Kodomo no Hi

These are the beautiful Girls Day dolls terraced on red where the Koi carp traditionally fly over households - one for each son - on Boys Day which, by a victim of PC,

has been generically reduced to Kodomo no Hi ("Children's Day"), as the headline reads,

which is from the Rafu Shimpo, LA's 107 year-old Japanese newspaper. My family combed to find out about the latest ninja/samurai movies, inevitably ending with the obituary column, as the community dispersed beyond the key suburbs of Gardena and Torrance.

We headed to Little Tokyo ("Japanese Town") with Chris & Hilary's family for an afternoon of martial arts demos, crafts, & food vendors -all for Kodomo no Hi. The dance was a teaser for the annual Nisei (second generation JA) festival held in August. The volunteers & their good-natured energy came more from recent immigrants; seemed odd at first, but pretty normal, since they made the break with the home country most recently.

The JA community is ethnically diverse - tend to marry outside their race compared to other Asian groups - but economically similar, as subsequent waves of Japanese immigrants come as already affluent, thus remain outside the old story of rising up the social ladder as farmers or merchants, who worked their way up & out of Japanese Town. JTown remained an important touchstone for the latter group, who would return there on the weekends, spending all day walking its blocks, buying groceries, eating at its many restaurants, catching a movie.

There are a number of shops still around from the old days. Rafu Bussan, perhaps the largest gift shop, with an impressive collection of dolls. There used to be a movie theater next door.

Then there is still Bunkado

with a mix of genuine ceramics, tea ceremony utencils, and souvenirs. The upstairs had the biggest record/CD collections, where my folks would buy albums by Misora Hibari, the famed Japanese enka singer:

Our household was filled with Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, and Hibari, whose vocal control and lyrics resonate with American country, except with a big band jazz influence, to boot. I was astonished to discover fellow grad students writing dissertation chapters on the late great artist now; my childhood memory attaining academic respectability.

Back to Children's Day. This festival dancer and loud yelling minstrels with taiko drum reminded me how bizarrely sophisticated and modern, as well as tribally primitive Japanese culture can be; Paris and Africa in one.

Gideon was so cute.

I always vow to take family trips to Japanese Town, but they rarely happen and Michael & Jack feel closer to the culinary rituals of fondue and raclette than they do sushi, so I guess I am living up to my cultural stereotype.