Festival offers choice bits of Japanese culture

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

A giant taiko drum was part of last year's Honolulu Festival grand parade, the culmination of three days of cultural exchange between Japan and Hawai'i. This year's parade runs from 5 to 8 p.m. Sunday along Kalakaua Avenue. Advertiser library photo Honolulu Festival At the Honolulu Academy of Arts, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday At the Hawai'i Convention Center: school tours, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. today; entertainment and demonstrations, 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-2:50 p.m. Sunday At Ala Moana Center, center stage: Demonstrations and entertainment, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-3:35 p.m. Sunday At Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center: Demonstrations and entertainment, 10:30 a.m.-3:55 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Sunday Grand parade: 5-8 p.m. Sunday, along Kalakaua Avenue, between Beach Walk and Kapi'olani Park Free 596-3327 or honolulufestival.com

But The Honolulu Festival parade, centerpiece of this weekend's exhibition of Japan's varied cultural celebrations, certainly has the right stuff as far as Fujio is concerned.

"For one thing, it's my roots," he said, sitting in an office peppered with models of Japanese parade floats and other memorabilia. "Secondly, I've never been involved in an event that is so elaborate. They want this to be a perfect event. And it's been nearly perfect."

The entire Honolulu Festival, say all who are involved, is a marvel, if not a moneymaker for its sponsors. Now in its ninth year, the event began as a bid by the Japan tourism sector to create an attraction during one of the year's slow times.

Participation by some 4,600 members of cultural groups from Japan hasn't created a cash cow, according to its principal underwriter, tour company JTB Hawaii Inc. Even so, Hawai'i has been the beneficiary, said Yujiro Kuwabara, a JTB executive and secretary of the nonprofit Honolulu Festival Foundation.

"After doing it for nine years, we feel an obligation to the local spectators who expect the festival now," he said.

And what draws them is the spectacle of elements from festivals held at different times throughout the year and all across Japan. The celebrants at northern Japan's Akita Kantou Matsuri mark the harvest season with hundreds of rice lanterns hanging on bamboo poles, forming huge structures designed to resemble giant rice grains. Along Sunday's parade route, performers will balance the poles on their hips, foreheads, shoulders and palms.

One of Fujio's favorites is the "fire-spitting dragon," a float from Omuta Daijayama Matsuri. Operated like a huge puppet with moving parts, fireworks inside burst from its mouth for the incendiary effect.

This will be the last chance for a while that spectators can watch the display from Tatemon Matsuri, a fishing-season festival in which a lantern structure shaped like a boat's sail floats down the street.

Local folk are encouraged to join in the festivities, said Walter Saito, who chairs the festival's working committee and has been with the organization from the start.

The festival organizers consider this to be an international exchange, giving Japan visitors a chance to see a culture radically different from their own.

"We have a lot of immigrants who have been here over 100 years, a lot of races that live side by side," Saito said. "Where else is better to showcase cultural exchange than in Hawai'i?"

The foundation budgets about $1.5 million for the festival every year, said Leon Yoshida, its executive director. The support comes from various financial institutions, Japan Air and other industry mainstays. The foundation has begun promoting the event on the West Coast, Yoshida added.

"It brings over $50 million to the state," he said. "It's something we need to keep going and expand to the Pacific Rim, not just Japan."

A high point for Kuwabara is seeing evidence of how much people learn about Japan through the event. He cited one Hawai'i man who was inspired to make his own trips to Japan after witnessing the festival, and extolled the virtues of today's educational school tours through the Hawai'i Convention Center, where children get a chance to see all the color in one place.

"The kids walk around, they hit the drums, they draw pictures and they mail to us and they talk about it," he said. "We believe that it's a wonderful way to understand each other's culture."