Bon Goes On, One Last Time, For Kahuku

Carol Chang
Wednesday - July 08, 2009
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The 108-year-old Kahuku Hongwanji Buddhist Temple will close soon after its bon dance - at 7:30 p.m. July 25 - bowing to dwindling membership and the lack of strong, young Buddhists to help erect the heavy yagura (dance tower).

The Kahuku mission, once 200 strong, now numbers 21, almost all in their 80s, and only seven are able to attend services. According to Honpa Bishop Thomas Okano, the drop in numbers is especially acute in rural areas as younger generations moved away from villages in pursuit of city jobs after the sugar plantations closed.


Kahuku High 1956 alumnus Walter Nakamura and his classmates, along with many from other classes, have kept the bon dance going for nearly a decade by helping members set up and run the celebration. But they, too, are now in their 70s, and many are neither Japanese nor Buddhist.

“This year, with the final ringing of the temple bell,” Nakamura lamented in an e-mail from his California home,“Kahuku will commemorate the ending of its decades-old North Shore tradition.”

Nevertheless, it should be a bang-up celebration, said temple spokeswoman Barbara Tatsuguchi. “We will have great food prepared by the Kahuku classes of ‘57 and ‘58, the Young Okinawans will entertain, and the Ewa Fukushima group with their drums and flutes will play traditional dance music that is very lively.

“Even the 70-plus age group has fond memories of dancing to it with enthusiasm when they were younger,” she added. “Our active 95-year-old member said she recalls dancing when she was a teenager to just drums and a vocalist without a yagura.” She said arrangements are being made for members to worship elsewhere after the building closes.


Not sure how to get to Kahuku’s very last bon dance? Here are Tatsuguchi’s directions: “Turn makai at the Giovanni shrimp truck in Kahuku right after the stoplight if coming from Kaneohe, or after the hospital if coming from the North Shore. Parking will be on the right, about one ‘block.’”

For more information, call 293-9475, or 226-1825 on bon dance day.

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