rotated between an informational video about the Osamu Tezuka Museum in Takarazuka City, Hyogo and a video of my dance! (Check it out here). A lot of people really wanted to know what the dance was (the Haba-tan Dance of course!) and some even danced with us.
The Haba-tan Dance
It's quite a workout, I hear.
More than a couple visitors also were interested in buying some of Hyogo Prefecture’s yuru kyara that we had displayed. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough to sell, but we are working on it. We also gave a pretty tough Anime & Manga Timeline Challenge, but nobody got 100%. Next year we’ll make it easier, sorry!!
Some of our visitors who had never been to Japan but really want to visit were interested in traveling around Hyogo and Kansai. Not only is there the Osamu Tezuka Museum, but the Hanshin area has awesome desserts, baseball, views and hot springs! I really hope they choose Hyogo as their first stop in Japan.
I’m so grateful to all the people who showed interest in our booth and learned even a little bit about Hyogo!
Of course I didn’t stay at the booth the entire time. Walking around the Convention Center I got the chance to meet a lot of cool characters. I took pictures with some of my favorite ones, but some of them turned out a little dangerous!
The attendees spilled out into downtown as well, giving the metropolitan streets a dash of fantasy. It would be so cool to walk the streets with these guys everyday! Well, I guess I’ll just have to wait until next year.
Memorial services were held for the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake at the Seattle Center’s “Kobe Bell” on January 16th, 2011. The Seattle-Kobe Sister City Association began the ceremony at the same time and date the earthquake broke out in Japan, January 17th 5:46am Japanese Standard Time (January 16th 12:46pm local time), by lighting candles and holding silent prayer. After a Buddhist ceremony conducted by the Seattle Koyasan Buddhist Temple, attendees rung the Kobe Bell one by one.
It is already 16 years since the earthquake. Starting three years ago, the Hyogo Prefectural Police have been working to pass on memories and lessons from the earthquake to the next generation.
The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake was one of the various topics discussed at last September’s disaster-prevention summit held by Peace Winds America and attended by disaster-prevention specialists from the sister cities of Seattle, Kobe, San Francisco, Osaka, Honolulu, and Hiroshima.
Though 16 years have passed since the earthquake, even this place so far from Japan, people are still remembering the earthquake and passing on its lessons in various ways.
President of the Seattle-Kobe Sister City Association, Karin Zaugg Black
From left to right: Japanese Consul General Kiyokazu Ota and his wife, a representative from the Seattle Koyasan Buddhist Temple, and Toshihiko Nakamura, Director of the Kobe Trade Information Office
We had the pleasure of running another successful kimono dress-up booth at this year’s Culture Day (or “bunka no hi” in Japanese). From kids to grown ups, all ages and sizes of festival guests picked out a kimono they liked and got dressed by our kimono experts. We hope that everyone enjoyed wearing a kimono and will consider trying it for upcoming festivals, like Sakura Matsuri and Obon!
There were other interesting events at Culture Day as well, including a tea ceremony demonstration by the Urasenke Foundation, a preview of this year’s new Obon dance, and a speech by famous newscaster and local activist Lori Matsukawa.
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