If you walked by the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center last Saturday you might have seen a blindfolded individual attempting to smash a watermelon to pieces. Maybe you’d have seen pairs of people attempting to wolf down Jell-O at a maddening pace. Or, you might have chanced upon a group of young adults and children performing martial arts demonstrations.
The University of Nevada, Reno’s annual Japanese Summer Festival was host to all of the above and many other events. Hundreds of UNR students, locals, a KTVN Channel 2 news team and a bevy of guest performers were among the attendees of the event, which was hosted by the university’s Japanese Student Action Network.
Approximately six months of planning, heavy advertising and careful budgeting made way for the student organization’s biggest event of the year. According to JSAN Vice President Robert McIver, the event was created in the spirit of Japanese community events.
“[Japanese families] will come together with friends and people working in the area and make a festival,” McIver said. “They usually serve food, have games for the kids and have performances. It’s a big town thing that people do together.”
Although McIver noted that there wasn’t a large Japanese population at UNR, the atmosphere of the festival was far from inaccessible. Mainstream Japanese pop music flowed from the speakers during intermissions between events such as a lighthearted crash course in Japanese morning exercises and an aikido demonstration. All the while, booths run by students and other enthusiasts of the island nation offered tidbits of the culture ranging from traditional Japanese food to tourism information and opportunities to study abroad.
One such enthusiast was Ryan Cary, a jiu-jitsu and ninjitsu sensei and founder of Reno’s Champion Martial Arts II school. Cary and several of his students put on a demonstration full of backflips, mock fights and martial arts weapons such as staves and nunchakus.
Cary, who has been involved in martial arts for much of his life, brings his family to the Japanese Summer Festival every year. He enjoyed performing with his students and expressed a belief that martial arts demonstrations and events such as the Japanese Summer Festival could help to dissuade negative stereotypes about Japanese culture.
“We’re not teaching [the students] how to fight,” Cary said. “Some people get a bad impression. They think that we’re just out their doing some MMA or cage fighting kind of stuff, which is totally not what we do. We teach them how to protect themselves [and] to be a better person.”
Cary happily acknowledged the crowd’s animated response to his group’s performance, and made note of the supportive and involved atmosphere of the event.
“Whenever we can help out and be a part of the program … We like it [when] people come out and support the Japanese society,” Cary said. “I’m always really excited to be here. My whole family likes to eat all of the food and watch the games. We always participate.”
The festival drew an audience as diverse as it was sizable. JSAN President Kanako Endo was pleasantly surprised by the turnout and Channel 2 media coverage. In regards to its appeal, Endo considered the festival to be a happy medium for Japanese culture buffs and curious students.
“It is a great opportunity for people to see what a summer festival is like in Japan and [is also] a bit of home for the Japanese community,” Endo said. “It is very important for JSAN because this event perfectly embodies our mission to share Japanese culture with our community.”
According to Endo, JSAN puts on a variety of cultural events throughout the semester in an effort to promote Japanese culture.
The organization hosts traditional Japanese events that range from February’s Setsubun, a celebration of winter’s end, to Hinamatsuri, or Doll Festival, where club members put on a tea ceremony and provide sweet dumplings to attendees.
McIver noted that although JSAN works to put on as many events as possible, the annual Japanese Summer Festival is their largest and most important event. He expressed positivity about both this year’s festival and the state of JSAN, and believes that the organization has a bright future.
“We always try to change it up,” McIver said. “If we learn about a new event we can do then we’ll try our best to put it in. As a club we’ve grown a lot. This is just a start for us, we’re getting bigger.”
Tyler Hersko can be reached at thersko@sagebrush.unr.edu.