Travelling The Islands, Pt 3--Oahu

Currently I am in Waikiki on the island of Oahu, as previously stated. I've been here for four days, and am able to give it a little better review than I did on the day I first landed in Hawaii.
This is a crowded mess of tall hotel buildings, so I was still right on the money with that. The beach is crowded with tourists, along with vendors hawking catamaran cruises, snorkeling trips and other activities. I feel sorry for the tourists, as they have little reason or inclination to venture past their hotel area. They spend all that money to lie on the beach and eat at the same bad restaurant for a few days, and they'll spend the rest of their lives talking about it. I get a tiny bit of glee when talking to them. They tell me where they're from, and ask where I'm from when they hear the Southern accent. I get to say "Maui".
I'm writing from my balcony, and it's a noisy place, with foodservice carts echoing over the flagstone walkways and dishes being shuffled. Much of this hotel is under construction, so the laundromat is out of service, which means I get to have a petty revenge against the Transportation Safety Administration when I go back....Let them rifle through my smelly, unwashed clothing!
The city streets are vibrant and clean, and I was pleased to find them peopled with hundreds of hot Japanese girls in light clothing. I don't remember any attractive Japanese women in North Carolina, but they sure are abundant here.
On my first night out wandering, the boss and I found a Korean BBQ steak house tucked back in an alleyway. "In business for over ten years!" they claimed, which is a good sign. Meals were served shabu shabu style: there's a round gas grill countersunk into the tabletop, and you cook the meat yourself. This is fun, and keeps the price way down. Sides were delicious as well, and though the portions appeared very small, I left very satisfied. Perhaps I will build my own Shabu table one day.
The next night I tried the same concept in a Japanese restaurant, but it wasn't quite up to par, as you had to cook your own vegetables as well, and they charged extra for those. I still came out cheap, but with hunger less than sated.
However, I was amused and taken aback momentarily when, while being shown to my table, the host yelled out loud something in Japanese, and all the staff looked at me and responded with a loud and boisterous "ArrooooooHAAA!!!"
The stereotype appears to be true...you'd think they could pronounce "aloha" by now.
I've been out and around the block a few times now, and it all starts to run together...the buildings and glass windows full of things which I have no interest in whatsoever. It's a giant mall surrounded by a giant mall and a few other smaller malls in between. I did stumble onto one mall that was interesting: the International Bazaar. Stuck in an alleyway between tall buildings, it was composed of a large group of kiosks piled under a gigantic banyan tree. The wares were uninteresting--apparently the vendors believe that there is a catastrophic costume jewelry shortage in the world--but the draw was the tree stuck in the middle of this concrete jungle. I absolutely love banyan trees, and made sure to get some pictures. They are an amazing species. A member of the common edible fig family, they have a unique ability to shoot roots out from their branches, allowing them to cover a large area. A banyan in the Lahaina Courthouse lawn on Maui covers nearly two-and-one-half acres. They look like something right out of an Indiana Jones adventure. The parks along the beach in Waikiki boast several of them, and I took great delight in inspecting the one pictured above up close.

