Ottawa Japan Festival

The 24th annual Ottawa Japan Festival was hosted by Carleton University’s Japanese Association (CUJA) as well as the Embassy of Japan in Ottawa, which sponsored the event for the first time, on Sunday.

The event was a celebration of Japanese-Canadian culture and featured traditional performances of Shamisen, a Japanese music genre based off of the string instrument, a Kendo demonstration, a form of martial arts similar to fencing using bamboo swords, a Minyo dance performance, as well as a traditional tea ceremony.

Aside from performances, the festival also featured many workshops taught by members of CUJA as well as professors from the Japanese studies department at Carleton.

“I want the participants to get a well-rounded sense of the spirit of Japan, I think it’s very important. And then particularly for the Japanese language learners who are taking Japanese courses we don’t have much time to focus on the cultural activities.” said Professor and Head of Japanese studies and CUJA, Yoko Azuma- Prikryl.

Members of the Carleton community as well as the public could participate in organized origami and Japanese calligraphy workshops, learn how to play traditional card games such as ‘Karuta’ and even learn how to make traditional Japanese sweets and tea.

“This year we have a connection with the Japanese embassy, it's so important, because without their financial support we wouldn’t be able to have this event, it’s like big money. And also we (CUJA) only have like 10 people and four executives, so it’s not enough to have a big event, we definitely needed the help” said CUJA executive, Kenta Izumoto. “ The purpose of the event is to spread our culture and I want people to have an interest in it. I think that people who live here do not know much about Japanese culture besides anime and ramen noodles.”

According to a 2016 Statistics Canada census report, only 3,105 of 934,243, identified as having Japanese origins which is approximately 0.3 percent of the population.

In comparison, only 385 people listed Japanese as the language that they communicate with most, at home.

Former President and Representative of the Ottawa Japanese Community Association (OJCA), Sachiko Okuda, attended Sundays festival in order to network and make people aware of some the activities and clubs which cater to Japanese culture and arts that they might not have known about.

“We run some programs and cultural activities and participate in events but we also try to support and connect other groups... it’s a small community here in Ottawa and we can’t speak for everyone, so we want to reach out to people like the Japanese speaking members of the larger community because for example I don’t speak Japanese” said Okuda.

She added, “In previous editions of Japan fest we’ve helped them out in locating the dance groups and finding other resources in the community.

An example of the types of resources that this local branch of the national Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre has helped CUJA connect with, is musician and Shamisen performer, Ryoko Itabashi, who performed with traditional Japanese instruments such as taiko drums, the bamboo flute and shamisen, at the festival Sunday, along with her daughters 12 year old Sasha, and six year old Alyssa.

“ We live in a different a country, we live in Canada, but for me Japan is my country and so it’s my mission to share my own culture… with my children as well. So when people have multicultural festivals, Japan festivals, or Asian festivals we like to come and join” said Itabashi.

“I’ve been playing traditional Japanese instruments for 23 years, and also in Japan, it is so rare for groups to wear a Kimono and play taiko(drums) at the same time but I’d like to share kimono culture as well.” added Itabashi.