Love of the hula drives Japanese visitors to Hawaii this season
Skift Take
Whether it's something soft-power related like soap operas in South Korea or Turkey, or something out of left field like hula, a destination can never control what visitors are going to love about it, but they should make it easy for visitors to indulge in it.
Mitsuko Arase spent years earning the certification required to instruct young Japanese women how to perform the country's famous tea ceremonies.
It's a sign of the times that Arase now prefers to wear flowers in her hair and instruct young Japanese women in another spiritual practice, the ancient art of Hawaiian hula. Arase is so crazy about the dance form, which she has studied under kumu hula Charlene Campbell of Ewa Beach, that she has adopted a Hawaiian name, Awapuhi Ke'o Ke'o. She and her husband even purchased cemetery plots in Hawaii so they can spend eternity in paradise.
"I visited Hawaii and I fell in love with the people, the beautiful sky and ocean, the green vistas and with hula," said Arase, who is the kumu hula of the award-winning Japan-based Awapuhi Halau and has studied the dance for about 20 years. "I think
