hello, welcome to "asian pacific america." i'm robert handa, your host for our show here on nbc bay area and cozi-tv. it's that time of year. time for the northern california cherry blossom festival, and this time, it's a golden journey. 50 years of japanese culture celebration. we start with a look back at the golden journey of the festival. its history and where we are now. also the northern california cherry blossom queen program, the honor and responsibilities of those cultural ambassadors. then we go to the sykora classic competition which is held at the cherry blossom festival. that deceptively simple looking

game that has grown into a huge pastime and for some, an obsession. >> and then, we continue our tradition of a live artistic cultural performance with our bay area dance group with a performance. all that on our show today. i grew up in the bay area, and don't know if i have ever emissed a cherry blossom festival. the past few years, my family has been honored to be in the parade, but i still remember the family comes to san francisco to a festival that just team seemed to get bigger and bigger and never lost the initial charm. here to join us through the festival, are george, a longtime volunteer and festival chairman and emcee for the parade, nicky is also here. she's a grand parade emcee as well as a director and choreographer for the cherry blossom queen program. good to see you. >> thoank you for having us her.

>> you were showing us this comic book we have to show people. hold it up for the camera. it's an old dennis the menace comic book from 1977 that actually featured the cherry blossom festival. that shows a little bit about just how much it's become part of a cultural theme. >> hank did a beautiful job. it's a very, very comprehensive -- >> go ahead and hold it to the cover so they can see the cover. >> the cover? >> yeah, because that is really amazing. >> there's dennis. >> anyway. there you go. and hank just covers the whole festival. >> and we wir looking at a map earlier about how small the parade once was and now it's huge. >> the first parade was only 12 blocks in japan town. now it runs all the way from city hall to japan town. >> one of the things i remembered even as a kid is that it wasn't just the japan town and japanese american community that comes out. all sorts of people, all sorts of communities join in the

festivities which makes it so much a san francisco event of the area. >> that's right. we feel it is a major event and that's what the san francisco travel people tell us as well. >> absolutely. what's going to be kind of unique or new about this year's festival for the 50th? >> this year, we have a huge contingent directly from japan. >> oh. >> much larger than usual. every year, we do have participants from japan, but this year, being the 50th, there's a gigantic group. >> what strikes you the most about this golden journey? how much it's evolved? >> that we got here. >> yeah, yeah. >> because it's not easy to put on. >> really. it's a huge accomplishment in my opinion. it's a volunteer effort entirely. and it requires some knowledge

of the japanese culture. it requires a lot of hard work, patience. >> that's a labor of love for everybody, though. >> it is. >> give me an idea here, i even had the honor of emceeing and being a judge. >> yes, i remember that. >> yes. i was a little rough on a couple of the candidates. they told me to be. >> yes. >> because it's not easy. you want them to be cultural ambassadors. >> absolutely. >> what's happening with this year's competition? >> actually, we are celebrating 50 years. we're welcoming all the past court members. and we have a huge amount of court members that are coming in from various areas. and you know, they're going to be part of this celebration. so we're looking forward to celebrating together with our old sisters and families. and it's interesting because i have been with this queen program for almost 30 years now. and i have seen the candidates that have gone through this

program. they've gone through their higher education. they've gotten married. they have families now. and you know, i'm just kind of waiting for the second generation to come in and hopefully i'll be able to help them as well. and impact their lives in some small way. >> yeah, that was always one of the great things about that part of it, was that it kind of brought a lot of young people into the event. >> yes. >> and you're seeing that a lot now. i know a lot of young people at the last few festivals. >> that's right. that's right. >> they have adopted it. >> the participation by the youth and the young adults has grown. as has general participation. >> yeah. well, it's great. keeps growing. looking forward to seeing you there. the northern california cherry blossom festival, a golden journey, 50 years of japanese

culture, april 8th, 9th, and 15th and 16th from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. with the grand parade on april 16th from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. and you can get more nigh on nbcbayarea.com. and stop by the nbc bay area booth. >> and we come back, the game and competition with a professional player. in our suvs,

you feel every mountain

we've ever conquered. in our sports cars, you feel every podium we've ever climbed. and now, they've come together to create something you've never felt before. introducing the glc coupe. part suv. part sports car. all mercedes-benz. well, i play it. my frahmally plays it, and just about every japanese american friend i know does too. it's called kendama. while it's a fun and sometimes maddening activity, some people do it more seriously, do it better, and even go pro. joining me is jake, a professional kendama player competing at a kendama competition at the cherry blossom festival. welcome to the show.

