Successful twelfth edition of the Japan Market in Leiden

Last Sunday, 9 June, the Rapenburg and the Groenhazengracht in Leiden were all about Japan from Japan Museum SieboldHuis via the Hortus botanicus to the National Museum of Antiquities.
With a deafening performance by Pure Percussion on the Japanese taiko drums, the twelfth edition together with Yoshiko Kijima, the deputy ambassador of the Japanese embassy in the Netherlands, Yvonne van Delft, Alderman for Work & Income, Economy & Culture of the municipality of Leiden and Kris Schiermeier, director of Japan Museum SieboldHuis, officially opened at noon.

With almost a kilometre of stalls on the Rapenburg, the Japanese food court on the Groenhazengracht, boarding tours and narrative theatre in the Japan Museum SieboldHuis, the tour boats of the Leiden shipping company, martial arts demonstrations in the National Museum of Antiquities, music performances by the taiko group Pure Percussion, and dance performances by the Raiden Yosakoi on the Doelenpoort bridge, the Japan Market attracted over 9,500 visitors on white Sunday.

Every year, Japan Museum SieboldHuis organises the Japan Market to commemorate the Japanese Emperor’s visit to Japan Museum SieboldHuis and Rapenburg on 25 May 2000. Visitors were able to experience all facets of Japanese culture at more than 80 stalls offering culinary and cultural wares such as kimono, prints, bonsai, J-Pop, manga, sushi and takoyaki.

The next edition of the Japan Market will take place again on white Sunday, 31 May 2020.

Japan Museum SieboldHuis offers the best of ancient Japan in a historic Dutch house on the Rapenburg in Leiden: prints, lacquerware, ceramics, fossils, herbaria, prepared animals, coins, clothing, old maps and hundreds of other treasures. All objects were collected between 1823 and 1829 by the Bavarian doctor in the Dutch service Philipp Franz von Siebold.

Source: Press release
Photography: Martijn Rademakers