Japanese festivals at CMU, Pitt on March 29 and 30.

This weekend there will be two Japanese festivals at Oakland's two largest universities. On Friday, March 29, the Japanese Student Association at CMU presents Matsuri (festival) from 4:30 to 9:30 pm at the CMU University Center and Merson Courtyard (campus map). The event's website says:

We wanted to share a snippet of this eventful festival here in Pittsburgh, right on CMU campus. Come by to try a taste of Japanese street food, play with some traditional arcade games and enjoy a range of performances from Japanese Taiko Drumming and a traditional Koto performance to Japanese Pop and Rock Fusion of Contemporary Japanese Music.

We have put in a lot of effort into authenticity; we purchase things online and ship them from Japan. We hand craft our booths to make it look like what you see on the streets in Japan. Enjoy the event to its fullest by paying attention to the details we've put in!

Food and games at the festival require tickets, which you can pre-order online. All of the profits made will be donated to Minato Middle School, which was completely destroyed by the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.



On March 30 at the University of Pittsburgh is the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, put on by the Japanese Culture Association. To plagiarize the Facebook event page:

We're extremely excited for this year's festival which has the potential to be one of the best yet!

With performances from:

-Pitt Taiko
-FRESA
- and Japanese Sword demonstrations from Loren Keifer

That's not all, we'll have all sorts of fun booths set up, including:

-Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) from JASP
-Japanese Tea with Amy Svoboda
-Kimono Fashion with Evan Mason
-Video Games

And of course we'll have copious amounts of delicious Japanese street cuisine, such as; takoyaki, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, taiyaki, onigiri, and mochi.

It will be held from 2:00 to 5:00 at the William Pitt Union Ballroom.

To see cherry blossoms in Pittsburgh you'll have to wait another week or two. On April 6 is the Pittsburgh Sakura Project's Spring Planting Festival, and both Philadelphia and Washington D.C. (two cities close enough for a weekend trip) are holding their large cherry blossom festivals throughout April.

Pitt Night Market (匹大夜市), March 29.

The Chinese American Student Association at Pitt brings news of its Pitt Night Market on Friday, March 29 from 9 pm to midnight in room 548 of the William Pitt Union.

Time to bring back the infamous NIGHT MARKET! Culturally dominant in Chinese cities, night markets are a pivotal aspect of urban life in Taiwan and China. Tonight we will be bringing you a glimpse of just what its like to be at a night market. There will be free games and prizes, as well as traditional night market foods and drinks (i.e. scallion pancake, bubble milk tea, etc). Better not miss it!

三月29日2013年
匹大夜市
地點: 學生活動中心 WPU 748
時間: 21:00

夜市是在中國大陸與台灣的都市生活不得不有的一個不分。今晚我們要讓大家感受到一點點夜市的氣氛。會有免費的遊戲與獎品更會有經點小吃飲料（蔥油餅，珍珠奶茶，等等）。千萬不能錯過的活動喔！

No word yet on the availability of stinky tofu, but this looks like a good time. Though Pittsburgh hypes the Strip District as something of a market---and it's a fine destination in its own right---the city doesn't have anything that matches the activity, the variety, and the mass of humanity of Asian cities a Taiwanese or Chinese night market.


Taiwan night market, by luces. Hard to find photographs under a Creative Commons license, but you can browse more in this Flickr group.

Japanese bands Dazzle Vision, Cantoy to play in Pittsburgh in April.

Ad by JRock247.com

Those who know about Tekkoshocon don't need to be reminded that it's coming up, but for the sake a complete blog we'll mention that Pittsburgh's "Japanese Pop Culture Convention" will be at the David Lawrence Convention Center from April 5 through April 7. The costumed fans get the most attention, but it's worth noting that for the first time in a year Pittsburgh will have some Japanese rock bands in town.

Dazzle Vision is a metal band with equal parts melody and screamo thrown in (here's a Youtube playlist). Cantoy would fall under the punk category (here's a Youtube playlist). The setting seems rather sterile, but anime conventions are about the only opportunities for medium-sized cities to attract Japanese groups. Concerts the last two years have drawn over 900 people.

The third musical guest is Chii Sakurabi, who is described on her own webpage as "a breakout international J-POP singer and recording artist". You can find some of her videos on YouTube; I don't get it.

Lineup for 2013 Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival announced.

The lineup for the 2013 Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival was recently announced, and it's stacked with 25 films including four from Korea; two from Japan; one each from China, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines; and others with connections to the region.

,
A small selection of posters: Two Shadows from Cambodia and the US, Tatsumi from Singapore and Japan, Pieta from Korea, Cha Cha for Twins from Taiwan, Asura from Japan, and The Thieves from Korea.

This annual Pittsburgh festival will run this year from May 10 through 19th at three venues throughout the city: The Melwood Screening Room in Oakland, the Harris Theater downtown, and the eponymous Regent Square Theater.

