We continue our mainland fascination with parades. After skipping the Chinese New Year’s parade this year (because of the cold and waiting last year), we decided to try the Japantown parade. Cherry blossoms against a pale blue sky sounds so much better than the dark and windy streets of a February evening in SF. Plus the website had pictures of a Hello Kitty character, so Leilani was convinced.
Just because things never turn out as they seem, but better in the end, we got there too late and missed Hello Kitty, but saw plenty of Hula halau (schools or troupes). It turns out that there is no Hawaiian parade in the Bay Area, but Hawaii is popular in Japan and so Hawaiian culture makes a big appearance in the Cherry Blossom Festival.
And it was a nice and sunny day, first sunburn of the season if I remember correctly. The downside was that we underestimated the crowds and spent the whole time standing and not getting a great view.
There really were a lot of hula groups, probably 6 or 8 that we saw:
And there was also some authentic Japanese culture. Near as I can tell, these were shrines from temples being taken out for a walk, spreading good fortune and blessings to those who came to see them (not unlike parading the statues of saints in Europe):
The more the shrines get bounced around by those carrying them, the more good fortune shakes off of them, so if I understand right, the job of the guys riding on top is to make them sway, and shake, and generally have a rocking good time:
Not pictured was the whole other side to the parade: the anime (Japanese cartoon/comic) super-heroes, super-villains, robots, and a cartoonish version of glamour girls. Lots of young people, both Japanese and gaijin (non-Japanese), dressed up as their favorite one of these and joined the parade or the crowds. I won’t say Leilani was impressed, but I think she enjoyed seeing people walk around in costumes and play-acting a bit.
I thought it was interesting how Japanese culture now includes and oddly embraces these characters both from the outside (American view of Japanese culture) and from the inside (seemingly). And it appeared that the anime characters appeal to both “nerdy” types and let’s say more social types within both the Japanese culture and American followers.
And that perhaps was the biggest revelation for me: that there is a “modern” Japanese culture in San Francisco. Everyone knows about Chinatown, and with the tourist shops it sometimes seems like a parody of itself (even though I suspect that is just a façade, and a profitable one too), but few know about Japantown. I woundn’t say that it’s thriving like Chinatown, but it is surviving. It does have a lot of shops and restaurants too (including a Hawaiian shop), but there were a lot of shops for Japanese people, include a whole bookstore with books in both languages–it would be equivalent to there being enough French people in SF for FNAC (the French equivalent of Borders) to open a store in SF (now there’s an idea…).
