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Gardena’s large Japanese community is celebrating its heritage this weekend with displays and demonstrations of Japanese dolls, needlework, bonsai, sumi-ye painting and other arts, a variety of foods, as well as martial-arts tournaments. The 29th annual Japanese Cultural Show winds up a two-day run today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Nakaoka Memorial Community Center, 1700 W. 162nd St.
Special attractions today will be a 1 p.m. concert by musicians playing the koto and samisen, which are stringed instruments. A tea ceremony will take place at 2 p.m. and the art of Japanses calligraphy will be displayed at 3:30 p.m. Martial-arts tournaments will be held at Rush Memorial Gymnasium, which is across the street from the Nakaoka center. Participants will have a go at each other in kendo, a form of combat using bamboo swords, and naginata, which utilizes long bamboo poles with knives at the end.
A highlight of the show is the landscaped Oriental garden created by the Gardena Valley Gardeners’ Assn. It has a pond filled with Japanese carp, known as koi .
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