Travelling The Islands, pt 2--Lana'i

The island of Lanai is a wonderful treasure to behold...but it takes less than two days to behold it, and that's pushing it.
Lanai has a small airport or two, but is mainly accessed by ferry from Lahaina, Maui. I had the blessed fortune of making this crossing at the best possible time: the hight of whale season. Every winter, humpback whales migrate to Hawaii to birth their calves....and they come in the tens of thousands! The channel between Maui and Lanai becomes whale soup! Crossing the channel, you can see them all around spouting, breaching, jumping and playfully slapping their tails repeatedly on the water's surface. When they know they've gained your attention, they put on quite a show. Our event was being held in a putting green atop a cliff overlooking a cove, and a pod of whales with new calves frolicked just off shore in that bay all day long. We were having trouble keeping our crew focused on the job at hand, as were the musicians, sound and light crew, hotel staff and caterers. It was a marvelous and wonderful thing to behold. Further out in the water I could see one swimming around a whale-watching cruise, jumping high out of the water on each pass. Ooohs and aaahs aplenty could be heard that day.
Lanai only has two ferry landings, and one narrow road each which climbs the mountain to it's summit. As we approached the southwest landing, sheer, flat cliffs rose high out of the ocean, looking as if someone had sliced away part of the mountain with a carving knife. Above them, ridges and valleys of green forest stretched up into the clouds which obscured the peak. A little further past the landing, a large obelisk of rock jutted out of the ocean just off of the shoreline which appeared to be at one time the other end of a natural bridge. Lanai is very proud of this rock, and it is featured in most of the brochures that I saw as a treasured monument.
Our lodging was on the summit of the island in Lanai City. We followed the road winding up the mountainside, noticing a significant temperature drop along the way. There are no auto or truck rentals on the island, so the only modes of transportation are a shuttle bus which runs the island constantly or the kindness of strangers who would loan you a vehicle, and we utilized both. We finally arrived to our hotel, which is highly acclaimed as one of the finest in the world--The Four Seasons Koele Lodge of Lanai. It was a large, two-story plantation home, with extremely enormous pine trees lining the entrance. A front porch stretched the entire face, with plenty of rocking chairs and whicker furniture. It occurred to me that this seemed entirely out of place here...one would expect to find this sort of place in northern Virginia as opposed to Hawaii; plus it was cold, and all I had to wear were shorts.
We began work as soon as we landed on the island, so it was 7:00 pm by the time we arrived at the hotel, and I never got to see it. We were instructed that we had only twenty minutes to shower and return to the shuttle in time for dinner. I missed the shower, and we all missed the shuttle, so the hotel staff drove us into town and dropped us off at the only open restaurant-the Blue Ginger Cafe. This was a tiny hole-in-the-wall with a few tables and counter...a typical mom-and-pop burger joint kinda place. Two doors down was a corner church which doubled as the town movie theater with first-run films on a second-run schedule. The place was packed with local teenagers, and from what I read of the billboard, the movies only run for a couple of nights. Come early.
Being in Lanai City is really like being in a time warp. The entire town shuts down at 8:30 pm. All "restaurants" close at 7:30 pm, except for the Blue Ginger which stays open a generous 30 minutes more. There is almost no industry whatsoever...the entire economy seems built on service work, with the exception of one custom furniture and woodworking company in the middle of Lanai City. There was once a great pineapple industry--Dole Pineapple owned 98% of the island-- but Dole has pulled out of Hawaii, and fields now go untilled. To make matters worse, Dole will not allow the natives to farm the abandoned land. This seemed like the smallest of Depression-era rural small towns. It's hard to fathom that when I look out at this nearby island while swimming in the comfort of Kihei's endless beaches, I am looking at a rock populated by a very few of the wealthiest people in the world, and a whole lot of broken dreams.
We finished dinner at 9:00 pm, and were back to work from 11:00 pm until 3:00 am. We slept, and when I awoke the coffee service had already closed. I was shuttled back to the ferry twenty minutes later. I had seen none of this grand hotel but the room and the hallway from the front porch to the room. But aside from that, I had seen everything there was to see on Lanai during my short little 24-hour visit.

*To be continued, with addendum from a second trip*

Travelling The Islands, Pt 1, The Big Island and Makaha, Oahu

I've been lucky and blessed enough to have procured employment with a company that does a fair amount of travelling throughout the islands, and I have been surprised to learn that the islands are both very much the same and yet so very different.

