Had fun at my very first hula lesson today. Studying under Mele who is patient, warm and alot of fun. Learned three sets of basic footwork, two hula songs, and bamboo stick pounding. Alot to learn in one day. Happy to get my troupe's special hula skirt (hand printed blue woodblock print) and receive my very own bamboo sticks (which I'm sure has a special Hawaiian name).
Had wanted to do Tahitian dancing years ago, but a girlfriend warned that my body is getting to old to shake my hips like that. She was right...just doing the slow hip sways for regular hula is hard enough to do. I looked quite ridiculous in the floor to ceiling miror, with awkward hands, flinging arm postures, and pretty clumsy hip sways. Too funny. Am much better at hip hop dance routines...fo' sho! [mahalo to stk who inspired me to give hula a try]
I have to find rocks.
Rocks to use as cassinets placed perfectly in the palm of my hand for the sacred hula chant.
But it has to be a certain rock, a "special" rock I'm told. Not 'da kine' disturbing certain mountains with certain sacred powers. You can't bring a rock from mountain X to the city of Y, or a stone from river A to the area of B. There are special rules about rocks in Hawaii, don't you know.
I feel so stressed having to find these special rocks in special places. Where do I find the rocks? Which places are the "right" places to go? And how do I know if it's okay to take the rocks off that particular piece of land?
In Hawaii rocks aren't just rocks.
The earth is a sacred place, and the land and everything on it holds scared properties. Rocks are loosened fragments from a larger mountain, filled with spirit, filled with life.
I get that.
I can respect that.
I just wish there was an easier way.
My teacher told me to get my rocks from this one man's house down the road by the river, though he will likely yell at you at the top of his lungs and tell you to scram. She says she's not on talking terms with the old man, but says to go there anyway. The rocks by his house, she said, are said to be "good" rocks.
That's probably why he tells you to scram.
I ask her how to get there. She says, "Go down da road, an' when you see da otta dirt road on da ottaside, go dea." Down which road? And aren't all the roads here made of dirt? There are plenty of roads in this area, I'm confused.
I feel somehow that there's got to be an easier way.
Like amazon.com or ebay.
Something at the touch of my finger tips.
(Now there's a good money making idea--sell rocks, special rocks, online.)
The mainland*girl in me wants convenience. And to buy it too. Just wait three days for a box in the mail. Open it, and find it filled with rocks, special rocks.
I want to avoid the sacred process of finding this mysterious dirt road, avoid having to jump knee deep into cold river water, and avoid having to find just the right sized stone to fit into the plam of my hand.
And yet there is an island girl in me too.
And somehow, somewhere, I know that at just the right time and in just the right place, I will find my set of perfect stones...
some very special stones,
my own 'Ili'ili,
for the sacred hula chant.
July 20, 2010
"I Think it's Meat?"
My younger brother was aged 3 or 4 when he was sitting on the living room couch with my mom and I. He was requesting a piece of bologna for an afternoon snack but was having trouble recalling its name. He was left instead to describe his snack request:
“I want…ahhh…(pause)…you know…the pink thing. I think it’s meat. Or is it candy?”
You can only imagine the rise of frustration that mounted on both ends: my baby brother hungry yet struggling to communicate his desire with a limited vocabulary, and my mother earnestly perplexed yet trying hard to decipher his snack description. It was a hilarious moment and a memory we still laugh at today. I realize now that as a child my brother had actually hit upon important food question—“what exactly is ‘food’?”
I was forced to reconsider this question over my breakfast at Likelike Drive In. I saw some items on the menu that prompted me to ask, “is this food” and if so, “is it meat, candy or other?”:
Spam - Vienna Sausage – Bologna –Corned Hash - Hot Dog – Processed Meat
I don’t even know what “Processed Meat” means and why it’s even listed as a “Side Dish” priced at $4.95. (Spam is also listed as a Side Dish for the same price.) These items don’t even seem like ‘real’ meat let alone a Side Dish, so how do we make sense of their placement on the menu as such? How do we determine if something is considered a Meat, Vegetable, Bread or Dairy product? And what parameters are used to demarcate these main food groups? And if they don’t fall neatly into one of the four categories--such as Spam and Vienna Sausage, how exactly are we to understand them?
