{"id":239405,"date":"2016-10-31T06:06:26","date_gmt":"2016-10-30T20:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=239405"},"modified":"2016-10-31T06:06:26","modified_gmt":"2016-10-30T20:06:26","slug":"world-war-ii-fallen-honored-sugar-king-park-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/world-war-ii-fallen-honored-sugar-king-park-ceremony\/","title":{"rendered":"World War II fallen honored at Sugar King Park ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-239405 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/world-war-ii-fallen-honored-sugar-king-park-ceremony\/2-32\/'>2<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-239406'>\n\t\t\t\t Japanese Shinto high priest (guji) Takeshi Katori, center, poses with Japanese pilgrims, Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office special assistant Henry Hofschneider, Rep. Joseph \u201cLee Pan\u201d Guerrero (R-Saipan), Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Chris Concepcion, Japanese Consul Toshio Matsumura, Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office director of operations Joann Aquino, and MVA marketing manager Bruce Bateman after the Katori Jingu Shrine ceremony honoring those that have fallen during WWII. (Erwin Encinares)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/world-war-ii-fallen-honored-sugar-king-park-ceremony\/1-34\/'>1<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-239407'>\n\t\t\t\tThe path leading to the Katori Jingu Shrine at the Sugar King Park. (Erwin Encinares)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>The Japanese Society of Northern Marianas honored the fallen of World War II in a ceremony at the Katori Jingu Shrine at Sugar King Park last Oct. 22.<\/p>\n<p>The shrine was originally built at another site in 1914 but was moved to Sugar King Park in 1931. The Katori Jingu Shrine was destroyed during the war; it was burned to the ground. It was later rebuilt by the Katori Shrine Association of Japan, with the assistance of the local government, finishing the reconstruction in 1985. <\/p>\n<p>Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Chris Concepcion honored the occasion with his presence. \u201cWe are very excited to welcome back our friends from Japan who hold the ceremony annually here in the CNMI,\u201d he said. \u201cThis shows how important the Japan tourism market is to Saipan\u2019s tourism industry. We want to continue these relations and we want to welcome more Japanese into the Marianas and make sure that these relations remain to be more fruitful for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Joseph \u201cLee Pan\u201d Guerrero (R-Saipan) agreed with Concepcion, with hopes that more people would attend the ceremony next year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s important that we continue to support the lone [country] that actually brought the tourists here in the CNMI, the Japan market. I encourage the community, hopefully next year, to come and support this event when it takes place again. It\u2019s important for them to honor the dead that died here during World War II. \u2026I\u2019m going to look forward to encouraging the Legislature to come up and show support in the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office special assistant Henry Hofschneider said the ceremony is important to the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office because of past relationships.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is an event that the Mayor\u2019s Office always look forward to. This brings back our friends and families who lived here on Saipan at one point, so their families, their generations, are coming back. We need to continue making our bonds and relationships strong. This ceremony is annual, and the mayor\u2019s always ready to help them,\u201d said Hofschneider. The ceremony has been held annually since 1985.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Japanese Society of Northern Marianas honored the fallen of World War II in a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":239406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[46,26,170,5476],"class_list":["post-239405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ceremony","tag-cnmi","tag-japan","tag-sugar-king-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}