My first trip away was to the Big Island of Hawai'i. As the plane approached the leeward side of the island near the town of Kailua-Kona, I looked down from the plane onto a landscape that looks nothing less than lunar. The ground was nothing but a vast expanse of hundreds of square miles of lava rock. The black asphalt roads which cut through this barren landscape appeared from above to be long strips of black duct tape pasted over the land. The faster-flowing lava had left fields of smooth, jet-black lava with the ropy texture of water flowing through a pebbled stream bed. The slower lava expanded outward as it cooled, forming a field of sharp, rust-colored coral-like rocks which gave the appearance of the land having been tilled and overturned by gargantuan earth-moving machines. From the ground, there was nothing to be seen but Moana Kea in the distance, the ocean and an enormous desert of rock thinly glazed over with dead, dry, brown grass....God's own Chia pet.
The ancient Hawaiians would travel across this land, slowly cutting a single-file footpath through the rock-a lesson in perseverance. They camped at night sleeping in the mouths of lava tubes which gave some minor shelter from the wind and rain. At their encampments, they would carve petroglyphs into the rock...small stick-figure graffiti that supposedly told who they were, what their rank is, and what their exploits were. For example, a circle with three dots inside is assumed to mean that the party circled the island three times. Ranks of tribal members were signified by adornments around their heads, such as domes and rays. These petroglyph designs remain a firm fixture in popular culture, and are seen in company logos and in stickers on the backs of automobiles and on surfboards, or painted onto the walls of theme restaurants, or fashioned into jewelry, etc, etc..
It was a long drive to our destination hotel...about 30 miles away to the north. The desert of rock expanded for as far as I could see to a mountain in the distance, and was terribly featureless and boring save for the creativity of the natives: all along the highway was grafitti created by dragging white coral rocks from the shore and placing them into letters and designs onto the black and red lava rock. I saw nothing that would be considered lewd....all initials of lovers placed inside hearts, memorials to lost loved ones, and cheers for the graduating class or high-school sports team. This was interesting and charming to see, and became even more interesting when you consider what a huge undertaking this was in terms of labor. It was a lot of coral, and it travelled a long way...the shore was over half a mile away with very little access. One would have a very difficult and downright dangerous time hiking across this landscape, and driving over it was absolutely out of the question. With no trees and desert-like conditions to boot, it becomes obvious that the artist would devote an entire day just to have his message put in sight of passing motorists.
The resort areas are very sporadically placed along the shoreline of this island...very remote. Our first event was at the Waikoloa Village Hilton Resort, and what a fantastic and spectacular piece of architectural engineering this place is!...especially considering that it was carved into a pure rock landscape. Three guest towers surround a seperate hotel lobby building, and are accessable by footpath, boat and monorail tram. An enormous marble stairway covered by a 40-foot high arbor leads down into the waters of an ocean-fed lagoon complete with tropical fishes and trained dolphins. Each building is a museum, with foyers adorned with paintings, sculptures and artifacts from various periods and locations, from Buddhist China to Hinduist India to colonial America. Designed by a former architect of Walt Disney World, this resort is a wondrous achievement.
Nearby is Anaeho'omalu Bay--affectionately known as A-Bay--and a beach park to which I ventured one evening to watch the sunset. I had heard in my youth of Hawaiian beaches with red and black sand, but....tweed? Yes, tweed sand! I dug through it with my hands and observed it closely.....course granules of blond, black and emerald green---and nothing else--combining to create a color that can only be described as tweed. It was thick and heavy, pleasant underfoot, and with the extra added benefit of not being sticky...a flick of your hand or foot, and it was all gone!

A second trip to this island placed me in the considerably more lush, green and populated harbor town of Kona, south of it's desert airport. There's little to tell of it, other than it's a basic town on the hillside overlooking the harbor, with a quaint little tourist trap boardwalk. Our event site was much farther north next to the Waikoloa Village Hilton, but management saw fit to opt for the longer drive and the considerably less expensive hotel--the King Kamehameha Hotel, which appears very much like I imagine it did in 1972. Though not the finest of accommodations (having been spoiled by being given my own private 3-bedroom condo on the previous trip), this hotel seemed like the Ritz Carlton after experiencing the horror that was Makaha Valley on the island of Oahu. More on that in a moment.
A fair amount of night driving was involved in this trip, and it was my first experience with driving in pitch black conditions. The road from Kona to Waikoloa is long and straight, much like a southwestern desert road. I could see neither the land to my right nor the ocean to my left...nothing could be seen at all that lie outside the field of my headlamps. This was a very creepy experience...one would assume that there would be something to see, but alas, on an overcast night, there was nothing at all. Nothing.
Our event for the week was held on a lawn right on the shoreline, and our props were stored in a shipping container up the hillside near the highway. After the event, and after all the props were locked back into the container, I turned around to see a most breathtaking view: It was past 2:00am, and all the condo lights were out...the only light available was from the full moon setting straight ahead over the ocean. A path of shining silver pointed towards it on the water's surface, fading out in rippling feathers to either side. It was the most beatiful thing I had ever seen, and as I stood there mesmerized by it, I noticed that it was also deathly quiet--no wind, no breeze, no birds, no rustling trees, no cars--no sound at all but the blood rushing through my ears. I had worked a long and hard shift, and was well paid by being suddenly thrust inside a postcard world. With any luck, I will never forget that moment for the rest of my life.

