{"id":60641,"date":"2025-07-12T22:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T22:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/60641\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T22:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T22:08:10","slug":"philadelphia-celebrates-tanabata-festival-at-shofuso-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/60641\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia celebrates Tanabata festival at Shofuso house"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphians gathered at the <a href=\"https:\/\/japanphilly.org\/shofuso\/shofuso-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shofuso house<\/a> in West Fairmount Park on Saturday to celebrate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.japan-suite.com\/blog\/2014\/7\/6\/tanabata-story-of-two-star-crossed-lovers?srsltid=AfmBOopXg9kLhCYPP_PYUhpy6SSND1Mw9WLjj7kQodkynGuVXrpS484p\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tanabata<\/a>, a Japanese holiday that commemorates the story of two stars, Vega and Altair.\n<\/p>\n<p>Guests toured the historic house, participated in origami crafts and watched traditional Japanese performances and listened to storytellers.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-708117\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/philadelphia_tanabata_festival3_07122025-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"People look at koi fish in a pound at Philadelphia's Shofuso facility\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"  \/>Visitors tour the historic Shofuso facility, peering over the pond to admire koi fish. (Vida Lashgari\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n<p>Tanabata is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. A common custom is to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.japan-suite.com\/blog\/2014\/7\/6\/tanabata-story-of-two-star-crossed-lovers?srsltid=AfmBOopXg9kLhCYPP_PYUhpy6SSND1Mw9WLjj7kQodkynGuVXrpS484p\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> write wishes on small pieces of colored paper called tanzaku and hang them on bamboo trees<\/a>.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Candice Graham, 38, a Philadelphia resident, said she began working at the Shofuso house in 2017 because she \u201calways had an interest in Japanese culture.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>She said that the Tanabata celebration is one of her favorites, despite being a smaller event that the facility hosts.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just really colorful and people get to write their hopes and wishes and dreams down,\u201d Graham said. \u201cI just think that\u2019s something that\u2019s something very sweet.\u201d<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-708119\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/philadelphia_tanabata_festival5_07122025-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"A woman hangs her written wishes on the trees, a practice of the Tanabata holiday.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"  \/>A woman hangs her written wishes on the trees, a practice of the Tanabata holiday. (Vida Lashgari\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n<p>As part of the festivities, visitors watched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casualfifth.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Casual Fifth<\/a>, a taiko drumming and dance ensemble of five performers.\n<\/p>\n<p>Akiira Di Sandro, 26, of Philadelphia, began playing taiko in college before joining the organization in 2020.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of folk festivals have taiko as a way to get people moving and make it a cheerful thing,\u201d Di Sandro said.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":60642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,2104,170,1448,2830,1311,43838,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-60641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-festivals","10":"tag-japan","11":"tag-pa","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-shofuso-house","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114842547354026683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}