Japan Center Celebrates Anniversary

“Heisei Gannen”-- celebrating a new beginning--was the theme when the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center held its ninth anniversary and Pacific Pioneer Awards dinner Wednesday night at the Century Plaza.

The group, a consortium of businesses dedicated to community service, was also celebrating the fact that its new $14-million facility in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles has finally been paid for and was now, in the words of JACCC president Toshikazu Terasawa, “the foremost ethnic art and cultural center in Los Angeles.” Cards set at each place bore a drawing of the building under the caption, “By George We Did It!”

Mistress of Ceremonies Kathryn Doi Todd, representing the JACCC board of directors, welcomed guests and introduced a dais of dignitaries, including Japanese Consul General Hiromoto Seki, and the recipients of the group’s President’s Awards, Madame Sohwa Hitomi and Madame Sosei Matsumoto.

After a calligraphy demonstration by Hiroko Ikuta, who used a large black brush on a 10-foot-high white screen, Terasawa presented the awards to Hitomi and Matsumoto. The women are two of Southern California’s most widely respected practitioners and teachers of the ancient Japanese tea ceremony.

From Japan to Wyoming

Hitomi, 94, moved from Japan to Wyoming in 1917. In 1935, she moved to an apartment building in the garment district of Los Angeles, where she still resides and manages the building. At the age of 60, she returned to Japan to study Tea under a master. In 1974, she was awarded the Fifth Degree Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Japanese government, and one year later was rewarded with the highest-ranking certificate available to Tea practitioners by a Japanese Tea grand master.

Matsumoto teaches Tea extensively all over Southern California, and assisted at the serving of tea at the signing of the U.S.-Japan peace treaty at the end of World War II. With her help, Tea has been a regular part of the curriculum at UCLA since 1981.

Both women bowed, but did not speak, as the audience gave them a round of polite and sustained applause.

Also honored with the JACCC’s Pacific Pioneer Awards were Fujiko Ushiba, wife of the late Japanese ambassador to the U.S. Nobuhiko Ushiba, who accepted the award for herself and her husband, and AT&T;, which sent AT&T; Foundation President Reynold Levy to accept.

Bradley Keynote Speaker

Guests dined on American hotel-style fare (filet mignon, asparagus, sponge cake) before congratulatory remarks by Consul General Seki and a keynote speech by Mayor Tom Bradley, who arrived 45 minutes into the meal.

After dinner, soprano Hiroko Kitano performed selections from “Madama Butterfly” and “Lohengrin,” followed by a musical medley by Lisa Joe and Scott Nagatani.