cultural heritage is still evident traditional art such as she although we are passed from generation to generation they express respect towards nature and also a way you know praying for peace of ancestors all these are are not limited to the local community but are important traditions that both downstairs as i think the caterers can enjoy following the great east japan earthquake  special guests from performance from japan mister she was about to fall over me how many there are in total turns out that's the end of their performance  they just started taking down the banner but it caught my attention and the gentleman in charge is this gentleman and what is this banner all about this is about kidnappings that have been taking place s erances scuse me ever since one thousand sixty six in japan this is being done by japanese citizens to japanese citizens the problem is the japanese government however horrific these kidnappings are they haven't lifted a finger to stop this so we're doing this as a information and kind of protest table for the general public to put pressure on a japanese government to stop this and so that's why you're at the cherry blossom and japanese cultural festival that's exactly right this is our second year doing this we were going to do it three years ago but then the tsunami hit right before the festival opened and we decided in deference to the suffering of the japanese people that we would postpone but during that time we know of at least ten people that were kidnapped so we start most most of the folks that are being kidnapped whether there are adults but most of them are women and that's the case and not just most all of the people being kidnapped are adults and about it's estimated eighty percent are female are women and is that because it's easier to take them or something or that's something that's a little hard to discern although there have been rapes involved and certainly it's easier to subdue a woman so that could be a factor as well but this is all because of religion yes and money there's people that are being paid professionally to do the kidnapping and and it's the religion is what the predominant people predominant victims are members of my church which is the unification church but there's also kidnapped people from minority buddhist groups they've kidnapped jehovah's witnesses so it's whoever converts to a faith that the relatives don't approve of they hire protestant christian ministers to professionally  kidnap their relatives is there a website for more information or anything we do have one people people can find more information at religious freedom dot com ok well thank you for your time and good luck to bring some of the religious books thanks for reporting us and allowing people to be more aware of this ok good luck as they have no website you may just have to attend to experience the thirty ninth annual seattle cherry blossom and japanese culture festival for two thousand and fourteen and occurring april twenty fifth to the twenty seventh from ten to six at the seattle center please visit my archive page at seattle community media dot org slash node slash two six five five eight slash list shows and as always thank you for watching adventure t v cultural festivals do you like kimchi and yes what's your favorite part of it you know where it will be next year well i hope that everything goes well and that you get a chance to do really well we didn't see a whole we did see some of the art that the children do it every year and that's part of a little bit of a please visit my archive page at seattle community media dot org slash node slash two six five five eight slash list shows and as always thank you for watching adventure t v cultural festivals