As I am writing this, it is 3:32 am, and I am on the fourth-floor balcony of my hotel room overlooking Waikiki Beach on Oahu. Now, I slammed Waikiki pretty hard when I first landed here in Hawaii, and I wish to retract my comments. It's bigger than I realised, and the streets are overflowing with outlandishly attractive young Japanese women. But more about that later....On to Makaha Valley:

The Makaha Valley Resort is situated between two high mountain ridges in the west side of Oahu...hence the term "valley". Duh. This resort could be nice, but it's bland, with bad food, and it's a golf villa, so there's nothing at all to do but play golf and compare shades of blue hair....and those are the highlights.
To get to Makaha, one must travel along a busy beach road through the town of Waianae (pronounced "why-an-eye"). This is the part of the island to which all of Oahu's homeless and downtrodden are herded to keep them out of sight of the tourists. Cramped, dilapidated homes pile up along the roadside, mingled with tacky pink convenience stores which thrive on sales of alcohol and cigarettes. The one local grocery store actually has a side room by the front door with it's own checkout just for alcohol and cigarettes, which both helps to control shoplifting and keeps the riff-raff from waiting at the checkout. Drugs and crime are the primary industries here.
The Waianae beach front is a vast tent city...it looks like a retirement village for all those people who spent their lives following the Grateful Dead on tour. Tarps and machanical refuse are cleverly fashioned into extra rooms and lanais for a ripstop nylon condominium effect.
I have heard that Hawaii's growing homeless problem has been making the news on the mainland. While it is an epidemic, there are some things that need to be kept in perspective, as revealed to me by a retired military vet who spends his time managing charities and homeless advocacy affairs:
There are basically three classes of homeless people in Hawaii. The first is the obvious--the mentally disturbed, addicted, alcoholic, and the aging and disabled. Our hearts go out to them. The criminal are also in this class, and they get no sympathy.
The second class are people who have jobs, have money in the bank, and seek to improve their lives, but some past misfortune has left them with unsavory credit which makes them ineligible to rent a home. They carry on their lives hoping for a kinder and brighter future.
The third class have jobs and money in the bank, and their money grows; but they simply do not see any point in throwing that money away on the ridiculously high rental rates. They are perfectly happy with a shelter in Paradise and a shower on the beach front. I was amused to see one of these types pushing a mower around his neatly-kept nylon condo.
I point this out because I am one of the privileged few that have a full-time job and full medical and dental benefits; but anything can happen here, and I could become another of Hawaii's statistics at the drop of a hat.

To be continued...

A Few Loose Ends

July 27, 2007

It's been a while since my last entry here, partly because I have been fairly busy, and partly because I have had some difficulty focusing in on any one particular subject. With that in mind, I'm going to use this opportunity to tidy up[ a bunch of random thoughts about island life that have been floating around unexpressed, poking at my conscience, leaving unsightly hair in the sink and generally being a nuisance.

*******

The word on the street is that this island is one of the most desired vacation places in the world, holding the Number One spot in Conde Nasts' list of Top Ten Islands In The World for going on nearly ten years and always in the top three on any other ritzy publication's list. That's just peachy and all, but I can't figure out what the vacationers are doing when they get here. I would have thought for sure that relaxing on the beach would be on the agenda, but apparently this is not so.
There's only a couple of beaches on this island that you can consider being a traditional sandy sun-and-fun beach. One of them is on the other side of the mountains in an isolated resort area, and it is very nice, winning another Best In The World listing. Chances are that you probably can't afford to sunbathe there. The other is about three minutes from our crib...Maipoina Oe Iau Park ("Forget-Me-Not") on the Ma'alaea Bay shores. This is a beautiful beach, perfect for most shoreline relaxation activities, with exquisite sand and clear blue water. The only thing missing from it is vacationers. Brian and I visit this beach regularly, at various times of the day, and we almost never see any more than ten people for as far as the eye can see, which is several miles. On the one hand, this is nice in that it's never crowded, and it feels as though we have our own private beach. On the other hand, the severe deficit of bikini bunnies fuels the fear that my monastic lifestyle may never end.


