2007 HUOA Leadership Study Tour
Leslie
Dang, Aza Gushikawa/Uruma City
My
trip to Okinawa was an experience I will cherish for the rest of my life. It was
an honor to represent Aza Gushikawa Doshi Kai, as well as the Uchinanchu of
Hawaii. I left Hawaii expecting exposure to my
culture and returned with a much deeper appreciation of all the sacrifices and
hardship of the Uchinanchu in Okinawa as well as Hawaii. It exceeded all expectations that I had
before going on this trip. I will
be forever grateful to my club, as well as the leadership of the club, for
allowing me to be the representative on the HUOA Leadership Tour.
As
soon as I was informed that I was chosen to represent Aza Gushikawa Doshi Kai, I
realized I had a big responsibility to learn and experience as much of Okinawa
as possible. I also realized that I
would be able to bring back a vast amount of knowledge and share it not only
with my family, but with the membership of Aza Gushikawa Doshi Kai as well. Prior to the trip, I embarked on a
self-education of Okinawa and the culture so that I would be able to better
appreciate this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience
Okinawa.
One
of the most memorable experiences that I had on our trip was the performance of
“Amawari” by Daiichi Hirata’s group.
Even though the group only performed the last scene of their production,
I was overcome with strong emotion. Their singing and performing was so
powerful, I was in awe just watching them and it brought tears of joy to my
eyes.
They
were also able to teach us part of their performance using the paranku
drums. Not only were they excellent
performers, but they were also excellent teachers. Even though we did not speak Japanese
and they did not speak English, we were all able to learn the dance and even
perform it in front of everyone!
Another
memorable experience was meeting Mayor Chinen of Uruma City, my ancestor’s
city. He was a very nice, down to
earth man. We were able to converse
with him even though we only knew a few Japanese words. He looked at my genealogy and recognized
some of the names because they were from his wife’s family. What a small world, indeed! Mayor Chinen gave us some Okinawan salt
and his secretary took us to a store downstairs so we could purchase omiyage for
our relatives back home. It was
very thoughtful of Mayor Chinen and his secretary to show us around the Uruma
City Government Office.
We
were very fortunate to have the Okinawan Prefectural Government (OPG) arrange
our trip for us and sponsor some of our tours. All of the sites and museums that they
took us to were excellent and very informative. We were even allowed a private tour of
the Okinawan Prefectural Museum & Art Museum, which was not officially open
for another month. At the Peace Museum, it was a very humbling experience to
discover first hand, all the sacrifices and hardship that the people of Okinawa
endured.
Our guides, Gabriel and
Okuda-san, were very helpful and
gladly answered any questions that we had.
Gabriel was an excellent translator and Okuda-san gave us a lot of
information about the various locations that we visited.
This
trip to Okinawa was one of the most memorable and educational trips I have
taken. It would not have been
possible without HUOA and Jane Serikaku’s help of organizing and leading us on
this Leadership Tour. She kept us
all on task and made sure we were able to get the most out of our short trip to
Okinawa.
My
experience also would not have been as enriching had I not been with the great
group of people that we went with. We
were able to make lasting friendships and continue to keep in touch with each
other, reminiscing over the great memories that we made!