>> thank you for having me. this is awesome. >> give us an idea, first of all, in terms of it's an intriguing looking game. how did you get started? what's the form of it? >> the kendama is a basic traditional game. there's something very intriguing about it, like you said, because you look at it and you pretty much automatically know what to do with it. you put the ball in the up. there's all these other options for it. in japan, it's a very traditional game. when it came to the u.s. around 2007, it was brought over by action sport athletes like snowboarders, pro skiers. so it kind of adapted this freestyle activity. it's much more freestyle, expressive, all over the place, even some b-boy inspiration. it's gone to a very expressive, fun game. >> in a way, the creativity is part of the judging. >> absolute e. there's multiple different ways of competing. there's ways like the kendama world cup where there's a list

of tricks and you have to accomplish the tricks in a certain amoint of time. in tokyo, there's the catch and flow freestyle championships where everyone faces off like a b-boy contest. like, you have 45 seconds. let's see your stuff. i have 45 seconds to come back at you. there's judges that award a winner and there's a world champion at the end. >> they set it up well. >> yeah. >> we have some video of you. let's see that before we see a live demonstration. >> it wouldn't be where it is at today if it wasn't for jake. that's the bottom line. >> you can take kendama as far as you want to take it. >> kendama has taken me to new friendships. it's taken me to different cities that i would never go to. it's taken me to places where the state is about to break down. >> okay.

well. of course, we have seen you do it on video, now i've been watching you live. give me an idea, first of all, in terms of how you got interested in it and what is it that makes you kind of get so good at it that you became a pro? >> so, the man you saw in the video, matt, he's a really good friend of mine and we used to skate together. he would always have a kendama at all of our skate sessions. at first, i saw it and was like, man, that's cool. but man, i'm already skating, i have video and film. i don't need another hobby. because i knew when i picked it up, it would be my thing. then, it's my thing. it was something that naturally organically happened for the fact that i just kept playing and having fun with it. again, my background is in film making. i would make videos of it. every time someone would come to my apartment, they would play kendama. i said, let's have a party out of kendama. come over, have some fun. we started doing kendama

competitions which in 2010, no one was doing yet. ewere filming those and putting those up. that's what started spreading it around the u.s. and through the bay area. >> i don't know if people are aware of how popular it is and once people try it, you do get hooked. show us some tricks. >> absolutely. what i'll do is start off with basic tricks and show you freestyle adapgzs. we're going to pull it up to the most basic, the big cup. switch it over to the small cup. the base cup. and then getting on the spike on top. you can do that exact same trick but add a little bit of -- a little bit of flair to it. we add a little style just using the cups there. that's just the beginning of kendama. there's hundreds and thousands of tricks in combination that you can do with the kendama.

keep in mind, you can do anything upside down. there's the spike. i'm going to hold this, get an airplane. >> wow. >> you can also get lighthouse. put it in, start utilizing the string as a counterweight. and getting those tricks. and one thing that's great about kendama. i have been playing for eight years and i don't land the trick every time. with kendama usa, we have adamented the philosophy from japan which is a little change for the better every single day. so with kendama, we practice that by practicing every day, reaching out to new people, having fun, coming onto awesome shows like this and teaching you as well. >> i do a little bit just fooling around with my son and my daughter who are much better at it. they tend to just always like to go for that. is there a move, though, that is kind of your specialty? what is your sort of like your move that you kind of use to try to -- >> so, whenever i compete, i try

