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Festivals & Celebrations

Shingon Buddhist International Institute recounts the original Buddhist mythology behind Obon traditions.

Australia

  • Broome, Western Australia: Shinju Matsuri (Festival of the Pearl) began in 1969 when Japanese, Chinese and Malaysian pearl fishing communities who held celebrations to honour pearl divers' lost lives, united their cultural festivals. In 1970, the Broome community decided to turn the Shinju Matsuri into a festival to not only acknowledge the pearling industry, but also to showcase Broome's beauty, history and cultural diversity to the outside world.

Brazil

Tanabata

Pequenos fragmentos do Tanabata Matsuri 2007. A tradicional festa realizada no Bairro da Liberdade em São Paulo está em sua 41ª edição e reuniu uma multidão de pessoas. Esta coleção apresenta pequenos momentos da celebração.

Others

Esta coleção de fotos busca retratar brevemente o Dia das meninas de 2007, realizado no Pavilhão Japonês do Parque do Ibirapuera em São Paulo. O Museu Histórico da Imigração Japonesa visa possibilitar aos usuários do Descubra Nikkei uma pequena visita pelo evento e suas diversas atividades.
  • カルナヴァルと日系人 (ニッケイ新聞)
A series of articles about Nikkei and Carnival in Brazil.


United States

Bon odori. (2007)
Bon odori. (2007)
Obon Festival. (1948)
Obon Festival. (1948)

Obon

"The first American Bon Odori was held in Hawaii in 1910. It took another two decades for the ritual to reach temples on the West Coast. The very first Bon Odori in the continental United States was at the Buddhist Church of San Francisco in 1931."
Describes obon festival activities in the San Francisco Bay area and northern California.
Includes a detailed chronology, 1932-2002, of "Historical Highlights of the Seattle Buddhist Temple Bon Odori".

Oshogatsu (New Year's day)

Hina Matsuri

Every year for as long as I can remember, my mother brings out our family's hina-ningyo to celebrate hinamatsuri. These colorful dolls were special because they were only brought out for a few days each year. This year, I photographed the famililar figures to share a little of my family's and my own traditions. I hope you enjoy them!

Cherry Blossom Festival

Others: Local Japan Festival

Excerpt: "This essay examines the origins, goals, and practice of the Nisei Week festival in the crucial decade before World War II. As the largest on-going Japanese celebration of its day, Nisei Week was a critical venue for rearticulating the dominant meanings of race. Its spectacles, performances, festive contests, and celebratory speeches were festive, yet serious responses to the anti-Japanese sentiment that constrained and always threatened to doom the ethnic community. In 1934 the leadership of Japanese immigrants (Issei) entrusted the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), an unproven group of second generation businessmen and professionals, to design a festival that would present a harmonious blending of East and West. By joining Japanese dance, music, and cultural and martial arts exhibits with a parade, beauty pageant, and other American traditions, the young JACLers portrayed the Nisei as exotic, yet safe Americans, willing to use their bi-cultural identity to advance relations between the United States and Japan. But the growing rift between the two nations, exacerbated by Japan’s aggressions in China, put the political costs of this bi-culturalism at odds with its benefits as a marketing device for the Depression-weary enclave. As war loomed in the Pacific, Nisei Week’s leaders retreated to the seemingly safe-harbor of American patriotism. The internment order, however, was a clear indication that the festival, and the JACL’s larger loyalty campaign, failed to assuage the general mistrust of Japanese Americans."
This collection includes photos from Nisei Week parade in 2005 - 2007.
  • Los Angeles' Tofu Festival, founded in 1996, was voted "the best food fest in the west" by VIA Automobile Club of America, ranked in Los Angeles magazine’s "TOP TEN" for July 2004 and August 2002, and featured on Food Network's "Top 5: Amazing Celebrations" and "Unwrapped: Protein Power!"
  • San Francisco's Nihonmachi Street Fair is a celebration of the many diverse Asian and Pacific American communities in the Bay Area.
Excerpt: "Salt Lake City's Japan Town will see a vibrant revival this Saturday, as several Japanese-American groups present a cultural festival. The event, 'Nihon Matsuri,' which translates to 'Japan Festival,' is free and open to all, said Floyd Mori, event chairman. The goal is to bring the Japanese American community together and 'show the community at large a little bit about Japanese culture.' There are an estimated 6,349 Japanese-Americans in Utah, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2003 American Community Survey."
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