The Yamaguchi Kenjinkai hosted a dinner for visitors from Suo-Oshima located in the Yamaguchi prefeture at the gathering hall of Hilo Meishoin. I first time I visited the beautiful island of Suo-Oshima was to visit the home my mother-in-law spent part of her childhood in. I have since been able to visit again and I hope to go again one day. This island officially has a sister island relationship with Kauai but even though we are from the Big Island, each time I have been to Suo-Oshima, we felt incredibly welcomed. Here is a link to my 2022 blog post about our visit to Suo-Oshima.

This island has a Museum of Japanese Emigration to Hawaii where you can find many artifacts from people who moved to Hawaii from Suo-Oshima. The museum was established to document the 3,900 people who moved from Oshima to Hawaii in 1885. It now has searchable records of about 135,000 Japanese who moved to Hawaii. If you have connections to Japan, you may want to consider visiting this museum to see if you can find out information about your ancestors.

We welcomed our Suo-Oshima visitors with friendship and lots and lots of food. The visit to Hilo Meishoin started with a service that was extra special because of Suo-Oshima Mayor Fujimoto’s personal connection from his temple on Suo-Oshima. After the service, we moved to the hall where we enjoyed the amazing array of food the kenjinkai made ranging from tsukemono, smoked meat, poke, sashimi, sekihan, mac salad, barazushi, nishime, Korean chicken, sweet sour spareribs, warabi salad, tonkatsu, cake noodle, soba salad, surimi patties, gobo and pork stir fry, and so much more. After dinner, we were entertained with singing, hula and line dancing, and a wonderful presentation by Reverend Miyazaki in which he shared the history and contributions of notable Big Island residents with Suo-Oshima connections. Every kenhinkai member there was greeted by our visitors and got a cute omiyage with special Suo-Oshima treats. Love the Suo-Oshima/Hilo connections. Living Hilo Style.