SUO-OSHIMA, Yamaguchi people on west Japan's Suo-Oshima Island are keeping it cool this summer with breezy Hawaiian shirts as the island's annual aloha biz campaign starts on June 22.
The island town in Yamaguchi Prefecture formed a sister island relationship with Hawaii's Kauai Island on June 22, 1963. The Aloha biz campaign was launched by the city government in 1986 with local companies joining the initiative. During the campaign, city officials and other islanders wear Hawaiian shirts daily to greet tourists, as they do in Hawaii.
Students who wish to wear Hawaiian shirts instead of their regular uniforms at school can do so beginning this year, as teachers and staff at the local Suo-Oshima High School started taking part in the campaign in 2021.
On the first day of the Aloha biz campaign, around 20 among the more than 50 second-year students at the high school were seen wearing Hawaiian shirts while in a class about Hawaii the destination of their school trip. The shirts were designed for the high school in cooperation with Yamaguchi Prefectural University in the 2021 school year. They come in two colors, green and blue, with a pattern of white satsuma mandarin flowers - a local specialty and Japanese stony coral found in the sea around the island.
On wearing a Hawaiian shirt at school, Honoka Shimada, 17, said it feels cooler than the uniform.