Jinxie: Culture Club Tuesday - AZ Asian Festival 2008

Posted on April 22, 2008 by jinxie

I’ve missed a few culture clubs due to an overwhelming schedule. Being the current reigning Miss Asia Arizona, I do get asked to appear at a lot of events, especially Asian related events. This past weekend was the 14th Annual Arizona Asian Festival held in downtown Phoenix. The Asian Festival is the biggest event for all of the Asian communities and since my reign was extended a few months I was lucky enough to be in attendance for the second time as Miss Asia Arizona!

Why is this culture club about an Asian festival? Why is Asian culture related to geek culture? Since a lot of our technology, games and animation comes from Asia (namely Japan - Square, Nintendo, Sony, anime…) it’s natural for us to want to see what else these countries have to offer.

The Arizona Asian Festival runs for three days: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It’s put on by the Arizona Asian America Association (http://www.aaaa-az.org) and all of the ethnic communities participate and contribute with food, booths, shops and performances. I like to call it the 3-day trip through Asia. As Miss Asia Arizona, I was asked to MC on Friday and Saturday, so I didn’t get to see much of the festival but I got a first class seat to all the performances. I recorded and photographed as much as I could given I had to follow a schedule and was limited to where I could take it.

I’m going to limit this blog to what I think qualifies as geek culture, but I’ll include links to pics and videos if anyone wants to see more! Remember that 1: I was always at the side of the stage and 2: I use a basic point-and-shoot Sony cybershot so please forgive me if the vids aren’t great!

The Japanese community and Land of the Rising Sun productions performed a complete kimono dressing performance. Although it seems like it would be boring to watch, it’s actually quite intrguing. Kabuki dress the model, as the model acts as a doll being dressed in layers of silk. The following are a few photos, and a video. Check the links at the bottom for the rest of the videos.