Generations of Japanese Americans celebrate San Jose’s Obon Festival

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SAN JOSE — While San Jose’s Japantown has seen family restaurants close and new apartment towers change the neighborhood, at least one tradition has been steady for 84 years: the annual Obon Festival.

The Obon Festival, known as the gathering of joy, is a Japanese Buddhist custom honoring the dead and is marked by a traditional dance, bon odori.

Phyllis Yoshikawa, 77, has been dancing at the Obon Festival since she was 12.

Yoshikawa was born in January 1942, months before her family was forced to relocate to the Poston Internment Camp in Arizona. When they were released from the camp and returned to California, her family gravitated toward San Jose’s Japantown, and she has danced at Obon since.

“Every year there’s someone in the family who passes away who I honor,” said Yoshikawa. Last year was the first time she didn’t dance, because of a leg injury.

The festival is rooted in the story of one of the original Buddha’s disciples, Mogallana, whose mother had died and passed into a hell known as the realm of hungry ghosts. Distraught, the disciple asked the Buddha how he could liberate her from this state, and the Buddha said he should offer a selfless feast for his fellow monks.

After the feast, Mogallana sees his mother released from hell, and begins dancing in joy, with the other monks joining him.

Every year at Obon, dancers with the temple invite attendees to join them in bon odori to honor the dead.

“What’s important is the instructions of the Shakyamuni Buddha — to go out and be involved in the community,” said Gerald Sakamoto, head minister of the San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin which hosts the festival every year.

Whether the story is taken literally or metaphorically, the festival is about not only thanking the dead but being mindful of how life is sustained by our relationships, Sakamoto said.

“If we see death only as an end, we don’t see how relationships continue to be part of our lives,” said Sakamoto.

The first San Jose Obon Festival was held in the mid-1930s, although the festival was not held during World War II, when Japanese Americans across the United States, including in San Jose’s Japantown, were forcibly relocated to internment camps.

The two-day festival, held on Fifth Street in front of the the Buddhist church, includes children’s games, food stalls, taiko drumming performances, book and craft sales, and introductory talks about Buddhism.

Generations of the same families and community organizations — along with their neighbors, significant others and co-workers — have run the booths and food stalls.

The Japanese language school that holds weekend classes at the temple run the gyoza dumpling booth. The Adult Buddhist Association, which Yoshikawa spearheads, handle T-shirt sales.

“It’s the same games that I remember when I was 7. The festival is just bigger now,” said Jeff Ota, 47, who hasn’t missed an Obon Festival his entire life and now brings his two children along.

Ota’s family runs the information booth — before that, it was his grandfather.

“If you take over a booth, you’re here for another 40 or 50 years,” Ota joked.

It’s one of the few times Ota sees his entire extended family — at least 400 people in and around San Jose.

“It’s like a family reunion. But, every year, someone passes, so we go dance in their memory,” Ota said. “And the ones who are still alive, they come by [my booth] to say hi.”

Ernie Inouye, 89, has been running the chicken teriyaki stand at Obon for more than 35 years.

Over the two-day festival, Inouye and a cohort of children, in-laws and grandchildren will serve over 7,000 pieces of chicken to the crowds.

“This is a family affair — I threaten them,” Inouye deadpans.

As Inouye nears 90, his 60-year-old son Stuart is preparing to take over the booth.

But not quite yet.

“I’m not pushing up the grass yet,” Inouye said. “I’m walking on it.”

Contact Thy Vo at 408-200-1055 or tvo@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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