Posted on: Friday, November 23, 2001

Island Voices
Why Japanese are on the way

By Kunio Hayashi

I read your Nov. 17 article on the Honolulu Festival. It's great that 280 percent more Japanese people have booked for the festival next year. It's wonderful! But we shouldn't assume that it is a sign that the Japanese are now feeling safe about traveling. Neither is it a sign of the Japanese economy getting back into shape, because it's not. Not yet.

Turn your TV channel to NGN or KIKU and watch the news, interviews, social and economic discussions, and political debates from Japan. Or ask your friends who subscribe to the Japanese newspapers. You will immediately get a sense that the economic situation in Japan is getting worse, or at least not any better in 2002 or 2003.

You will also know that the Japanese are starting to experience the direct impact of the war — something they thought was a foreign affair that had nothing to do with their everyday life — further affecting the already declining employment and job security in their home towns.

The current economic, social and political problems did not happen overnight. They existed for more than 20 years (some over a century).

Ironically, some of the most critical problems were not even acknowledged as "problems" in Japan until the '90s. These issues are now surfacing as overwhelming uncertainties that could no longer be ignored, and Japanese are struggling to find a new set of social and economic principles that would work in the 21st century. Japan must go through this ordeal in order to make a true turnaround.

So, why are more Japanese people booking to attend the festival in spite of the economic woes and the fear of terrorism? They want to come to raise their positive energy levels. Ask any of the performers or participants, and they will answer that it is all about setting the "kiai (positive energy vibes)."

These festivals are not just cultural entertainment. As a matter of fact, their origins are very spiritual, and, in essence, the effort to raise the positive energy level is really the fundamental purpose of these traditional festivals. This spiritual positive energy is what the Japanese are seeking desperately today.

So they will come to gather here, and, together with us in Hawai'i, wish to collectively increase the positive vibrations.

How do we embrace their "kiai"? By our true aloha spirit. Both are positive energy vibrations, and both resonate at the same frequency. Gathering of positive energies attract more positive energies, thus manifesting in positive life experiences.

So let's also increase our positive vibes beyond 280 percent, and accommodate them with our 'ohana. Let's do not think of the Honolulu Festival as just another annual revenue-generating event. Let's give out our vibes, and allow our visiting friends to feel the power of the true aloha spirit. Let them rejuvenate and heal. And let them return to Japan and tell others about their experience of aloha.

If we can do this, more will return.

Kunio Hayashi is a Honolulu graphic designer who often works in Japan.