Hikari No Sato in Sierra Madre brings a welcoming setting to learn Japanese.

By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS
RAFU STAFF WRITER

The bright, airy space tucked into a quaint plaza of small shops in Sierra Madre feels like a place to meet friends for afternoon tea, rather than a classroom.

“I wanted to come up with a name that shed light on Japanese culture … and it sounded good,” explained Bryan Takeda, the founder of Hikari No Sato, a new learning center that offers Japanese language classes for all ages.

The space in the historic district of Sierra Madre is a physical extension of the online classes that have been offered for several years via Takeda’s Hikari Japanese Academy. The mission has been to provide a dynamic and immersive learning experience for anyone interested in the Japanese language and exploring the richness of Japanese culture.

Takeda’s timing would appear to be spot on, as interest in all things Japanese have spiked over the last year. The cuisine, the popularity of anime or television programs like “Shōgun,” even the emergence of Japanese stars in Major League Baseball have put a new global focus on the country. Foreign tourism to Japan reached an all-time high of 36 million visitors last year, according to the Japan Tourism Agency.

Takeda’s focus certainly stems from his roots in the local community, however. He has long been deeply involved with partnerships and student exchanges with Mishima, Pasadena’s sister city in the Japanese prefecture of Shizuoka.

The new school is something he’s had in the works for years. Now retired from his career in economics and promotional products, Hikari No Sato is truly a labor of love and a chance to give back to the community. The name means “Village of Light.”

“I’ve been very active in the community, Japanese and Japanese American community, for most of my adult life, and we all speak about the importance of preserving our culture, right?” said Takeda, who grew up in Pasadena and whose parents sent him to Japanese school on Saturdays. “I realized that we need to really teach the language. I’m a firm believer that we can’t separate language from culture, but I also realized that we needed to teach Japanese a little differently than we used to. More places are teaching it now, but it’s being taught in a very traditional way in many schools. I know the traditional way, and I know that I didn’t necessarily enjoy it, so I think that we should teach it in a way that is relevant today, and in a way that young people will enjoy learning Japanese.”

Activities at Hikari No Sato are in small groups, led by native speakers of Japanese. The room is adorned with decorative kimono, traditional dolls, even a record player that is occasionally spinning Japanese pop hits from the 1980s and ’90s.
Takeda has also put on display an antique tansu cabinet that belonged to his grandfather, during the family’s wartime incarceration at Manzanar.

Takeda hopes that his school can be a bridge for generations who might have some connection to Japanese culture as well as many who in recent years have found Japan to be quite fashionable.

“Any trip to Little Tokyo now on the weekends, you will see it populated by plenty of non-Japanese people who are obviously very, very interested in the culture,” he explained. “It’s an opportunity for an introduction to Japanese culture and Japanese values. I think the goal for me, for these exchange programs and for Hikari No Sato, is to encourage those folks to take a deeper dive into Japanese culture, to really understanding it at a level below the surface of pop culture.”

Hikari No Sato is located at 38 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Suite I, in Sierra Madre. Phone (626) 396-9927 or visit www.hikarijapaneseacademy. com

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