{And more importantly, why are all of these indefinable food products generally colored pink?}
Later that night, I went to Hasr in downtown for wine tasting. They served some pupu’s for wine tasters, including one dish that they called “beef teriyaki”. After taking one bite of the ‘meat’ on a stick it became clear to me that the texture of this food item was not “beef” as I expected it. Cow brains, liver, or churned intestines, perhaps, but not “beef”. So to make sense of the day’s quest with “meat”, what I’ve come to conclude is that what becomes designated as “food” along with other subcategory labels such as “meat” or “vegetable”, is actually the result of a socially constructed process. What gets defined as ‘food’ (and similarly as ‘meat’) is contextually dependent upon the region, culture and institution in which is it defined, as well as by those who are given the power and legitimacy to define it as such.
Insects in some countries are meat delicacies. Processed Meat at Likelike is a Side Dish. And I guess that's that.
[Large food conglomerates at the national level control what becomes recognized as “legitimate food” and shape what gets stocked on supermarket shelves offering an illusion of food “choices” which aren’t really choices at all…But that’s a topic for a whole ‘nother conversation.]
[Wartime Hawaii has a long history of defining Spam, Vienna Sausage and Corned Hash as meat products. With limited and infrequent cargo shipments to the island, the long shelf life of these canned products, despite its high sodium levels, offered residents a desired form of meat-alternatives. Today these three items take up a lot of aisle space at Costco’s in Hawaii, a nostalgic nod and contemporary maintenance of the island’s alternative-meat culture.]
June 25, 2010
"Coconut goes Ka'tonk?"
“Ho, the coconut fall far from da tree, eh?” my friend said to me the other day over lunch. He was referring to me, the mainland*girl with local roots. I had just opened the plastic covered menu when my eyes caught hold of the restaurant’s local beer selection. “Hey, they have beer named after my dad’s Hawaiian name!” I said with a proud glee and laughter. I imagined for a brief second, trying to smuggle a bottle home as a gift for him, but then re-imagined it confiscated by an all too happy airport security officer longing a little too much for his next 10 minute break. I decided to stick with ordering the huli huli chicken dish, and tap water.
“That’s your dad’s name?” my friend said. I could see the look of bewilderment on his face. He was mindfully recalculating the pieces of our morning together > Walgreens, Tasaka Guri Guri, Old Town Wailuku. He stared at my face as if trying to decode how I became so mainland’ish.
Earlier in the day we had driven by my grandparent’s old house, a plantation style house that’s now converted into a business office. On every trip I make to Maui, I walk the rugged streets of Old Town Wailuku and always make a special stop at my grandparent’s house. I look in the windows, look in the backyard, and simply pause to remember. When I was five or six years old, I remember hanging out in the front yard and my grandpa telling me to go “over there” and stick my hand in the big empty orchid pot. My eyes lit up real wide, like a little girl in a big colorful candy shop. Deep inside the black plastic pot, were the hugest and most perfect sea shells I had ever seen. “Take them” my grandpa said with a chin up nod to me, “They’re yours.” I carried some over to him and he explained that he found each one on the beach over a span of years. “You found these?” I asked. I didn’t even think you could buy sea shells like that. I thought they were so special. I always remember that moment, and over the years have displayed these shells in my bathroom, in a tall glass container from Crate and Barrel with Hawaii sand gracing the bottom.
