Highlights from Natsumatsuri

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One of our special visitors...she's been coming to JANM events for over seven years!
One of our special visitors. She’s been coming to JANM events for over seven years!

Wow! We had such an incredible time at this year’s Natsumatsuri Family Festival on August 10, 2013. Nearly 4,000 guests came to enjoy a day full of cultural performances, demonstrations, activities, and crafts. A big thank you to everyone who made it out (and extra kudos to those who came from as far away as Bakersfield and Frazier Park—that’s a whole lot of driving!).

Take a look through this event recap and see if you can spot yourself!

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Screenprinting kaeru origami and taiko totes!

This year, we added a few new perks to thank our Members and Courtyard Kids. Museum members were able to use special “fast pass” lines for some of our most popular activities, including the yukata dress-up and the screenprinted tote bags. Members also got prime seats at our Aratani Central Hall performances and demonstrations. To all of our members who came out for Natsumatsuri, thanks again for your support!

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Japanese mariachi Roger del Norte, performs for the crowd.

Speaking of Central Hall events, we had a day jam-packed with great performances! Roger del Norte and Lupita Infante stole the show with a Japanese-Spanish mariachi duet, accompanied by the band MEXICAPAN. It was standing room only for Roger and Lupita, and the crowds didn’t let up for the L.A. Matsuri Taiko performance that finished up the day.

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JANM President/CEO G.W. Kimura with the visiting courts.

Long before that, we kicked the day off with a visit from the Nikkei courts of San Francisco, Honolulu, and Seattle. The queens and princesses came by for a meet n’ greet with JANM President/CEO G.W. Kimura, followed by a tour of our Common Ground: The Heart of Community exhibition from our knowledgeable docents.

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A visitor and his mom work on their wacky paper hat.

As you probably noticed, this year’s Natsumatsuri was all about celebrating summer with some old and new traditions! From learning to play taiko drums with volunteer Hal Keimi to listening to Rev. Bill Briones of Los Angeles Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple explain the history of Obon in both Japan and the United States, we went back to the roots of traditional Japanese festivals. (The wacky paper hats craft is a much-loved tradition of our own!)

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What’s your fortune? One visitor is about to find out!

We’re big believers in interactive activities fun at JANM. This year, we invited visitors to make self-portraits and fans upstairs, while we once again hosted the “What Are You?” photo activity and omikuji fortunetelling downstairs. Traditional Obon dancing lessons and airbrush tattoos were also big hits.

What was your favorite part of the day? See below for more photos!

Thanks to our wonderful volunteer photographers for documenting the day: Russell Kitagawa, Nobuyuki Okada, Richard Watanabe, Tsuneo Takasugi, Shoji Tokumasa, Richard Murakami, June Aoki, Caroline Jung, and Daryl Kobayashi.

Summer Festival coming up this Saturday!

14th Annual Summer Festival on the Courtyard - Japanese American Olympics. Saturday, August 11, 2012. 11am-5pm. FREE ADMISSION ALL DAY!

Our 14th Annual Summer Festival on the Courtyard is this weekend!

Sporty Courtyard Kaeru waving JANM flagSummer Festival is our BIGGEST event of the year. We’re preparing a full day of FREE family fun. If you couldn’t make it to London for the Summer Olympics, come out to JANM for the JA Olympics!

LOTS of free activities and crafts to keep kids of all ages busy all day, or just stop by in between checking out the various Nisei Week and Tanabata Festival festivities going on throughout Little Tokyo.

We’re especially excited about our Jan Ken Po TournamentJA Trivia Challenge, and Origami Design Contest! Compete for your chances to win a special JA Olympics medal & prizes!

Jan Ken Po Tournament

P.S. This month is also your last chance to come check out our very popular Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami and Xploration Lab 2012 exhibitions before they close on August 26th!

Today’s Groupon: Discount on our Tea Fest!

I was excited to see today’s Groupon discounts for our very own Chado Tea Room! There are three options:

  • For $10, you get two tickets to the first annual Los Angeles Tea Festival on August 13 and 14 (a $20 value).
  • For $30, you get afternoon tea for two people and $25 worth of loose-leaf tea (a $61 value).
  • For $48, you get afternoon tea for four people and $25 worth of loose-leaf tea (a $97 value).

Have you been to our Chado Tea Room? It is a wonderfully civilized place to have Afternoon Tea. A hidden gem. I love it!

Well, I just wanted to point out these fabulous deals, especially the discounted tickets to the Tea Fest in conjunction with our Saturday, Aug 13 Summer Festival — our most popular event of the year! — just in case there are a few rare JANM blog readers out there who do not get the Groupon alerts. The Chado Groupon is available until the end of day Saturday July 30th!

Chado Groupon Deal >>