KAPA‘A — Laulau is on the menu for dinner plates Friday evening when the Kaua‘i Buddhist Council opens its bon dance season for 2012 at the Kapa‘a Hongwanji Mission, located across the street from the Kapa‘a Shopping Center. “Dinner starts
KAPA‘A — Laulau is on the menu for dinner plates Friday evening when the Kaua‘i Buddhist Council opens its bon dance season for 2012 at the Kapa‘a Hongwanji Mission, located across the street from the Kapa‘a Shopping Center.
“Dinner starts at 5:30 p.m. with the Hatsu-bon — or tribute to those who passed between last year’s bon and this year — service starting at 6 p.m. and dancing starting at 7:30 p.m.,” said Brian Yamamoto. Yamamoto is coordinating the food service for the bon dance.
Members of Taiko Kaua‘i will offer a special Friday night performance to welcome the season.
Roast pork is on the menu for the Saturday night dinner, said Kristen Yanagihara, a graduate of the Kaua‘i Community College culinary arts program. Yanagihara is helping perfect the Chinese pretzels which will be sold during Friday and Saturday evenings.
“Bon dance, or bon o-dori in Japanese, is celebrated in its own special way on Kaua‘i,” said Gerald Hirata of the Hanapepe Soto Zenshuji Temple and a retired KCC instructor. “The nine Buddhist temples which make up the Kaua‘i Buddhist Council have collaborated and scheduled a summer-long season which starts mid-June and runs through mid-August with a break for the July 4th holiday.”
Among the special ways Kaua‘i celebrates is the offering of its unique foods such as the flying saucers, which are on the menu along with perennial favorites like the nishime, Pronto Pups, saimin, shave ice, yakitori and sushi, Yamamoto said.
“We’ll also have special foods like pickled mango, Chinese pretzels and a good assortment of local fruits and vegetables in the country store,” Yamamoto said. “People can come and actually do some shopping while enjoying the festivities.”
Hirata and Pearl Shimizu of the Kaua‘i Japanese Cultural Society agreed on Kaua‘i’s preservation of the bon celebration and its unique nature.
“People always talk about the flying saucers when I’m on O‘ahu to discuss bon dance,” Hirata said. “Kaua‘i seems to have kept the traditional flavor of bon the best among the islands.”
The bon season is an important expression of religious traditions and Japanese folk culture which was brought to Hawai‘i by the original immigrants who came to Hawai‘i to labor in the plantations.
The bon dance has evolved for five generations, taking on its unique flavor imbued through the plantation lifestyle.
The origin of bon dancing started when one of the Buddha’s disciples started dancing for joy when his mother’s spirit was released from suffering.
This leads to bon being a joyous occasion of celebration, welcoming and honoring ancestors, valuing and appreciating family ties and connections, Hirata said.
Next Friday and Saturday, the bon dance moves to the Waimea Higashi Hongwanji.
