Tsukimi: Moon Viewing Festival at Jackson Park

Please register here: https://endurancecui.active.com/event-reg/select-race?e=97554820
The Chicago Park District's Osaka Garden is honored to invite you to our annual Tsukimi, or Moon Viewing Festival! Tsukimi, or moon viewing, has been a popular pastime in Japan for centuries. Traditionally, tsukimi is celebrated with music and poetry while appreciating the beauty of the moon harvest moon. Later, rice offerings were made to express gratitude for a good harvest. Today's celebrations bring these customs together. This year we welcome guests to join us for an evening of small poems under the moon read by a haiku poet or two from the Haiku Society of America and Regina Harris Baiocchi of Chicago's own Haiku Festival. Learn more about this craft and discover your own harvest moon poems among friends, mochi, and moonlight. This event will both share haiku written by professional poets, and teach guests how to craft their own. Master shodo calligrapher Heikun Oda will perform a "big brush" calligraphy demonstration, and we also will have a limited number of tsukimi dango, or moon viewing mochi to enjoy. These mochi resemble the moon with their round shape and white coloring, and acknowledge the appreciation of a good harvest from the year, as mochi is made of rice. The event will be serenaded by prerecorded music provided by Asian Improv Arts' Toyoakimoto Ensemble. Haiku written at the event will have an opportunity to be shared on the Osaka Garden website! We thank our partners at the Asian Improv Arts Midwest, the Japanese Culture Center, and Japanese Arts Foundation for an evening celebrating tradition and community in the Osaka Garden.
No dogs, food, or photography are permitted in the Osaka Garden. Thank you for helping us be great stewards of this historic gem in Chicago! This event is free and accessible to all, capacity permitting.
We recommend parking in the Hayes Lot south of the garden, or on Stony Island.