2013 Kennywood Asian Day, May 12.

Kennywood Pagoda, copyright Kurt Miller.

A perfect time to start thinking about spring festivities. *cough* According to recent updates to Kennywood's 2013 Nationality & Community Days and Special Events calendar, Asian Day leads off the community day season at the amusement park on Sunday, May 12. More details to come later, so for now we'll restrict the description to the usual: there will be food and performances.

Taiwanese Film Series begins with Three Times (最好的時光), March 25.

Maridon Museum's Taiwanese Film Series begins March 25 with Three Times (最好的時光), a 2005 movie that, Wikipedia says,

features three chronologically separate stories of love between May and Chen, set in 1911, 1966 and 2005, using the same lead actors, Shu Qi and Chang Chen.

The show starts at 6:30 and is presented by Dr. William Covey of Slippery Rock University.

"'Japan is the Key…': Collecting Prints and Ivories, 1900–1920", March 30 to July 21.

The Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland (map) will run the exhibit "'Japan is the Key…': Collecting Prints and Ivories, 1900–1920" from March 30 through July 21 in Gallery One. The exhibition, to borrow heavily from the CMoA website,

presents highlights from Carnegie Museum of Art’s significant collection of iconic Japanese woodblock prints (ukiyo-e) in an entirely new way, uniting them with Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s holdings of exquisite Japanese carved ivories (okimono). These collections were formed in the early years of the 20th century, motivated by European and North American acceptance of Japan as an emerging modern power, and the aesthetic appeal of Japanese art to artists and collectors. Japan is the Key… tells the story of two very different men who promoted Carnegie Institute’s early interest in Japanese art: poet and critic Sadakichi Hartmann, who masterminded the Department of Fine Arts’ controversial exhibitions of Japanese prints in the first decade of the 20th century; and ketchup magnate H. J. Heinz, who acquired ivories on his world-wide travels on behalf of local industry and religious organizations. This exhibition offers a rare view of this period of cultural interchange through the lens of the personalities that shaped it.

Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia, April 1 - 26.

The Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia will take place this year from April 1st through 26th. There is a massive amount of events planned around the festival, so browse the website and consider making the drive (or the Megabus) for the weekend. Consider visiting, too, Shufuso, a Japanese garden in Fairmont Park, a short distance from where many of the cherry blossoms are located.

Crocodile in the Yangtze and Sushi: The Global Catch at CMU this week.

Carnegie Mellon University International Film Festival: Faces of Media runs from March 21 through April 13, and relevant to this site are the two Asian-themed films this weekCrocodile on the Yangtze and Sushi: A Global Catch.

Crocodile on the Yangtze is scheduled for March 22, 7:00 pm, at the McConomy Auditorium, CMU University Center (campus map). The director will attend, says the website. The movie's official website says:

Crocodile in the Yangtze follows China’s first Internet entrepreneur and former English teacher, Jack Ma, as he battles US giant eBay on the way to building China's first global Internet company, Alibaba Group. An independent memoir written, directed and produced by an American who worked in Ma’s comany for eight years, Crocodile in the Yangtze captures the emotional ups and downs of life in a Chinese Internet startup at a time when the Internet brought China face-to-face with the West.

Sushi: The Global Catch is scheduled for March 24, 5:30 pm, at the same place. After the movie is a reception with a presentation by a sushi chef. An NPR review says of the film:

Outlining the process that brings tuna from the boat to the plate is just one of the building blocks of the film's larger argument about the economic and environmental impact of the sushi industry. Although The Global Catch initially considers sushi broadly, it takes the food's ubiquity for granted, merely glancing at its role in the culture and its global culinary influence as it speeds toward its essential focus: conservation.

Tickets for each of these are $8 for regular admission or $5 for seniors and students.

Zenkaikon anime convention in Lancaster, March 22 - 24.

Lancaster will host its annual Zenkaikon anime convention this weekend, March 22 - 24 at the Lancaster County Convention Center (map). "Zenkaikon was created in 2006", says the website,

through the merging of two Philadelphia-area events -- Kosaikon, an anime convention held at Villanova University, and Zentrancon, an anime and science fiction convention held on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

There is a long list of events and guests that looks appealing to all levels of fan and Japanese-cultural enthusiast: rock group The Slants, kimono consultant Kuniko Kanawa, anthropologist Charles Dunbar, Cosplay Burlesque, video game tournaments, karaoke, and live-action role plays, among others. The panels include topics like "A Complete History of Manga", "Beyond Bleeps and Bloops: An Introduction to Video Game Music", and "The Aging Otaku: Fandom and Getting Older", among more specialized ones.

Lancaster is a fine town, and is actually a city of 59,000, and not just a few roads in Amish country. Both it and the surrounding county are worth a visit, and not just in late-March. It's about four hours from Pittsburgh, though is a relatively easy drive from Hershey, Harrisburg, and other points east.