Celebrating Cultures

Where is this place? What is going on there? Emma, are you still in the City?

Yes, I am. The seemingly chaotic picture was captured at the noon of Japan Day on May 31st, one of the most exciting weekends I've spent in town so far.

This was my first time to attend such a large-scale open-air cultural event in a foreign country. But this is actually the third consecutive year of Japan Day held at Central Park. For those who are unfamiliar with this event, the Japanese community of New York hosts a full-day event once a year (how lucky am I!) to promote deeper understanding of Japanese culture and to express gratitude to the City. On that day, themed tents are set up to offer a wide range of traditional activities, such as Kabuki face painting, and free Japanese food samplings like Gyoza dumplings. In the central area, there is a well-equipped stage hosting a variety of performance throughout the day.

I have to confess first that I'm a completely outdoor and cultural person. That means any activity which happens outdoors or rich in culture will enchant me easily. On the other hand, I become a bit particular about authenticity of a cultural event.

But this time I felt truly delighted and enjoyed the whole day at the central park. I was amazed by the liveliness in the park and the enthusiasm of people who speak different languages engaging together in the cultural festival. Everyone got immersed in the Japanese culture immediately on the first step into the park.

People lined up patiently in front of different cultural tents to get some hands-on experience of the exotic traditions or take a taste of sizzling Japanese food. There were several family friendly activities, such as stamp rally, to engage children specifically. Anyone, knowing little or much about Japanese culture, could all find their fun here.

Cosplay fans dressed up in their favorite Japanese cartoon characters and played the role in the park. Who says performance could only exist on the stage? Life is a play.

It certainly had many more exciting moments around the tents. But I kept my primary focus on the stage performance. The Japan Day organizer did a great job to blend traditional Japanese performance with contemporary arts groups, successfully showing the multiple facets of the culture and keeping audience entertained well.

The first performance was Taiko, a traditional Japanese drum playing, mixed up with rythmic tap dance. The performing group called COBU is a female group based in New York City. It's really amazing to see such a performance on the open-air stage. That reminds me of another show called Nanta which I saw in South Korea. It's a non-verbal performance integrating Korean traditional "Samulnori" rhythm with comic and drama. Very funny and wonderful performance too. Asian countries have quite diversified and deep cultures. How to preserve the tradition and reinvigorate it in an intriguing way with leverage of modern elements and technology is a common question to all of us. Cultural preservation doesn't mean putting traditions into a sealed jar for protection. Instead, culture needs to learn from the change and adapt to the new environment to survive, and to regain new energy to engage young generations to pass along. COBU and Nanta are two groups I have seen doing that in the right direction. They not only attract more people within the countries to enjoy the art, but also spread the Asian art to a broader audience in a different cultural context.

Some other fantastic performance:

Umami NYC, a two-man group comprised of Tokyo native Gaku Takanashi playing Shamisen and virtuoso pianist Richard Bennett

Chorus presented by The Japanese American Association of New York Chorus. I was completed touched when I heard they sang in chorus a classic Japanese song, which I believe was used in the soundtrack of a Japanese animation movie (forgot the name...).

A short play acted by one talented self-taught dancer, Kenichi Ebina

The finale performance brought by a band called Orange Pekeo was a kind of fusion music of Japanese pop and Jazz, with particular influence of Brazillian soul music. In a word, it's real beautiful.

I really appreciate the efforts that all the event staff and volunteers took to present such a great day. I bet a lot more visitors of the day would feel the same way I had experienced. Open your eyes and ears. Open your heart and mind. You'll find so much fun in exploring and celebrating our cultures.