Today the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, a cultural event for the Japanese-American community, culminated in the Grand Parade from the Civic Center up Polk to Japantown. The streets swelled and vendors hawked $3 plastic cups of Sapporo beer as a motley procession of floats and other displays celebrated elements of Japanese culture ranging from traditional music to classical dance to Segways. Amidst it all, I was there with my camera and my Uncle Sam hat (long story.) Do note that I was there primarily to meet up with some friends in the Anime Costume Parade, so I missed out on the end of the parade and the Taru Mikoshi, described by the official site as "a spectacle not to be missed." Nuts.
Japantown was more crowded than even some regular visitors I spoke with had ever seen, in stark contrast to its usual tranquil atmosphere. The people in whiteface dragging a paper-mache dragon through the Kintetsu Mall probably didn't help. At any rate, the businesses certainly were enjoying the hustle and bustle, as lines (like the one for the women's bathroom) backed up in the manner of Tetris blocks at the hands of a panicking player, and inventories disappeared like a non-Tetris analogy.
As I waited to check out, I started to feel the nostalgia for the usual quiet Japantown. But, I realized, if the calm was good for me, it was bad for Japantown's businesses. As the BEARcade taught us, a specialized cultural space that finds itself underutilized is not long for this world. Add in the fact that Japantown is actually owned by Los Angeles-based 3D Investments, and the conclusion is disquieting. Could events like the Cherry Blossom Festival be the only thing keeping Japantown's businesses viable, serving not only cultural and aesthetic ends, but economic ones as well? The answer is of course a matter of speculation, but just in case, you should go and buy some tsundere-voice keychains.
Well, that's enough serious business, so enjoy the photos and videos.
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