I joined “ Tokyo Kamuro party” as a guest at first Sunday of June. This party is a group of a person from the same town. The place is the hall of the station building at Kawasaki city beyond the river from Tokyo. They say that it is usually over 50 or 60 peoples, it was just two third of it because of worrying about earthquake.
When looked at the members, I could easily identity two groups that are an advanced age group and young group. I guess that the first generation people who came to Tokyo area and lived almost a quarter of century and their second generation.
From other than Tokyo area, the chief priest of the home family temple and the gusts from Osaka`s or Ube`s kamuro party were invited. Since the assembled people came from really narrow area, the gathering was quietly friendly atmosphere.
This group of persons from the same town called “Kamuro party” seem to be not only in Tokyo , but also in Osaka, Hiroshima, Ube and also Hawaii. I think really this party reflects the history of the hometown. “Kamuro” come from the name of Okikamuro Island which is close to Yashiro Island (a commonly used name Suo Oshima).
Okikamuro Island is an isolated small island of the isolated Big island ‘Suo Oshima’ separated by a narrow channel. Recently it has been linked to Suo Oshima by the bridge which has 380 m full length and has been built in 1983. The area of this island is 0.95 square km. It is almost the same as Jyoga Shima (famous island close to Tokyo) area which is 0.99 square km or the area of Disneyland and Disney-sea which is 1.0 square km.
People lived in this island about 400 years ago. Many years ago, it was the important point for a sea lane of the Seto Inland Sea and it seemed to reach the summit of prosperity in the Seto Inland Sea as the distinguished town of fishing. Although the population was over 3,000 at the peak in Meiji period (1868-1912), it is less 200 right now by depopulation recently.
Because many people were living in narrow space, people left for outside of island to hope for new life. Emigration was started in Meiji period so that people moved to Hawaii, Taiwan, Korea and other foreign countries by expanding their destinations in the world wide. They say that the people stayed in island or people left island for their dream helped each other very tightly.
The link network system was worked very well under the slogan of “the bridge to connect with each other” and the core of this system was Kamuro party. The friendship system for people from the same town “Towachojin-kai” is including Kamuro party, and there is bigger “Oshimagunjin-kai” including both friendship systems. However a connection between members becomes slow according to its size so that strength of connection in Kamuro party is the best.
Even though for Kamuro party, it should be existing as a big issue that Rokusuke Ei (famous song writer) pointed out when he visited at completion of the bridge. “This bridge has connected islands, but could the bridge connect people’s hearts? “.
（Yoshihiro Fujiwara Jun. 6,2011）
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