to really blend the boundaries between traditional play and freestyle. i really like to utilize just the cups. one of my tricks might not technically be the most insane hard tricks, but i really just enjoy utilizing the cups with it and the string. working it in, getting some turntables. spiking it. over the shoulder. throwing it. and going with the spike and getting it in the end. >> wow. >> that's a really fun way to play. >> you remind me, we had the national yo-yo champion here. it was amazing to see how many different things they could do. my son always wants to go for the spike. >> okay. a great way to learn the spike. i guarantee you can get it in five tries. what we're going to do is hold it straight up and down. hold it mostly with your fingertips. there we go. now bring the ball straight up, and put the spike under the ball. get it. oh, try number one. i bet you have it in five. so this is the other thing that's fun.

you get to teach people how to play. you get to build relationships and make new friends through this game called kendama. and with the classic coming up, we really focus on teaching. >> you're a good teacher. >> and now my son won't laugh at me when i come home. >> absolutely. a certified kendama player. a professional. >> and when people come to the cherry blossom festival, what should they do? where will you be. >> absolutely. if you come to the cherry blossom festival, there's so many amazing activities going on. all you look for is a giant group of people playing kendama. we'll have people playing all over the place, we're also focusing on workshops. if you have never picked up kendama, we have the highest professional players. or if you're a seasoned veteran and a pro, you might learn something new. at the end, we'll have an amateur sykora champion.

>> next, a community calendar including highlights of the cherry blossom festival. stay with us. so tell us your big idea for getting the whole country booking on choice hotels.com. four words, badda book. badda boom...

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coming up, we have traditional japanese dancing, more on that and other community events. the cherry blossom festival with a theme, a golden journey, 50 years of japanese culture, takes place the weekend of april 8th and 9th, with the next week. with the parade on april 16th. it will be across from the japan town peace plaza with games, prizes, and performances including a grand prize trip to maui with ticketstume the maui resort and spa, and we'll also have an added bonus consumer investigator chris chmura will be there to hear your consumer problems. >> also, the 40th annious san jose japan town japanese

american festival is going on. as many of you know, the festival offers all sorts of traditional and nontraditional food prepared on site as well as arts and crafts from more than 60 vendors throughout the western united states, including hawaii. with entertainment from bands and san jose tyco. and aunt lily's flower book, 100 years of legalized racism is going on may 27th and 28th as well as june 3rd. a show to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of an executive order and will feature our friends brenda and her husband emmy-winning composer mike ezu. you can get all that information on all those events on nbcbayarea.com. >> coming up, a performance from awako wren.

and we're proud to conclude our program with the san

francisco dance group, awak awako wren. >> we have our dancers and our musicians. >> how long have you been together? >> we have been together since 2011. >> all right. and you're playing how many t e times at the vesttle in. >> we're going to be at both weekend and this is our sixth year there. >> what are we going to see? a traditional japanese dance. it's a dance from shakima, japan, and it's now here in san francisco. >> thank you for being here. all right. enjoy. ♪

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♪ ♪ >> thank you very much. that was great. all right. traditional japanese dancing, the cherry blossom queen. how much more can you ask for? get more information on the cherry blossom festival and all of our guests on nbcbayarea.com and find us on facebook and twitter. thanks to all of our guests and performers. join us next week and every week here on "asian pacific america." thanks for watching, and bewe we you at the festival. thank you.

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i know that we're all going to make a deal on health care. >> i'm quite sure people in the west wing had no idea i was there. >> if the president puts russian dressing on his salad. >> to end discrimination in north carolina. >> heading to the national championship. good morning, and welcome to "sunday today." i'm hallie jackson filling in for willie geist who is enjoying a rare day off. we have lots to get to this morning, including a devastating landslide in colombia, leaving nearly 200 people dead, hundreds more missing. we'll get you caught up on the latest details. plus a big fight brewing on capitol hill this week over supreme court nominee neil gorsuch. will republicans use the so-called nuclear option to get hi