San Francisco - Japanese Tea Garden

An attraction of the Golden Gate Park and one of the real sights of the city is the Japanese Tea Garden. Like the M H de Young Memorial Museum it dates back to the 1894 California International Exposition. At the time it was the setting for a Japanese village of which it was a part. Now it forms a delightful adjunct to the Asian Art Museum adjacent to it.

The layout of the garden was entrusted to a Japanese, Makoto Hagiwara, who looked after it for the next three decades, living on the site. His work was then carried on by his daughter, son-in-law and grandson.

During the Second World War the Hagiwaras, like many other Japanese, were interned; the Japanese Tea Garden became the Oriental Tea Garden and several of its houses