Paper cranes with messages calling for peace and prosperity fluttered in the wind over San Francisco's Japantown on Friday, which made Richard Hashimoto rejoice. So, too, Carol Murata.
For the past eight months, Murata and Hashimoto have overseen the behind-the-scenes doings of a project that culminates today with a daylong festival to celebrate the start of fall and San Francisco's official 50-year connection to Osaka, Japan.
The sister-city relationship was born out of the aftermath of World War II, when President Dwight Eisenhower asked San Francisco Mayor George Christopher to pick a place in Japan to reconcile the differences between the former enemies.
Like San Francisco, Osaka is a port city with an identity that goes far beyond its country's borders. Today's festival features dancers, drummers, speeches, a religious blessing and a hanging of cranes on the 100-foot-tall Peace Pagoda that anchors Japantown. The flying cranes are part of a centuries-old Japanese tradition that has been adopted for today's festival.
"This is the first time we've had anything hanging from the pagoda," said Hashimoto, a native of Japan who is president of the Japantown Merchants Association. "It's of great significance."
For the past three months, visitors to Japantown have written their most treasured wishes onto thousands of pieces of origami paper. Volunteers then folded those papers into the shape of cranes, which were put into streamers that Friday were attached to the pagoda in Japantown's Peace Plaza.
About 17,000 cranes were completed. People wished "for health, prosperity, 'hope my mother gets well,' peace - a lot of peace," said Murata, a Japantown merchant who helped organize the crane project.
One young wisher, she said, asked for "my brother (to) stop pulling my hair."
Osaka Mayor Junichi Seki, who is visiting San Francisco, was ecstatic to see the flying cranes. Among the activities today is the renaming of Japantown's Buchanan Mall to Osaka Way. In February, Seki hosted San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on a trip he took to Osaka.
"Fifty years is quite a milestone," Seki said. "I believe (the relationship) is quite an asset to both cities."
Today's festival is called the Aki Matsuri, which means "Fall Festival" in Japanese. The tradition of folding cranes is a symbol of long life and happiness. Along with the streamers, scores of banners with cranes flew on Friday from Japantown's pagoda.
Murata says she made a wish that was folded into a crane now fluttering from the pagoda.
She said she wrote, "I hope this event turns out OK."
If you go
The Aki Matsuri (Fall Festival) happens today in San Francisco's Japantown, at Post and Buchanan streets, from noon to 8:30 p.m. For more information, go to sfjapantown.org.
E-mail Jonathan Curiel at jcuriel@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