*******

Maui is an expensive place to live, and the coming development of vacation real estate only makes it more difficult for the native-born Hawaiian to have (or keep) a home or car. Many of them only have bicycles for transportation...and boy, is it easy to pick them out.
The local bicycle is a strange and unique creation, each one as different and unique as it's owner. Parts are scrapped together from whatever is found lying in a ditch covered in weeds, and they are installed backwards, upwards, amended and with every other term for modified that you can think of. Bags and pouches are strapped into whatever spaces the frame might have, and if that's not enough space, then more frame is added until you can mange to create a two-wheeled, human-powered condominium. Paint schemes are equally unique, as every Hawaiian cyclist imagines himself to be an artist. There are tiger stripes and polka dots and mosaics and a wide variety of mottled shades of grey, black, and rust. With my somewhat limited vocabulary, it's difficult to describe them accurately; the best way I can tell you is that they look like what would happen if Salvador Dali had built the Mars rover.


*****
The newcomer might be amused by the Hawaiian license plate: a rainbow on a plain white field. Don't worry--it doesn't mean that we are all gay.

*****
I've done quite a bit of listening to modern Hawaiian music on the radio while traveling around the island, and I've noticed something interesting about it: Hawaiians have very little to write about. There's a few love songs, and a few historical songs--songs about great storms, conquests of King Kamehameha, and a very popular one about the demigod Maui ("The one original ultimate Hawaiian Superman!!")--but mostly there are songs about fishing. Lots and lots of fishing songs. At first this seems funny after a lifetime of mainland music which tackles such a vast array of subjects from depressing isolationism to all-night partying to political grandstanding to pickup trucks and everything you can think of in between; but then it becomes charming in it's innocence and simplicity. I don't know the names of the artists because the station never announces them (I hate that), but I take delight in hearing one minstrel sing about walking along the rocks and netfishing, with every line answered by the voice of a young girl singing the same lines in the native Hawaiian tongue. He keeps his message simple:

"I walk on the rocks and I see all the mullet
I fit plenty fish in my five-gallon bucket
I cast my net so far and wide
I love to fish at Hale Aloha, Hawaii!"

Another fave of mine is "Mr. Polebender":

"Mister Polebender, where are you?
I gonna bait my hook and line
And then I'm coming for you!"

Now, this is not traditional Hawaiian music....it's not ukeleles and slide guitars and Don Ho falsettos singing "Tiny Bubbles". Modern Hawaiian music is nothing more than standard Jamaican reggae, but without the politics and drug references. It has it's own name: Jawaiian. There is an AM station that does play nothing but traditional Hawaiian music from more modern artists such as Grammy winner Isreal Kamakawiwe'ole (affectionately known as Bradda Iz) to music recorded as far back as the 40's. I occasionally listen to this music also, and it is a beautiful language to hear when set to music. The only problem is that this station is very badly managed, and you often hear the same six-song sets repeated back-to-back, and again an hour later. What really surprised me was that when first hearing it, I found that I was familiar with all of it! That struck me as very strange, because I don't remember ever being exposed to very much of it before I found that station. It seems that even when you hear just little bits and pieces of it when passing by tourist shops and hotel luaus, they stick into your subconscious with a much firmer grip than other popular musics do.

My Dirty Little Secret

 I finally understand the inner turmoil that the transsexual goes through. I am having my own inner conflict to deal with, and the battle rages on between both sides of my conscience. Every day I wake up and trudge through my life wondering who I really am, and desperately seeking a resolution.
 
  You see, I'm a fisherman trapped in a landlubber's body.
 
  I've tried to push it away; then one day I found myself at a yard sale forking over $35 for two 6' open reels. Thankfully, nobody I knew was there to see it. When I got home, my roommates were gone, so I snuck them into my room and spent the next 20 minutes fondling them...caressing them...I felt so ashamed; I can't name even one fish that swims the Ma'alaea Bay.
 
  I pondered what I had done, and tried to summon repentance, but I was hooked.  I had no defense against my inner desires, and was soon down at Long's Drugs, averting my eyes from strangers as I sought out  tackle department. My eyes glazed over as I scanned the display board--hooks....sinkers....floats....scalers....leader lines...snap swivels....slide bait stoppers...grubs filled with reflective multi-colored foil confetti. Rivers of anticipation ran down my inseam as I selected my first tackle box.
 
