LIHUE — Hundreds of people braved congested parking and crowds to enjoy the 39th annual Kauai Matsuri event at the Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall on Saturday.
“The fish didn’t come in,” lamented Tara Arume-Nitta of Hapa, one of the vendors at Matsuri. “The Hapa koinobori was supposed to have been here. Koi, or carp, represents courage and strength so we’ll just keep moving forward.”
Attendees to the showcase of Japanese culture meandered through the maze of activity stations like the ikebana style flower arranging, the tea ceremony, creating kanzashi hair ornaments and bonsai by the Kauai Bonsai Club, where enthusiasts could speak with bonsai artists who worked on creations while being available to talk with attendees.
“This is more than just hula and exchange students,” said Art Umezu, an unofficial liaison between Kauai and the visiting delegations from Iwaki and Moriyama cities. “The dignitaries are having lunch with Kauai Complex Area Superintendent Daniel Hamada at the Wilcox School library to talk about educational opportunities.”
Iwaki City and Moriyama City have sister city relationships with Kauai dating back more than 50 years. Among the items in the sister city relationship is the working together to promote more opportunity in areas like tourism, business and education.
A group of Kauai Community College (KCC) exchange students from Okinawa and Niigata, chaperoned by KCC instructor Brian Yamamoto stopped to pick up their gyotaku shirts they created with the help of two teachers from the Philippines whose appearance at Matsuri was coordinated by Randall Francisco.
“Did you know that Melanie Nagao and Lani Nagao are sisters?” said Carol Yotsuda, who along with Shannon Hiramoto and Kathleen Ho, fielded the Boroboro Boutique. “They haven’t seen each other for so long, and they just got together at the Boroboro Boutique. What a tear jerker!”
Local nissei, or second generation, family Herbert Miyazaki had four generations of his ohana on hand to help with the mochi making demonstration that was accompanied by tastings. This represents the perpetuation of the Japanese culture in Hawaii that came with the first arrivals of the Japanese people to labor in the sugar plantations.
The appearance of cosplay contest applicants bridges the traditional Japanese culture with the contemporary, as the contest emcee performed a hand hula to the Hawaiian music that was piped into the convention hall speaker system.
“Do you realize that there is no pickleball in Japan?” Umezu said. “The recently-elected mayor of Moriyama wants to bring it back. And when the Iwaki people found out, they wanted to learn about pickleball, too.”
Umezu arranged for Lori and Craig Koga to teach the popular growing sport to the visiting Japanese on Friday, the day before a daylong pickleball tournament presented by the Kauai Pickleball Association at Kalena Park.
Umezu said the visitors also visited the Kauai Museum to see the tanuki, which was presented by Moriyama City to Kauai in January 1975 on the occasion of their sister city relationship. The tanuki was in storage at the convention hall until only recently when Kauai Museum Director Chucky Boy Chock agreed to give the tanuki a permanent home.
