Mochi bonds community for New Year

The glutinous nature of mochi rice symbolizes the bonding of friends and family during the New Year celebration.

Kaua‘i’s many families and churches celebrating the Japanese tradition of New Year’s gathered to make mochi, one of the many foods enjoyed during the New Year celebration. This is traditionally done the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s.

“We don’t put up the signs anymore,” said the Rev. Shoryu Akiya of the Kapa‘a Jodo Mission. “Our members are getting old and they are skeptical about bringing in young people.”

But despite fighting the ravages of age, the church cranked out 700 pounds of rice for the New Year delicacy, most of the mochi going toward filling orders from church members and the community.

The Rev. Kosen Ishikawa of the Koloa Jodo Mission joined the group as he’s done for the past several years, his mission in Koloa also maturing.

The 700 pounds of rice represents an increase from the 650 pounds processed for the 2009 New Year celebration, and community orders were further helped by Kapa‘a Hongwanji Mission also cranking out mochi.

“We did 200 pounds of rice to make about 400 pounds of mochi,” said Brian Yamamoto who was helping at the Kapa‘a Hongwanji after starting out at the Kapa‘a Jodo Mission. “We’re still a little short so we have to make a little more.”

Yamamoto said the mochi-making started at 2 a.m. Saturday at the Kapa‘a Jodo Mission so he could help there until 6 a.m. when the Kapa‘a Hongwanji started its mochi making.

Gail Rambaoa joined 11 other family members and one other from Maui to gather at her mom’s home in Hanama‘ulu where the traditional method of pounding the mochi rice with wooden mallets, or kinei, in a stone bowl, or usu, was taking place.

“This is a longtime family tradition which dates back as far as 1924,” Rambaoa said. “My mom, Fujiko Mamura, is hosting this annual event like she has done every year. But she is 87 years old now and will eventually be moving to O‘ahu so we don’t know how much longer we will be having mochi pounding at her house.”

Mochi pounding, called mochitsuki in Japanese, comes to a climax when the special rice is cooked and processed into the rice cake. Several days before the actual mochi pounding, the rice needs to be washed and soaked and materials for the event need to be prepared.

On Sunday, the Mamura family gathered with special T-shirts celebrating “Mochi Pounding 2009” which were created especially for the event, one guest touting a “Mochi 2008” shirt as well.

During this time of gathering, friends and family members share in the camaraderie, food and drink, the spirit of this enjoyment being melded into the rice cakes which are generally made by the women. Men tend to the more strenuous tasks of measuring out the uncooked rice, washing down the trays used for cooking and the actual pounding.

“We actually stopped doing this for a couple of years,” said Leonard Ringor, one of the Mamura relatives. “But we started it again when the young people said they wanted to do it.”

Modern technology infused itself into the traditional whop-whop of wood meeting hot rice as organizational skills learned on the job was used to keep track of whose rice was being cooked, pounded, and made into mochi.

Although mochi is enjoyed throughout the year — the Kapa‘a Jodo Mission, for instance, also makes and sells mochi for Boys’ Day — it is especially enjoyed at New Year’s in Japan where it forms the kagami mochi, or a New Year’s decoration which is traditionally broken and eaten in a ritual called kagami biraki, or mirror opening, states an online source.

It also forms the centerpiece of the o-zoni soup which contains other symbolic foods and vegetables, that practice evolving from the plantation camps in Hawai‘i and shared by the community.

Kinako (a powder derived from soybeans) mochi is traditionally made on New Year’s day for luck. Mochi is roasted over a fire or stove before coating it in kinako.