At the annual Nishihara and Gaza club picnic, a group of octogenarians hover over a pile of scattered vegetables lying in the grass. As the whistle blows, they make a slow dash to pick up as many carrots, onions and bittermelon as their hearts’ desire — as long as they can carry it.
The veggie circle at Ala Moana Beach Park in Honolulu is a beloved tradition of the picnic. The day is filled with quirky games like this one for dozens of club families. Earlier, kids ran across the tiny coned part of the park with golf balls on spoons and raced a large empty tin can with a cane.
“ They made up a lot of games,” Clifford Goya, a member of the Nishihara Chojin-Kai, recalled. “Before they had carpentry. Games where you had to pound the nails in wood. It evolved [but] some things stayed the same.”
The veggie circle is a beloved tradition of the picnic. The objective of the game is that once the whistle blows, you have to pick up as many carrots, onions, and bittermelon as you can.
A tradition started by Issei
While these clubs are best known in their community for the summer picnics, they weren’t founded on games and prizes.
“Plantation life was incredibly difficult,” Kelli Nakamura, a history professor at Kapi’olani Community College, explained. “So this provided a way of fellowship, social and potentially economic support.”
Hawaiʻi Okinawan culture calls these communities clubs, but they’re also known as kenjinkais. They started as a way to provide mutual aid to one another. Kenjinkais would loan money to one another, fundraise, and just look out for one another. These groups can be found all over the world in Japanese and Okinawan communities. Some kejinkais are well over 100 years old.
These communities today do not need the same support the issei did, but these traditions, like the annual picnic, continue on.
A Nishihara Chojin-Kai banner at the annual club picnic.
“A lot of clubs are struggling”
Nishihara Chojin-Kai and Gaza Yonagusuku Doshi Kai used to have their own picnics. But low membership made them decide to combine their club’s activities. This is their fourth year hosting the picnic together. While there are around a dozen kids at the picnic, leaders like Bob Shiroma, the President-Elect for the Hawaii United Okinawa Association, said membership is dwindling.
“ A lot of the clubs are struggling to not only keep their membership going but to find new leadership,” Shiroma said. “That’s one of the main objectives of the strategic plan. [To] recruit, develop and maintain membership as well as future leaders for the HUOA.”
While the HUOA is best known for hosting the Okinawan Festival during Labor Day weekend, their main purpose as an organization is to represent the 50 member clubs across the state. Besides playing games at the picnic, the Nishihara-Gaza club will take a moment to make announcements on behalf of the organization.
A picnic to remember ancestors
Lisa Sadaoka is a member of Gaza Yonagusuku Doshi Kai. She has been going to the picnics since she was a child. Now, as a mother, she takes her family to the picnic to play the same games she did when she was their age.
Lisa Sadaoka and her family at the Okinawa club picnic.
“[My kids] feel the sense of belonging to not only our family, but to the club as well,” Sadaoka said. “They’re very aware of where our family comes from in Okinawa … It’s because of traditions like this that it makes it easy to pass on those things to the next generation.”
For Shiroma, he thinks of the picnics now as a way to honor the issei.
“ The struggles of starting a new, in a foreign land,” Shiroma said. “We have a lot to be thankful for them.”
At the end of every game, every participant wins a prize. Kids get school supplies and cereal. Adults get toilet paper and canned Vienna sausage.
These prizes might seem practical, but in a way it keeps the values the issei created alive generations later: a community looking out for one another.
This story aired on The Conversation on Sept. 9, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
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