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Go Draws a Crowd at DC Sakura Mat­suri Street Fes­ti­val

The go booth at the 54th Sakura Mat­suri Street Fes­ti­val on April 12 in Wash­ing­ton D.C. was so popular that organizers quickly went through the more than 200 brochures they brought. The event runs in conjunction with the annual Cherry Blos­som Fes­ti­val in Washington. Teachers -- including booth coordinator John Goon, Todd Heidenreich and Benjamin Hong -- found themselves teaching multiple students while spectators watched and eagerly awaited their turn at the boards. "For all those who have any Japan­ese cul­tural events in your local area, I def­i­nitely encour­age you all to try and set up a booth like we did," says Hong. "Because at the end of the day, if there was only one thing I learned from this event, it is that go has a real poten­tial to appeal to all types of peo­ple and can even­tu­ally become a house­hold sta­ple like chess or check­ers if we keep spread­ing the word with out­reach ini­tia­tives like this one." - photo courtesy Benjamin Hong; read his complete Sakura Matsuri blog post here