54 years ago festival began in a garage and has grown
Published in the April 30 – May 13, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
Photo by Marty Cheek
Taiko drummers perform during this year’s Haru Matsuri festival.
The South Valley’s Japanese-American community celebrated its 54th Haru Matsuri spring festival April 13 at the Buddhist Cultural Center with local and out-of-town visitors enjoying traditional Japanese cuisine, a farmers market, martial arts demonstrations and the energetic beat of taiko drums.
“It all started in a kind of garage with cooked rice,” said organizer Murv Little, relating the origins of the annual festival. “The Japanese-Americans in Morgan Hill after World War II got together and decided to have a spring festival. So everyone brought their rice pots to someone’s garage and from there it kind of grew to what it is today.”
More than half a century later, the festival still attracts people from around the Bay Area, with an estimated 3,000 guests finding themselves at this year’s festival, according to Little. Money raised from the one-day event helps defray the Buddhist Community Center’s operation and maintenance costs.
Milwaukee resident Erik Irmiger was visiting family members in Morgan Hill with his wife when her cousin Brooke Bailey took them to the Haru Matsuri. It was a pleasant spring-weather outing for the couple, he said.
“I love it,” Irmiger said. “This is absolutely not what I was expecting to do today. I wasn’t expecting to be out here eating gyoza and teriyaki chicken and watching the sportsmanship demonstration and listening to taiko drums, so this was a pleasant surprise.”
Morgan Hill resident Leslie Miles enjoyed the afternoon with her husband Charles Weston and friends, nibbling on teriyaki chicken as they watched the San Jose Taiko drummers perform.
“It’s such an amazing opportunity we have to learn about the Japanese culture and learn about Buddhism and all the Japanese martial arts, the drums, at this wonderful fair,” she said.
The festival also provides an opportunity for guests to learn the story of how Japanese-Americans helped build the farming industry in the South Valley region, she said.
“One of the things that is really interesting in the main building is a series of dioramas that talk about the local history of the Japanese in the valley, particularly the agricultural history of the Japanese farmers in the South Valley,” she said.
The freshly-made food is always a big draw for many of the guests who come to the festival each year, Little said. People line up for special Japanese cuisine sold at the tents, including teriyaki box lunches, sushi, manju (a traditional confection made from rice powder), and gyoza (Japanese pot stickers). The teriyaki sauce is specially made for the festival, he said.
“Boy, do we cook rice,” Little said. “Over a few days, we cooked over 360 pounds of rice this year.”
Helping youth in Morgan Hill gain an interest and appreciation of Japanese culture is another component of the festival. The Sister Cities of Morgan Hill nonprofit group is sponsoring a trip for several Morgan Hill middle school students to travel to the Sister City of Mizuho, Japan, this summer. Several of these students were at the Haru Matsuri festival selling candy, ice cream, tea and coffee to raise money for the July 9 to 19 adventure.
Student Chloe Little has never been out of the United States and is studying basic Japanese words and phrases to communicate with her host family during her visit. “I want to make new friends along the way and it’s going to be a once-in-a life time experience,” she said.
Anyone who wants to help students raise money to go to Mizuho should visit the Sister Cities of Morgan Hill website at www.morganhillsistercities.com.
