For the first time in seven years, the Regina Matsuri (festival) returned to the Queen City, hosted by the Regina Japanese Cultural Club. “This is a great opportunity for us to showcase our cultures and let our Canadian people who are interested in Japanese culture to learn what Japanese culture is and also get the spirit of Japan into their body,” said Koreto Yamauchi, the chair committee of the festival. Yamauchi says that every town in Japan has their own matsuri. According to Yamauchi, the Japanese community is small in Regina, with about 100 living in the province’s capital. Through their friendship agreement signed back in 2019, the festival hosted 27 performers travelling across the Pacific Ocean from Fujioka. An hour drive from Tokyo, Yamauchi says the city is known for its strawberries. The Fujioka residents also imported a sake from the city. Those travelling displayed performances, including the Midoricho Matsuri Bayashi and Nankin Tamasudare Group. For the Fujioka residents, it’s their first time visiting Canada. They will be staying in Regina for a week. “They’re having so much fun, I think they’re [working] kind of nonstop from morning to night, so they must be tired, but they’re full of energy,” said Yamauchi. “They really enjoy communicating with Regina people. I hope next year that Regina people can go to Fujioka.” The Fujioka-Regina connection is inspired in large part by Akira Yamaguchi, who moved to Saskatchewan in the early 2000’s as an ESL student to study English. “Wherever we go, people stop and they start to ask us, ‘Why are you here?’ because I don’t think many Regina people see so many Japanese people together right in the city,” she said. “They are so curious as to ‘why are you here.’ So, we start talking about the friendship agreement, and then the kind of activities that we have.” She spent about 10 years in the province, living in Regina and Moose Jaw. Yamaguchi did her Master of Applied Science at the University of Regina to become an engineer. When she lived in Moose Jaw, she said she was one of three Japanese people in the city. Yamaguchi also has a farming background - her husband grows crops such as barley and wheat in Fujioka, which is an interesting connection between her two homes. “I’ve seen so many people talking to me that they’ve been harvesting the wheat now or they’re growing the barley,” she said. “I think we have the same kind of practice, but maybe a different size. The Saskatchewan combine is gigantic; our combine is tiny because our country is such a small one. It’s been very interesting to see the different ways of doing the farming activity, but we grow the same sort of crops.” The event was sold out. Between performers and volunteers, there were about 100 people that helped put on the festival.