  Back at home I cast caution to the wind and indulged in an orgy of frantic package-ripping, line-knotting and bait-threading. I rushed down to the bay feeling alive and free! I felt a hole in my soul shrink five sizes smaller as I splashed my way into the surf, fighting the undertow, feeling glee as the waves crashed against my body! I unlocked the reel....I leaned back, my head just above the waterline...I tightened my grip around my rod, and I CAST!  I cast with all the might I could muster!  The hooked grub sailed out to sea, defying the mighty winds!  It splashed....sank....I reeled with joy....
 
  I hooked a rock. Repeatedly. Ashamed and dejected, I slouched back to my '91 Camry as the sea laughed sadistically at me behind my back.
 
  Almost two weeks passed...two weeks of shame and humiliation. I felt so alone. Then, out of the blue, I recieved a call from Dr. Morifuji, and was stunned to hear him exclaim "I heard you bought a fishing pole!". I acknowledged that I had, and told him of my secret desire. He then invited me to join him and a friend on a fishing trip the next morning on the north side of Haleakala near the town of Haiku. He told me it was a secluded spot, and no-one would see us except others of our kind. My heart leapt into my throat as I choked out the words, "I'd love to!".  Alas, I was not alone after all!
 
  The next morning we all piled into a pickup truck and head down the road. Suddenly we turned onto a dirt path that winds around behind the pineapple fields, passing campsites of homeless Mauians  with their trucks and guard dogs. Soon we stopped at a high cliff overlooking a secluded bay.
 
  Well, it was staggering. A VERY narrow trail wound down the side of the cliff, with ropes staked into the ground at various intervals as makeshift handrails. At the bottom was a field of black lava rock, scattered with tide pools teeming with anemone, various minnows and mudskippers. The picture above cannot translate how immensely huge it all is! The tide was on it's way in, and the wind was blowing hard. Waves crashed violently against the rocky shoreline as we cast out our lines.
 
  I was climbing over the rocks and casting like a madman. Gary anchored a 10' pole in the ground and fit it with slide bait. Marc and I stayed with the cast-and-retrieve method.
 
  Slide-baiting was a new concept to me, and I found it to be interesting and clever. See, a large weight is tied on to the end of the line, with brass wires when anchor it to the ocean floor. About six feet up from there, a steel ring is attached to the line.  Back on shore, a smaller steel ring (like a keychain) is attached, with a baited hook on about four feet of leader line. This assembly slides down the pole's line, is stopped by the larger ring, and the bait--a live mudskipper from the tide pools-- swims around in circles on it's tether under the water.
 
  Marc had a big one get away. Gary caught a large eel. I caught a rock and Gary's ankle.
 
  Yet I remain determined to find my inner fisherman, and yesterday found myself back at Long's Drugs buying a 10' pole, slider tackle and various other minutia. God saw my despair, and sent to me a stranger who saw me shopping and stopped to offer loads of unsolicited fishing advice.  I bought a larger tackle box.
 
   Again I went home and indulged in that orgy of package-ripping and knot-tying. I went to the bay and cast my new reel, again feeling the joy of freedom from the constricting bonds of my landlubber past.
 
   I caught a rock.
 
   Maybe next weekend.

WHAT'S WITH THE RICE??

July 27, 2006


"Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes"....There's a lyric that has often been repeated in my presence, and usually by my roommate Brian. Naturally I assumed there would be some changes in my attitude when I moved here, but more than that I wanted to escape the attitude of my old city of Greensboro-- mainly with respect to racism. Yes, I know that racism is everywhere and in many forms, and there is no way to escape it; but it's a little different here.
In my humble and useless opinion, Greensboro is the birthplace of modern racism. The Woolworth Lunch Counter Sit-in of February 1, 1960, could easily be considered the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. The Nazi-Klan Shootout of 1979 gave us more notoriety in racial affairs and a tasteless skit on Saturday Night Live. The NC A&T State University in Greensboro is the Alma Mater of Jessie Jackson ("I AM....an Aggie!"), and the resulting civic pride of the black community saw many seeking further leadership from Louis Farrakhan. Though the city is basically peaceful, underlying racial tension can be uncomfortable, especially when compounded by the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the US also clamoring for special "rights", and having to hear rednecks complain about it all.

