Tea Ceremony & Ribbon Cutting

The Japanese tea ceremony typically takes place in a tearoom with tatami floor. Professor David Matthews’ interior architecture studio offered a portable space for the Knox Asian Festival to share this tradition with a larger audience. Students in Matthews’ Japanese Aesthetics and Tennessee Craft explored tearooms across the region in order to create their final project.

Yesterday, we celebrated the dedication of this space with a ribbon cutting and traditional Japanese tea ceremony with our university community and representatives from the Japan-America Society of Tennessee, Inc. You can see the students’ work this September at the 11th annual Knoxville Asian Festival.

The studio received funding through the Angelo Donghai Foundation, who have supported students’ learning experiences in interior architecture for more than 20 years.

Knox News 
https://www.wbir.com/video/news/local/51-f1e38cea-8486-4a8f-8848-36bb1d3ac8dc

Best Event Award

Knox Asian festival won the Best Festival awards from the South East Festival and Event association tonight.

Thank you so much City of Knoxville for your support for 10 years and being there!

Thank you so much for all sponsors, vendors, performers, volunteers and each culture group. We could not make the impact without you.

New Years’ Events

We hosted a series of Happy New Year events, featuring Mochitsuki, a Green Tea Ceremony, and Calligraphy. It was a joyous occasion as we welcomed 240 members of the community, celebrating the arrival of the New Year in the traditional Japanese manner.

Sister City : CB Middle School Home Stay Program

10 students and 2 chaperones came to visit for the first time after COVID from Muroran City, Japan. Students did Homestay & Teacher visited L & N Stem school & Bearden High School. Mayor Kincannon welcomed the Sister City delegations. They exchanged presents.

Meeting with the Consul-General Yoichi Matsumoto

Executive Director of ACCTN Kumi Aldemran, Japan outreach Initiative Program coordinator Mana & Miku and Junko Tezuka-Arnold, PhD. Master Lecturer, Japanese visit the Consul-General Matsumoto to share their mission and plan for Japan Out-reach initiative Program.

Meeting With Knox County Mayor Jacobs

Japan outreach Initiative Program coordinator Mana arrived in Knoxville from Japan. Mana met County Mayor Jacobs. Mayor Jacobs connected us with a couple organizations that the JOI coordinator can be partners with.