Orizuru Peace Tree this Saturday

Orizuru Peace Tree will be one of the main attractions at the 32^nd Matsuri Kaua‘i Oct. 7 at Kaua‘i War Memorial Convention Hall in Lihu‘e from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Orizuru, a Japanese folded paper crane using origami (folding paper) is dedicated to Sadako Sasaki, a young girl from Hiroshima who survived the atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945 but succumbed to leukemia caused by the fallout, and died Oct. 25, 1955 at the age of 12. Sadako’s mission to fold 1,000 cranes (senbazuru) so she can get well while hospitalized became a symbol of peace and hope throughout the world.

The Orizuru tree is also dedicated in memory of Mrs. Aiko Nakaya of Pakala who taught origami and Japanese folk dance for many years on Kaua‘i. She passed away in June 2017.

People attending the festival can fold orizuru at the special folding table, and place it at the designated Orizuru Peace Tree area, which will be on display in the convention hall. Origami papers are provided, compliments of Kaua‘i’s four sister cities in Japan, Ishigaki, Okinawa; Iwaki, Fukushima; Moriyama, Shiga and Suo Oshima, Yamaguchi as well as Kyoto and Hiroshima.

The festival is part of the 20^th anniversary celebration of State of Hawai‘i and Hiroshima Prefecture Sister State (1997-2017). In July 2017, Kaua‘i Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. made courtesy visits with Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui and Gov. Hidehiko Yuzaki with Kaua‘i Yankees Little League team when they played games with three Hiroshima Little League teams.

More than 30 guests from Kaua‘i’s sister city of Suo Oshima and Iwaki as well as special guest, Mr. Katsukuni Tanaka, a Hiroshima bomb survivor will attend this year’s Kaua‘i Matsuri . Pearl Shimizu, president of Kaua‘i Japanese Cultural Society which hosts the festival encourages everyone, especially people with ancestral roots in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to visit the Orizuru Peace Tree display to help promote and perpetuate world peace and abolishment of nuclear arms.

For more information, call Pearl Shimizu at 822-5353 or Art Umezu at Office of Economic Development at 241-4948.