Nashville’s COMIC-CON

Saturday March 24th was Nashville’s fourth annual Cherry Blossom Festival. The mission of this festival is to plant 1000 cherry blossom trees by planting 100 trees each year for 10 years. According to the website, this is to help beautify the city…and to also create a backdrop for the Cherry Blossom Festival. Apparently someone had the great idea to have a festival about a specific plant in a city that didn’t have those plants – Uh oh, we better plant some to make this festival legit! I hope this doesn’t backfire like the Kudzu Festival of ’72.

Cherry Blossoms, though they are found in many countries, are Japanese in origin and are often used symbolically in their culture. Despite the fact that I’m half-Japanese ((Have I mentioned that yet?)), the idea of the Cherry Blossom Festival being a Japanese cultural event was not at the forefront of my mind. To be honest, the only reason I went to the festival was to eat some ice-cream sandwiches and have some Italian sodas from Sugar Wagon – the lovely sweet treat catering duo of Jane Nickell and Tracy Ardoin-Jenkins for whose company I do graphic design.

Though the salted caramel & chocolate chip cookie sandwich I ate and the green tea & sesame almond cookie sandwich Bull Dog Corner had and the pineapple-vanilla Italian soda we washed it down with (( Is your mouth watering?? It should be – – facebook.com/SugarWagon )) were definitely the highlight of the trip, there were some other interesting things to be seen at the Cherry Blossom Festival. Including, but not limited to, a lone performer on stage doing Matrix-like action sequences in between miming the gestures of watching TV and drinking sodas. He was Asian.

I would rather not give him credit for it, but Bull Dog Corner so aptly renamed it Nashville’s Comic-con. If you don’t know already, in laymen’s terms, Comic-con is a giant nerd convention. Yes, I’m not ignorant to the relationship between nerdy Caucasians and Japanese fanfare, but there is a time and place where it is appropriate to dress like Sailor Moon and it is always at home with your door shut.

Okay, I take that back. I don’t want to be the person that says it’s not okay for you to be you. People should do what makes them happy and be comfortable with who they are…but we gave you a day to do that and it’s called Halloween.

To be honest, I just think there is something kind of weird about dressing as a racial stereotype. You don’t see anyone picking out a costume to wear to the African-American Festival. (( Anything you just pictured in your head makes you racist. )) There were pock-marked, ghostly pale white kids in kimonos as far as the eye could see. I wasn’t thrilled about this, but I let it slide. I’m not so sure how the Japanese country singers on stage felt about it though. I guess they are being kind of racist too now that I think about it. (( Because “Southern” is a race. )) So you think you can just come to Nashville and sing country music? Go play your koto.

That thing above is a koto.

Although I’m not suggesting anyone go buy some and put them on, traditional Japanese attire is slightly acceptable/appropriate for the festival. Japanimation costumes, however, ARE NOT. Yes, Japanese people created Pokemon. That does not mean one should dress like Pikachu for the Cherry Blossom Festival.

…or Link from Zelda.

Or whatever this guy is supposed to be.

And I’m going to go ahead and make the statement that only Japanese girls look cute wearing animal ears. Top hats, on the other hand, are acceptable.

And then there’s this guy. No comment.

I’m not saying that people can’t dress like this. They can. Dress like a weirdo all you want. I just have the inkling that these people felt like they were picking out attire especially for the Cherry Blossom Festival and this is where they went wrong. Maybe some of you dress like giant ninjas everyday and you just stumbled upon this event. If this is the case, my apologies. I’m sure you wore this outfit to the Titans game as well. But I think I’m correct when I assume you carefully planned your outfit in honor of this Japanese celebration and thought your flaming red wig and creepy doll were not only suitable but paying homage to the people you so unhealthily adore and that is what I find off-putting.

The Australian Festival is in June. Better start making your Wiggles costumes.

waj mahal.