Baldwin High School wins Honolulu Festival Maui Mikoshi design contest

The Honolulu Festival Foundation announced today that H.P. Baldwin High School of Wailuku is the winner of the 28th Annual Honolulu Festival Maui Mikoshi design contest.

A mikoshi is an elaborate portable shrine traditionally paraded through the streets of Japan during Japanese festivals. The mikoshi typically resembles a mini building and is carried on the shoulders of parade participants in a procession using two to four poles.

Baldwin High School’s Japanese Club created the winning mikoshi design focusing on how we share cultures and give each other a helping hand. The front panel depicts two types of footwear, the geta, and slippers, walking together on a broad path. The staircase symbolizes the hardships we may go through, illuminated and guided by our cross-cultural connection.

The design of the back and side panels convey themes of conservation, interconnectivity and the future. The back panel represents the passing of knowledge to future generations. The waterfall in the background supports the growth of taro and symbolizes the current generation’s active contribution to expanding today’s knowledge and resources to help ensure they still exist in the future.

As a reward for winning the contest, students in Baldwin’s Japanese Club, joined by an adviser and chaperone, will showcase their mikoshi design in the Honolulu Festival.

The winning mikoshi design will be unveiled at the Hawai‘i Convention Center, on Saturday, March 9, at 11 a.m. The following day, Sunday, March 10, starting at 4:30 p.m., the Baldwin students will carry the mikoshi in the Grand Parade through Waikīkī. Joining them during the parade in the spirit of uplifting each other will be five students and an adviser from King Kekaulike High School’s Japanese Class, which finished second in the mikoshi design contest.

Since the mikoshi contest’s inception in 2003, Maui schools have been invited to submit unique designs inspired by the festival’s theme. The theme for this year’s Honolulu Festival is, “Walk Together with Aloha, Pass the Baton to a Sustainable and Peaceful Future.”