Here on Maui, there is plenty of racism also; the difference is that everyone here is a minority, so racism is actually funny to most. It's treated more like good-natured smack talk between fans of opposing football teams. If, for some reason, the group that you are with are all of the same minority, then the group is forced to denigrate each other's hometowns. This is truly a melting pot, and everyone is having fun diving off of the rim.

One of the prevalent minorities is of Portuguese descent. The first family I met fell into this catagory and they have a blast bashing themselves. They way they explain it to me, there are two subclasses of Portuguese: There are the Portuguese--who sailed over in boats--- and then there are the Portugee (porta-GEE) who swam. That was the extent of the explaination, but I'm guessing that the former group doesn't indulge in near as much marijuana abuse as the latter.
Among the native Hawaiians, there appears to be three classes. The first are your basic, down-home friendly folk who enjoy cashing in on tourism. Sure, they'd like the island to remain in an undeveloped natural state, but the know they'd get bored, and, besides, they're gonna make a fortune in land prospecting. The second group finds tourism irritating, yet necessary....they know that they'd be unemployed without it, and their families didn't have the luxury of land ownership. They voice their sentiments with a message pasted on the rear windows of their cars: "WELCOME TO HAWAII...NOW GO HOME". The third class is the worst, and is considered to be an embarrassment: the Mokes. My friend Corey summed them up pretty well: "They're fat, they're drunk, and they're extremely racist...they are the official Hawaiian redneck". These guys enjoy harassing tourists and white locals. They are known to start fights in parks around the island, and are the ones often heard yelling "Hoale go home!". One of their favorite haunts is the Ioa Valley, where they enjoy burglarizing or stealing cars. The local wisdom says "you can always spot a tourist's car because the windows are cracked for air". It's just a bad idea to leave your car open in any way, anywhere. Now, I'm thinking that there's a good reason to be causing trouble in Ioa Valley if you're a moke: the valley, with it's pristine natural majesty, was the worship place for native gods; tourism can almost be seen as a desecration in the eyes of the proud Hawaiian native.
Haoles (HOW-lays: white people) are are becoming increasingly tolerated and accepted, and the word hoale doesn't have the racist connotation that it once had (unless you're a Moke). Twenty years ago, however, the word "haole" was almost always preceded by an adjective such as "stupid" or "fu***ng". Now, as it is with all minorities, haole is just what you are. If you're white, you're a haole. Get used to it.

My town of Kihei has a really large population of resident white people, so it's often referred to as Haolewood. As you leave Haolewood and cross the cane fields to Kahului, you can look at the mountainsides and see the towns of Wailuku, Waikupu, Pu'unene, Macawao, and Kula (Google a map). Just around the corner of the Haleakala volcano is Paia and Haiku. All of these towns' residents have a rivalry with each other, though I'm not sure why other than just to have something to talk about. Well, there are a couple of legitimate rivalries.... Wailuku hates Kahului because it became a sprawl town and took all Wailuku's business and jobs away. Kihei is a town with all the standard amenities, so it attracts white folk who like convenience (like me); and further down the highway past Kihei is Wailea, where all the rich white people with golf memberships live. The natives apparently had the foresight to decide that if they are going to be invaded by honkies, they should all be forced to reside in the desert.
Personally, I have a resentment against Wailuku because it's the county seat. When I went there to replace my "laminated" Social Security card, they made me take a number when I was the only person in the office. Seriously. I took a number, took one step, handed it to the receptionist and was called to the window. Screw them.

