2000 lbs of Mochi, SOLD
2000 lbs of Mochi, SOLD! By Barbara Hiura
A ton of rice, cooked, steamed, and pounded! Voila! Mochi! A Japanese American New Year’s tradition that the entire Japantown community looks forward to annually. With humble beginnings and actual pounding, Wesley has been hosting a mochitsuki for the past 45 years starting with first-and-second generation participation. Now, it is an event that brings together multi-generations.
Our Fellowship Hall is full of workers from cutters to flippers, weighers and pack handlers and the smell of fresh cooked rice fills the air. Delightful! Outside, where the heavy work takes place, the guys take the washed raw rice, and steam it in steamer boxes, pound it in an automatic pounding machine (thank you for this) and take the uncut mochi to the workers inside the FSH. It’s a labor of love…it has to be. And everywhere there is chit-chat and happy sounds. It’s like the Seven Dwarfs, whistling while they work. It is joyous, witnessing all the community coming together, young to elderly, families and children, and neighbors and friends.
Coming together these past few years are not only Wesleyites, but the Yu-Ai Kai community who share equally in this endeavor. They have also taken on lunch responsibilities and fed the entire complement plying us all with curry rice, teriyaki hot dogs, and salad. It was delicious and we all looked forward to the break and shift change.
We’ve said it before, it takes a village to do this assembly line and quite tedious work. This year, some 250 plus volunteers from the community formed our village and made this event a rousing success and we are thankful for their dedication. Along with Wesley’s partner, Yu-Ai Kai, we also had participation from Scout Troop 201, Scout Troop 611, Community Youth Services (CYS); and several local high schools; Cupertino, Homestead, Piedmont Hills, Notre Dame and Bellarmine. Of course, all hands are welcome as well as all skill levels. In hopes of passing this tradition on and moving forward in time, Wesley hosts Camp Mochi and this year we had around 35 kids learning all about this tradition. They even participate in the actual old-fashioned aspect of pounding the steamed rice with mallet and usu. (stone bowl) creating the mochi we all love.
We had a higher than normal yield this year with 2040 lbs produced and everyone, even those waitlisted, were able to purchase enough mochi to get through the holidays. And yes, we kept enough mochi for the church’s annual Ozoni soup day made by our Nichigo congregation which is held sometime in January.
We owe a huge thank you to the community leaders who come together to put this event together…a huge endeavor, indeed. They provide the foundation from which everything else streams forward from rice prep; set up, to cooking and cleaning, and ensuring our product can be packaged and sold filling the needs of our Japanese community. They put all the parts together so that the day runs seamlessly. It is an amazing sight. No detail was left out. Thankfully, there are enough skilled workers in each area to fulfill the need and they train. In this way, the team remains solid and the knowledge gets passed along to future generations.
Our leaders: the event coordinators were Keith Nakashima, Ron Ogi and Dale Sasaki and our section leads were: mochi orders and finance, Shelley Nakashima; equipment, Akio Sekino; mochi coolers/flippers, Kira Kimura; weighing and packaging, Warren Shimonishi and Jim Tengan; rice steaming, Randy Shingai and Steve Yamamoto; lunch volunteers, Jane Kawasaki; set up, Tom Oda and Lori Low; clean up, Tom Oda, Lori Low and John Ogawa; and organizing signing up the volunteers, Marian Suhama, Lynn Tabuchi and Mary Sasaki. Hats off to everyone and a huge thank you from a grateful community.
Our Fellowship Hall is full of workers from cutters to flippers, weighers and pack handlers and the smell of fresh cooked rice fills the air. Delightful! Outside, where the heavy work takes place, the guys take the washed raw rice, and steam it in steamer boxes, pound it in an automatic pounding machine (thank you for this) and take the uncut mochi to the workers inside the FSH. It’s a labor of love…it has to be. And everywhere there is chit-chat and happy sounds. It’s like the Seven Dwarfs, whistling while they work. It is joyous, witnessing all the community coming together, young to elderly, families and children, and neighbors and friends.
Coming together these past few years are not only Wesleyites, but the Yu-Ai Kai community who share equally in this endeavor. They have also taken on lunch responsibilities and fed the entire complement plying us all with curry rice, teriyaki hot dogs, and salad. It was delicious and we all looked forward to the break and shift change.
We’ve said it before, it takes a village to do this assembly line and quite tedious work. This year, some 250 plus volunteers from the community formed our village and made this event a rousing success and we are thankful for their dedication. Along with Wesley’s partner, Yu-Ai Kai, we also had participation from Scout Troop 201, Scout Troop 611, Community Youth Services (CYS); and several local high schools; Cupertino, Homestead, Piedmont Hills, Notre Dame and Bellarmine. Of course, all hands are welcome as well as all skill levels. In hopes of passing this tradition on and moving forward in time, Wesley hosts Camp Mochi and this year we had around 35 kids learning all about this tradition. They even participate in the actual old-fashioned aspect of pounding the steamed rice with mallet and usu. (stone bowl) creating the mochi we all love.
We had a higher than normal yield this year with 2040 lbs produced and everyone, even those waitlisted, were able to purchase enough mochi to get through the holidays. And yes, we kept enough mochi for the church’s annual Ozoni soup day made by our Nichigo congregation which is held sometime in January.
We owe a huge thank you to the community leaders who come together to put this event together…a huge endeavor, indeed. They provide the foundation from which everything else streams forward from rice prep; set up, to cooking and cleaning, and ensuring our product can be packaged and sold filling the needs of our Japanese community. They put all the parts together so that the day runs seamlessly. It is an amazing sight. No detail was left out. Thankfully, there are enough skilled workers in each area to fulfill the need and they train. In this way, the team remains solid and the knowledge gets passed along to future generations.
Our leaders: the event coordinators were Keith Nakashima, Ron Ogi and Dale Sasaki and our section leads were: mochi orders and finance, Shelley Nakashima; equipment, Akio Sekino; mochi coolers/flippers, Kira Kimura; weighing and packaging, Warren Shimonishi and Jim Tengan; rice steaming, Randy Shingai and Steve Yamamoto; lunch volunteers, Jane Kawasaki; set up, Tom Oda and Lori Low; clean up, Tom Oda, Lori Low and John Ogawa; and organizing signing up the volunteers, Marian Suhama, Lynn Tabuchi and Mary Sasaki. Hats off to everyone and a huge thank you from a grateful community.
Mark Iwagaki, Ryan Miyahara and Doris Tabuchi hang out while the rice is steaming.
The heavy work continues once the pounded rice is now mochi and ready to be cut.
Master cutter, Matt Azuma joins his mom, DeeDee Azuma and Matt's wife, Rosemary, plying their skills as mochi cutters.
Mochi cutters are ready as the hot mochi is cooled for a bit. Note, the blob hit the target.
April Kawahara and a youngster flip the mochi as it cools.
Dennis Ohori weighs and packages the mochi as Steve Tengan looks on.
Master packager, Warren Shimonishi helps load the cart and these 2-lb batches are ready to be sold.
Doesn't this look yummy? Lunch is being prepared for the hungry masses.
Jeffry Oldham and Brenda Gee help serve lunch.
Christine Ozawa (left) works the sale room.
Posted in Newsletter 2026-01-22