squirrel hill feature
Japanese Culture Blossoms at Chaya By Chris Zurawsky
Fumio Yasuzawa dreams of creating a cultural center for Pittsburghers from Japan.“I would call it the Japanese Community House, like the Jewish Community Center,” he said on a recent August Sunday morning. Seated at a booth in Chaya, his Murray Avenue sushi restaurant, Yasuzawa, 61, shared green tea with a visitor, along with some of his life story and personal vision. Yasuzawa emphasized that his establishment embodies the historical function of its name, chaya, or “teahouse.” Hundreds of years ago in Japan, teahouses were meeting places where travelers rested, refueled and shared information. Since opening in 2001, Chaya has become a focal point for local Japanese culture and a gathering spot for the Pittsburgh area’s more than 2,000 Japanese residents. Yasuzawa’s journey here began in 1975 when he immigrated to the United States, working first at the Kitano Hotel, the only Japaneseowned hotel in New York City.Although he had a house in the suburbs and a “good position and good income,”Yasuzawa was dissatisfied with New York City’s pace.“I didn’t have my own time,” he said. Born in what was then farm country about 40 minutes outside of Tokyo,Yasuzawa's attachment to the land has remained strong.A visit in the early 1990s to a Japanese friend living in New Castle attracted Yasuzawa to the Pittsburgh area. During the trip, he saw Amish people for the first time and was struck by their simple lifestyle.After buying fresh brown eggs at an Amish farm,Yasuzawa returned to his friend’s house and prepared a Japanese dish that included rice and a raw egg.That was the turning point.“The taste of the fresh egg took me back to childhood and Japan,” he said.“Right then I decided to have this kind of life.” Yasuzawa bought a small farm in Cranberry Township where he still lives with his wife, Jackie, a number of dogs, many wild animals, and, at one time, 18 chickens. Building on his hospitality industry experience,Yasuzawa decided to open a restaurant in Pittsburgh. He said he first considered Cranberry and Wexford, but 2001 was “too early” for the suburban area to support a Japanese restaurant. Yasuzawa was attracted to Squirrel Hill in part because of the neighborhood’s preponderance of university employees and foreign residents. Such diners tend to be “open-minded” about their meals, he said, which prompts him to add new items to Chaya’s menu. Beyond the restaurant business, much of Yasuzawa’s time is devoted to spreading Japanese culture. His business card lists three local Japanese organizations: Pittsburgh Sakura Project, the Japan
Fumio Yasuzawa and his wife, Jackie, in front of Chaya.
Association of Greater Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Kojo Church, a Japan-based Christian denomination. Church member Akira Sekikawa, a Pitt associate professor of epidemiology, said that services used to be held in different locations, but that with members living in places like Monroeville, Carnegie and Fox Chapel, Chaya became a convenient central gathering place. Services are now held three Sundays each month in the restaurant’s back room. Sekikawa also noted that his friend was the catalyst for Pittsburgh’s celebrated Sakura (“cherry blossom”) Project. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you” quote, Yasuzawa said he wanted to do something for his community besides being a good taxpayer. Taking Washington, D.C.’s Tidal Basin cherry blossoms as a model, and with help from friends and the Japan Association of Greater Pittsburgh, he drafted a 20-page proposal for planting 250 cherry trees in North Park and submitted it to Allegheny County officials. Six months went by, but no answer. Then, true to Chaya’s roots as an information exchange,Yasuzawa one day told a regular customer about his plan.The customer, an attorney, called a county parks official that he knew, and the rest is history. Since 2009, 138 trees have gone into the ground. Chaya also hosts Japanese flower arrangement classes conducted by the Sogetsu School of Ikebana, Pittsburgh Study Group. Yasuzawa is now focused on building his Japanese book collection. Hundreds of volumes, along with Japanese movie DVDs, line rows of metal shelves in Chaya’s basement. He hopes to someday make the collection widely available, perhaps as part of a Pittsburgh Japanese cultural center. “What do first generation Japanese people in America need?” Yasuzawa asks. Friends and food, of course, he said, but something more: a connection to the home country. 3 Chris Zurawsky is a Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition board member. The World In Squirrel Hill Issue PAGE17