I was looking for a bottle of liquid aloe vera to combat the Hawaii sun. Didn't find it at Whole Foods, Mana’s in Paia, and so I took a stab and asked an employee at Longs if there was a Walgreens on the island. He said there indeed was a Walgreens, and pointed me in right direction. So off I drove…only to find out that the new store has been constructed over site...of my dad’s old childhood house. It just came up a couple months ago. I was sad. On every trip to Maui, I also make it a ritual to go and stand on the land of my dad’s old house, re-creating in my mind all the fun kid time stories my dad would tell me about his life. On this visit, though, I stood in the goodies aisle looking at bags of arare and dried li hing mui plums, imagining in my own mind that this is the spot where my dad’s bedroom once was. I imagine this because I think my dad would be most happy in this aisle > he has a sweet tooth—which I too inherited.
“Let’s get some Guri Guri” my friend finally said with gusto, “I’ve been thinking about that throughout the whole [inter island] flight here.” We drove past my grandpa’s old work place, where I smiled out the window turning my face toward the old historic building, and pulled into the Maui Mall shopping center. It was a blue skied Sunday morning and we were sorely disappointed to find that the hot pink storefront was taking its own Sabbath. It’s amazing how two scoops of the tangerine and strawberry colored ice treat can make a person smile --or frown, in our case. Though closed to the public, the store’s pink walls still sparkled and spoke of the gift it brought to my family. “My family has the secret recipe” I teased my friend just to rub in our morning’s loss. “Whaaat?” “Yup, the ‘Guri Guri man’ was the match maker for my grandparents,” I said, as if those two separate ideas somehow made it all clear. “Really?” A long pause came as the wheels turned. “So then, since the shop is closed, you can call the mainland, get the recipe and then make it in your kitchen today, right?” Hmmmn. What a smart reply. Perhaps we could have, but the first batch would only be done by the time his returning flight was departing. So we went to Yogurtland instead. And it was green tea with mini gummy bears for me.
It was a funky day, but just an ordinary day, really. But I got to see Wailuku and Kahului from a lens of different eyes, eyes that saw how much of our family’s history is interwoven into the local community. Everywhere I went was tied to a family story. And perhaps that why, though I am a mainland*girl, I likes the islands so much > it feels like home. And so even as the commercial and topographical landscape of Maui continues to change and evolve over time, even eroding the sites of sacred memories of our family's past, the immigrant roots of our family will always take generations past, present and future back to this island--a beautiful island that holds a special place my heart.
{When I was a kid my dad would often call me a ka’tonk. When I’d ask what this means, he’d just say, “Dass the sound a coconut makes when it falls.” For years I never understood the metaphor. I think I finally get it. And yet, I’d add, some coconuts fall closer to the tree than others.}
[took the snap shot photo in Paia when I parked under the coconut tree; been reports of people knocked dead from the force of falling coconuts, no joke.]
June 20, 2010
"Cracked Seed"
“Eh, we goin’ go aunty Sharon guys place” the mother told her kids in the cracked seed aisle at Walmart. I smiled to myself, listening to the speech patterns of the sentence, and its familiar melody.
Growing up I...
June 9, 2010
"Pidgin"
I was talking with my dad’s cousin the other day and had a real hard time making sense of what he was saying. Real thick pidgeon accent. I had to concentrate extra hard fo' get da jokes and figure out what he try say. Little by little I'm practicing my pidgin--learning not from friends but da the bible. Yup, dass rite. Get one sample here:
"Jesus Make the Strom Pau"
Mark 4:35-41
Dat time afta da sun go down, Jesus wen tell his guys, “Eh, we go da odda side da lake.” Dey wen leave all da peopo, an Jesus guys take him insdie da boat. Had odda boats dea too. Den had one big storm ova dea, an da waves was bussing ova da boa, so da boat almos wen huli. But Jesus still yet stay sleeping in da back on one pillow. His guys wen go wake him up, an tell him, “Eh, Teacha! You no care we goin mahke, o wat?”
Jesus get up, an scold da wind an da waves. He say, “Quiet! No move aroun!” Den da wind wen pau an da waves wen come nice. An he tell his guys, “How come you guys scared? You guys no trus me, o wat?”
Dey so scared, dey wen tell each odda, “Eh, wat kine guy dis? Even da wind an da waves do wat he tell um!”
[And that's how the bible story goes.]
