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Ogasawara NP, Tokyo
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Hahajima’s island sushi swaps wasabi for mustard because wasabi does not grow on the islands. Fish is soy-marinated for keeping, and sugar in the rice reflects the sugarcane once grown here.
Hahajima’s cloud forests shelter an endemic snail group found nowhere else. Its tiny, plate-like shell sits atop a slug-shaped body; it spends most of its roughly one-year life in the trees.
Hahajima’s rum revives a sugarcane-molasses spirit tradition interrupted by wartime evacuation. In 2015, locals sank bottles 10–15 m offshore for a year; sea-aged “Mother” went on sale in 2017.
Hahajima’s Ross Museum displays an intricate pandanus-leaf cigarette case from a factory on Chichijima. The craft began with 1830 settlers, many from Hawaii, adapting Hawaiian weaving to local leaves.
In Hahajima’s taiko style, 2 players strike opposite sides of a horizontally placed drum: one holds the rhythm while the other improvises. Its roots trace to Hachijō Island migrants, and the music returned after 1968.
The Hahajima-meguro, an endemic white-eye, shows little movement between Hahajima and nearby islets just 4–6 km away. Researchers found almost no genetic exchange between island populations.
On the foggy ridges of the Hahajima Islands, Wadan-no-ki grows 4–5 m tall—even though it belongs to the daisy family. Scientists think this rare woody plant evolved from herbaceous ancestors.
Hahajima’s “coin stones” are fossils of large foraminifera, and their shells make up much of local Rosestone. Easy to work, the stone became stoves and millstones; a former sugar storehouse built from it is now a museum.
Hoshitsururan, an Ogasawara orchid, grows naturally only on Hahajima. Its white flowers rise on stalks up to 90 cm; after wild plants became scarce, propagated plants were replanted, with 60+ now growing at sites on the island.
In 1944, every resident was forcibly evacuated from Hahajima. The island remained uninhabited until its 1968 return to Japan; after years of rebuilding on land gone jungle, residents were able to return in 1973.
Locals say life runs on 6 days, not 7: when the main ship reaches Chichijima, food stocks arrive for Hahajima shops, queues form, and mail and parcels reach homes. The ship’s arrival sets the island’s rhythm.
Hahajima’s January 1 sea-opening festival brings first swims, taiko and South Seas dancing—and a contest to see who can fling a fisherman’s rubber sandal, called a gyosan, the farthest.
At the end of Hahajima’s main street, the big banyan by Maehama is known as “Gaju-shita,” literally “under the banyan.” Locals describe it as a gathering place for families by day and residents unwinding after work.
