2024 Hawaii Kamuro Club

The Hawaii Okikamurokai held their 2024 shinnenkai on Saturday, March 30 at Ikoi Hall at Jodo Mission of Hawaii.

Since we are now more comfortable in social gatherings, we had trays of Chinese food for lunch.

We planned two presentations this year:

1) In the first presentation, Art and Rene Kimura talked about their trip to Ogimi town in Okinawa. Ogimi is a Blue Zone location where the residents live long lives. They showed us photos from their visit. Since they are both retired teachers, they also showed us the science demonstrations they did to help start the conversation between the residents and visitors.

https://visitokinawajapan.com/travel-inspiration/rural-charms-of-ogimi-village/

2) The second presentation was to be by Mr. Steven Migdol who is working on a screenplay for a movie about the 100th Battalion. Mr. Migdol is a colleague of Dr. Ron Yanagihara who is a member of the Hawaii Okikamurokai. Unfortunately, Mr. Migdol's slideshow presentation had problems when we tried to show it. Luckily, he prepared a document to be read in case we had technical difficulties which is what I did.

But the most remarkable part of this shinnenkai was meeting the seven members of the Ebisuzaki family! They just happened to be gathered for a memorial service for their ancestor at the temple the Friday before our lunch. Luckily, Bishop Ishikawa who did the service knew about our shinnenkai and let them know.

We enjoyed meeting new people as well as seeing old timers again. I need to remember to reserve at least 2 1/2 hours for our shinnenkai because we always spend a lot of time together.

We are all looking forward to our next gathering!

Aloha,

Marie Otani