Pearl City Hongwanji Mission Obon August 11, 2017

Last Friday night my family went to the Obon at the Pearl City Hongwanji Mission. My wife's family has been a supporter of this and the Soto Mission of Aiea Taiheiji for four generations. Since both sides of my wife's family comes from the Fukushima region of Japan it follows that the Fukushima Ondo is part of their tradition. Here is some Wikipedia for those who are unfamiliar with Obon:

Obon (お盆) or just Bon (盆) is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist-Confucian custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves, and when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon-Odori.

Japanese immigrants from Fukushima Prefecture brought the song "Fukushima Ondo" to Maui in the early 1900‘s. Many of the immigrants lived in the plantation village of Keahua and organized an informal group to play Fukushima Ondo for the annual O-Bon festival. In the "good old days", the group played the song for hours and people danced from sunset to early morning. Friends, relatives, and visitors of all ages, nationalities, and religions came to attend this annual festival.

I'm pretty adamant about having my son follow this tradition going forward with his generation because he owes so much to everyone who came before him. Each generation before him diligently laid the foundation and the bricks for what his life is now and even if it is only from my perspective I will say that his young life has experienced the joy and the fruits of this generational foundation since the day he was born.

More importantly I want him to understand that it is his duty to continue building upon this foundation for his future children and grandchildren, and to instill into them the importance of continuing to build and never to rest upon what has been done or to waste what has been done by becoming lazy or a spendthrift.

For those who are not familiar or are unsure about exploring an Obon in your area, I would like to share this; if someone is offering you a fun time with food, dance, song, and tradition....take it. There are enough reasons out there to be worried and to complain about the way things are, and yes there will always be some crushing reason why things will go bad... but so what, our forefathers went through much worse and found a way to make everything work and build something for their kids! You will be fine also, so dress-up and dance like a carefree fool for a night and let it all go to wind!