Latest News

Kimochi Inc.’s annual Silver Bells Arts and Crafts Faire will be held Saturday, Dec. 13, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at a new venue — the Event Center at St. Mary’s Cathedral, located at 1111 Gough St. (at Geary Boulevard), walking distance from San Francisco’s Japantown.

This free one-day event features handcrafted items made by more than 70 talented Asian and Pacific Islander artisans from throughout California and Hawaii.

Parking is available. Kimochi will also be running a free shuttle to/from Japantown’s Peace Plaza (Post and Buchanan streets).

TOKYO (Kyodo) — A Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer failed to shoot down a mock ballistic missile in space Nov. 19 with a U.S.-developed interceptor over Hawaii, Japanese Defense Ministry officials said Nov. 20.

The high-tech Aegis destroyer Choukai successfully test-fired a Standard Missile-3 interceptor near the island of Kauai at 4:21 p.m., but the interceptor lost track of the target seconds before it was supposed to hit it, the officials said.

by KELLY NOGUCHI, Hokubei Mainichi

(Editor’s note: San Francisco Taiko Dojo will present the International Taiko Festival on Saturday, Nov. 22, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 23, at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Tickets: 510-642-9988 or http://tickets.berkeley.edu.)

I met an unassuming Grand Master Seiichi Tanaka at a cafe in the Japan Center located near his taiko showroom. There seemed to be no indication that he was a world-traveled, internationally honored “father of taiko” in America.

The Japan Exchange and Teaching Program Alumni Association of Northern California (JETAANC) recently held its Career Networking Forum at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco.

The event, which featured panel discussions and a networking session, was designed to help returning JET participants seek Japan-related careers.

Sponsored by the Japanese government, JET enables people from the U.S. and other countries to work in Japan for a year or more as assistant language teachers (ALT) in public schools or as coordinators of international relations (CIR) at local government offices.