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"Okay", I thought....."I get that this is a predominantly Asian culture. But, seriously: what's with the rice???"
In the first stock-the-fridge trip to the grocery store, the rice selection caught my eye, and it was amusing at the time: stacks of 20-pound bags, and two flavors of Uncle Ben's about four small boxes deep. I should have seen that as a harbinger of things to come.
Here's the deal: you're going to eat white sticky rice. And you're going to like it.
On my birthday, we made a trip to Outback Steakhouse, and we were all excited about having a steak with that killer sweet potato on the side. But guess what? They DON'T SERVE the sweet potato! You will have white rice! At the Outback!!
I stopped for lunch at a grocery store deli counter...much to my surprise, there appeared to be some Southern fare for consumption! I ordered a lunch plate: a meat and two vegetables. Then this exchange happened with the little old Asian lady behind the counter:
"A lunch plate is a meat and two vegetables, right?"
"Yes"
"Okay, I'll have the stuffed cabbage..."
"You only get one!"
"Umm...right. And two vegetables, right?"
"Yes."
"Okay, I'll have the stuffed cabbage and..."
"You only get one!"
(eyes glaze over, bewilderment sets in)
"Does the cabbage have pork in it? I mean, is it a meat?"
"Yes"
"Okay, can I have two vegetables with it?"
"Yes"
"Okay....I'd like......a stuffed cabbage and..."
"But you only get one!"
( I hang my head. I ponder. I decide to try again. A different tactic.)
"Can I get some green beans?"
"Yes"
"Great! I'll have green beans and mashed potatoes with the stuffed cabbage!"
"Okay, but you only get one!"
(I'm at a loss. I still don't know what this means. Nevertheless, she opens the styrofoam container. I watch intently as she serves the green beans in the small corner compartment. Oh, yes. I'm getting green beans! Then she turns around...I can't see what's happening...she returns. I look. I blink. There's a mound of white rice in the other compartment!!)
"NO, No,no....I would like mashed potatoes! No rice!"
(She's puzzled, confused....she ponders. She reaches down with her spoon. She lifts out the white rice. She places it back down in the large entree compartment! My mind reels. I have no recourse but to giggle silently. She serves mashed potatoes in the small compartment. She asks if I want gravy. I say yes. She pours the gravy over the rice.)
"Do you want anything else?" she asks.
"Yes, the stuffed cabbage." (And an aspirin.)
"You only get one!" (Make that two aspirin.)
"One will be fine! Thanks!"
(She serves. I check out. $6.99 plus tax. I have ten minutes to return and eat.)

I started getting lunch across the street at a lunch plate store called Nagasako's, and that's just what it is: a lunch plate store. There's a deli hot foot display, a fountain and a cash register. After 3 visits, they figure me for a malihini (resident haole), and start increasing my serving sizes, complete with two mounds of white rice. Once I ordered macaroni salad, and was asked if I wanted gravy on it. I can only assume that Asians are taught in school that white people with southern accents like gravy, but weren't taught what gravy is served with.

But after much consideration, I have decided to surrender. I will do as the Romans do. I will embrace the rice. I will eat it with every meal. I may even go to the convenience mart on a whim and order a Spam Musubi (though probably not anytime soon). I will eat my rice plain if offered that way. I will smile, and be AS ONE with the rice. And the reason that I will do this is because I have magically gained 16 pounds since I have arrived....16 pounds that have eluded me for my entire life no matter how much I ate.

THAT'S what's with the rice.

Welcome to the Avvie Nation!

Aloha!

As a massive exercise in egoism I have started yet another blog page! REJOICE!!

Okay, that's really not true...the main reason is because I was using MySpace as a blog site-having done so without researching the options-and I started getting flooded by webcam invitations. Very irritating, and helped to reaffirm my original disdain for MySpace.
Apparently, I have actually been here before...but must not have gotten far with the blog. Hmm.

One thing that I am sure of is that nobody really cares what my opinions are on the State of the Nation, this summer's hairstyles or anything else AT ALL. So, this blog appears to be quite pointless, right?

Well, not necessarily. It's purpose is to talk about life on a really big rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There may be a few mainlanders who are interested in this, and I happen to know that there is a football fan in the United Kingdom that enjoys these musings. Perhaps I can allow some old friends to live vicariously here through me. And now that my dearly loved little girl-Brittany-is back in my life, maybe I can share some of it with her here.

Of course, it's also entirely possible that this will wind up being my sounding board and brooding spot in troubled or lonely times. And misery loves company, so check back often!
( Ha Ha! Just kidding...misery isn't allowed.)

Some old articles will be moved to this page, and I hope I can manage to post them in the correct order with correct dates. We shall see.

E komo mai o ke Avvie Nation!! Mahalo nui loa a Aloha!