Buena Park : Japanese Suit of Armor Decorates Chambers
The usually drab City Council chamber, fomerly decorated only with a few small paintings, an aerial photo of the city and an American flag, now has a gleaming 350-year-old samurai suit of armor to stand out against its wood-paneled walls.
The black-and-gold mail, once worn by the high-ranking Shogun Kikuchi Mitsuyasu of the Japanese island of Kyushu, was presented to the city “as a gesture of friendship between the East and West,” said Laurence Harper, general manager of the Buena Park Hotel.
Harper, Toshio Kuroiwa, president of the Toyko-based tour company Towa Holiday Center Co. Ltd., and Tsunehiko Umehara, president of Hakuunro Hotel in Shizuoka, Japan, wanted the armor displayed at City Hall in appreciation for the hospitality shown Japanese visitors by the people of Buena Park.
Harper, Kuroiwa and Umehara presented the armor to Mayor Jim Jarrell at the City Council meeting last Monday.
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