The Torrance Recreation Center will look like...

The Torrance Recreation Center will look like a corner of Japan today as the Torrance Sister City Assn. presents its annual Japanese Cultural Festival. The event, to be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., highlights the city’s 18-year relationship with the Japanese city of Kashiwa.

Visitors to the free festival will be able to sample Japanese food, watch traditional Japanese dancing and listen to music on the stringed koto and the taiko , a large folk drum. There also will be exhibits of Japanese carp, known as koi , and bonsai, as well as demonstrations of calligraphy and the traditional tea ceremony.

Special workshops will allow people to do more than watch as they learn the intricacies of such Japanese arts as origami, in which paper is folded to resemble flowers and animals.

“If people don’t know about Japanese culture, we hope they will come and learn a lot of things at the festival,” said Hazel Taniguchi, association vice president.

The festival, which draws people from as far away as Pasadena and the San Fernando Valley, raises funds for the association’s student exchange program with Kashiwa. Each summer, eight students and an adult leader from Torrance spend three weeks in their Japanese sister city. An equivalent delegation from Japan visits Torrance.

“Our hope is that our students and the Kashiwa students will learn each others’ cultures,” Taniguchi said.

The recreation center is located at 3341 W. Torrance Blvd., at Madrona Avenue.