{"id":415444,"date":"2024-10-28T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=415444"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Japanese-Autumn-Festival-held-despite-bad-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Japanese-Autumn-Festival-held-despite-bad-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese Autumn Festival held despite bad weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the rain showers brought about by Tropical Depression Kong-Rey 23W, the Japanese Autumn Festival pushed through last Saturday at the Sugar King Park in Garapan.<\/p>\n

According to Japanese Autumn Festival vice chair Hiroko Tenorio, the morning ceremony of Saipan Katori Shine was canceled, but the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office, Japanese Society of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Katori Shrine representative decided to proceed with the festival scheduled for 5pm last Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur priority is the safety of all participants and guests. The Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office, the Japanese Society of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Katori Shrine representative were in contact with the National Weather Service in Guam, which indicated that the wind and rain are expected to decrease in the afternoon. All three organizations agreed at 9am on Friday morning but canceled an official ceremony for Saipan Katori Shrine,\u201d said Tenorio.<\/p>\n

The event started with the traditional breaking of the sake barrel by James Guerrero, son of former Marianas Visitors Bureau managing director J.M. Guerrero; MVA managing director Chris Concepcion, Saipan Mayor Ramon \u201cRB\u201d B. Camacho, Japan consul Ryoji Takagaki, Katori Shrine high priest Takeshi Katori, Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang, Kyowa Kensetsu chair Noboru Hirayama, and Japanese Society of the Northern Marianas chair Seiji Sato and vice chair Hiroko Tenorio. It was followed by the sharing of the beverage to guests.<\/p>\n

Apatang, in an interview, thanked Katori City for their support of the Japanese Autumn Festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to say thank you to Katori City for coming back this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that it\u2019s unfortunate that the festival has to happen on a rainy and monsoon season but nevertheless, being in good spirits, he encouraged people to enjoy the festival.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Concepcion was grateful that the traditional event happened despite the weather conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a nice crowd, it\u2019s exciting. We are grateful that the Japanese Society of the Northern Mariana Islands decided to continue hosting the festival tonight. This is I don\u2019t know for how many years, but it\u2019s been going on for a few decades, and we are very happy that the tradition continues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Concepcion added that the festival is a symbol of the strong friendship between the people of Japan and the Northern Mariana Islands.<\/p>\n

Concepcion mentioned that MVA is working hard to attract more Japanese tourists to CNMI.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working very hard every day to actually bring in more Japanese tourists. We have a representative office in Japan that does all the work that needs to be done to be able to market the CNMI to Japan. We have direct flights from Narita, three times a week, so we\u2019re working to build off of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite economic challenges in Japan, the MVA is still trying to capture a share of the outbound travel market.<\/p>\n

\u201cJapan\u2019s economy is stagnant, we understand the yen is not as strong as it used to be, so there\u2019s been a shift toward more domestic travel for the Japanese, but they are still traveling, so we\u2019re trying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concepcion added that the MVA participated in the ADEX Dive Show in Tokyo, Japan which is one of their lined-up activities to capture the Japanese market that happened on the same weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur MVA booth is there, so we know that the largest market for divers here is Japan historically, and so it remains today… We\u2019re doing some other campaigns together with United Airlines and some of the other partners that we have in Japan, JTB (Japan Tourist Bureau), HIS to have promotion and campaigns periodically throughout the year that is going to attract visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tenorio then said that the kendo (Japanese fencing) demonstration and a Katori dance that was supposed to be part of the program were canceled due to the rain. However, Katori provided Japanese toys for the children. The Awaodori dancers were the festival highlight, which made the event even more memorable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to thank chairman Hirayama for visiting us each year and bringing toys for our children,\u201d said Tenorio.<\/p>\n

Camacho in an interview expressed his gratitude as he mentioned his vision of uniting diverse communities on Saipan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to God that the wind has stopped, the typhoon did not come but the rain, I translate to be a blessing of putting this different culture to the community together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mayor continued to encourages collaboration and cooperation among different groups that aim to create a harmonious and prosperous society.<\/p>\n

Camacho emphasized on building relationship with the younger generations and said that we need to move on from the Battle of Saipan and focus on building relationships with the younger generation and that the younger generation needs to learn about the history of the land.<\/p>\n

Tenorio would like to thank Camacho and his staff for their tremendous support with logistical arrangements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have worked closely with our board members for weeks, accommodating many requests to make this event possible. We also extend our appreciation to the MVA, legislators who contributed water and financial support, local businesses who generously donated items for raffle prizes, and all the sponsors from the Japanese Society of the Northern Mariana Islands members.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The traditional breaking of the sake barrel opened the Japanese Autumn Festival program last Saturday at the Sugar King Park. From left, former Marianas Visitors Bureau managing director J.M. Guerrero\u2019s son, James; Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Chris Concepcion, Japan consul Ryogi Takagaki, Saipan Mayor Ramon \u201cRB\u201d B. Camacho, Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang, and Japanese Society of the Northern Mariana Islands chair Seiji Sato.<\/p>\n

-RACQUEL FLOYD
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

The crowd managed to enjoy the Japanese Autumn Festival despite of the weather program last Saturday at the Sugar King Park.<\/p>\n

-RACQUEL FLOYD
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the rain showers brought about by Tropical Depression Kong-Rey 23W, the Japanese Autumn Festival…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415444","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}