On Thursday Sami and I drove up to the city for our second intern day. It’s always fun to be together spend the day working with all the other Norcal interns. First we sat down with Jon Osaki, Executive Director of the Japanese Community Youth Council, or JCYC. He showed us videos of the group and how it has grown and changed over the past four decades. JCYC is actually celebrating its 40th anniversary, as it is the second oldest Japanese American based organization following JACL. What surprised me the most about the JCYC was how many different programs that it works with and how it has grown to encompass many other multicultural backgrounds and diverse groups of people. It was also amazing to see that this group was formed 40 years ago by youth just like us who wanted a place to hang out with other JA’s and has now expanded to such a successful and powerful organization. We also discussed a lot about the future of the JA community and what it is going to take to keep the young people involved with it. It hit me that it is us interns and our leadership that really is going to have to be the foundation for the future. It seems like we have a lot of work cut out ahead of us if we’re going to do so!!! After speaking with Mr. Osaki, we had a workshop with Aya back at the JCCCNC. Our job was to go around in pairs to the different malls among San Francisco Japantown and speak with the merchants about how to improve Japantown and the surrounding areas, along with the Better Neighborhoods Plan. What we found was that most of the businesses are hurting for customers, especially with the high rent and competition between restaurants. Some favored reconstruction and others thought that it would just skyrocket prices even higher.
In all, most wanted to find a way to bring about more business and foot traffic but didn’t know how. Lucky me I was partnered with Casey, who got sucked into eating a full meal at one of the restaurants where we interviewed the owner. So unfortunately, we didn’t win the prize for talking to the most businesses but it was a good experience as a way to take direct action in the community. We concluded our intern day with discussions and planning for our closing retreat and food booth for the Nihonmachi Street Fair. It was a long day in San Francisco, but definitely worth the commute.
For Friday we focused on more of the spirituality aspect by meeting with Reverend Keith Inouye of Wesley United Methodist Church. Being raised Buddhist; I wasn’t too familiar with the religion. Rev. Inouye explained to us about the origins of this offshoot of Christianity with founder John Wesley who was really concerned with more of the social issues like education and poverty. Him and his followers were named “Methodists,” a derogatory term at the time, for being so methodical in their work and I guess this name just stuck as they began to refer to themselves at Methodists. Racism was probably the biggest factor in bringing the JAs together to this historical Japanese American church over 100 years ago, and today they attract members through other ways. Due to the growing number of intermarriages about half of the youth are biracial and they get many others from outside the community as well, expanding in the diversity of their membership. One interesting thing about Wesley United is that they have Japanese language services and their very own Japanese language minister, one of the only three left. They also keep the youth involved with programs such as their vacation bible school, which Rev. Keith was preparing for next week.
We then went to San Jose Buddhist Temple Betsuin and sat in on the Lotus Preschool service that Rinban Ken Fujimoto performs for them every morning. It was so cute seeing all the preschool students shout “good morning Sensei!!!” and listen to them recite along with the chanting and sing “Buddha Loves You.” This was a familiar scene for me and it was a nice refresher to hear Rinban Fujimoto share his thoughts on Buddhism. One thing that caught my attention was how much of an influence western thoughts and ideas have had on the Buddhist Temple. Services came to be held on Sundays because all the other religions held theirs on that day. The idea of pews originated from the western religions and the title of “temple” came to be known as “Buddhist Church” instead. However it was different than many other churches because it served more of social center for Japanese Americans rather than just a place of worship. It also has become a sort of community and I still have that feeling of my home temple nowadays. As Buddhism has come from Japan it has transformed and adjusted to the different American ideals. Still today the values within the Buddhist temple are adjusted as well, whether through chanting styles or etiquette. Rev. Fujimoto spoke on change and although he believes in keeping many of the Buddhist traditions the same, he feels that augmentation and change can be good, as long as you know what you are changing and why it is necessary. I believe that this idea is very important, especially when people talk about the future of the youth in Japantown organizations. In order to sustain our culture, we must also be open to change some of the traditional ways of how things used to be, which might actually help to preserve it and get the younger generations involved.
Lastly for our week on arts, culture, and spirituality we met Dr. Jerry Hiura for lunch at Kubota restaurant. Thank you again for treating us Reiko!!!! Dr. Hiura is one of the founders of the Contemporary Asian Theater Scene, CATS, which started 15 years ago. He is also a member of the California Arts Council and involved in the J-town scene having his dental practice right on Taylor Street.
Our question for this week was what role does the arts and spirituality play in our community? I believe that it is really important that we have these places available in Japantown because otherwise the only form of culture that is shared with the community is Japanese food. It is really great that we have places like Ken Matsumoto's Art Gallery, Kika’s Ikebana Arts, the San Jose Buddhist Temple Betsuin, and the Wesley United Method Church. I feel like it gives Japantown a greater sense of culture and community that unites us and that we can share with others.
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