North Shore and New Years

I woke up at just a few minutes before 7 and asked Jon to figure out if the TV in our bedroom worked. I wanted to watch the inauguration. I just wanted to form my own opinions about the event -- as it happened, it only took about three seconds to reinforce my views but we watched the whole thing. As the TV came on, Chief Justice Roberts was beginning to recite the oath, and it went downhill from there. The speech was terrible, from beginning to end, in terms of content, presentation, vocabulary and tone.

And now I have spent the last hour or so watching the Women's Marches that are happening all over the country, and most especially in DC. This is what Facebook is for: real time updates. Lots of pictures of friends and their daughters and sons crowded together on the Mall, smiling and proud in their pink hats.

Meanwhile, back on Oahu, the vacation travelers maintained their focus. As usual, we started slow, eating breakfast and diddling around. By the time we got to the entrance to Hanauma Bay, it was already filled up and closed, alas. So we made an alternate plan to go around the island to the North Shore. Navigation did not go entirely smoothly, but it is hard to get lost on an island of this size, and we began our coastal trek in Kaneohe, heading counterclockwise. All but Dena had been on this tour many times but it is still fun to see the beaches and the scenery and to find out what has changed -- so many more food trucks and places to stop and eat than before. And much more traffic than in the past (Auntie Arlene reported earlier that Hawaii has been flooded with visitors for the last few years because it feels like a safe place.). We did stop at a familiar shrimp place, where the shrimp farms are.  Service was extremely slow but the shrimp was good.

The goal was to see surfing on one of those famous beaches. We stopped at Sunset Beach where there were tons of spectators watching a competition. The waves were good but not outrageous, maybe 12 - 14 feet. The surfers were between 12 and 17 years old and when they got out of the water they had to endure being interviewed on camera. We were lying close enough on the beach to hear the questions and answers and it was as entertaining as watching the surfers: the questions were not hard and the answers were youthful. The winner of one heat, representing South Africa (from Mexico, and he botched the answer of where he was from), said he didn't care about winning, he just liked the experience of this water. There were heats for girls too, and they were just as fearless on their boards as the boys. We wondered why some people took two boards out and we learned that some boards had already broken and they were delivering replacements to the surfers.

The announcer pointed out humpback whales when they breached, and Jon actually got to see them this time.

Things to look for: surfers' heads bobbing between the waves above Hana's head and the splash of a whale at the horizon above Dena' head.

Our next destination was shave ice, but the lines were just too long and we didn't have time to wait so we continued on to the next source of sweet, cold treats: Dole Plantation. On her last trip to Oahu, Rebecca had developed a fondness for soft serve pineapple ice cream. It was extraordinary, she was right. Then we had to get back home because we had family obligations.

We had expected to find Uncle Freddy here waiting for us to pick him up, but Annette was here too, so we quickly got ready and all went together in one car, which was a better plan anyway. Jon dropped us off in Chinatown and went to find parking (streets were closed for New Years celebrations). We were going to a New Years party at Tsung Tsin, a private club for Hakka folks. My Grandpa Hiu was Hakka, one of the subgroups from southern China with a personality and identity of its own, and his portrait is up on the wall with all the other former presidents of this club.

Completely different from what you might expect of a club on the East Coast -- not at all fancy, it was just a big room with a tiny kitchen at one end and a bathroom. The room has tables and chairs and artifacts and documents. It is their common house.  

We were welcomed warmly and Rebecca was immediately cornered by an elder gentleman from Hong Kong. He wanted her to understand why it was important to remember the history of the Hakka, and their role in the revolution in China. It was not completely comprehensible to us, but he was clear that Chinese people from Hawaii had been influential in the revolution. They were educated people (going to schools here and on the mainland) and they used Pig Latin (!!!) to communicate when they didn't want to be understood by others. This seemed incredible to us, but he was completely serious and said that he couldn't speak Pig Latin himself, as English is not this first language.

There was a roast pig, sitting in a cardboard box, staring at us during the opening ceremony.  A gentleman in a red jacket said some words about honesty and hard work and other shared values, he lit incense, he poured tea, he performed a ritual that was both familiar and alien. Certainly we have some of those ritual elements in our religion too (not the pig).  

All the elements of the ritual are present: pomelo, candy, tea, incense, can of fish, pig.

I asked Rebecca's informant how many other people in this room knew how to do that ceremony and he said none. I wasn't surprised. Dinner was potluck. These people take potluck very seriously and there was enough food for twice as many people. Dena said it was the one of the best meals she had ever had (reminding us fondly of Michael L). Almost all Chinese dishes, with a few exceptions, and plenty of variety. Cantonese food, not spicy, plenty of meat and noodles and sauce. The eggplant dish that Uncle Freddy brought from Aina Haina Chop Suey was the first to empty, so even if we didn't cook anything, he contributed honorably.

Then for about two hours there were lion/dragon dancers in the street below. We leaned out the windows and watched the lion/dragon (two people with a big heavy mask head on the front and a wildly colorful body -- the back person was much smaller, sometimes just a little kid, and the front person was strong and tall enough to lift and lower the heavy head). There were different clubs, each with drummers and dancers and it seemed like each club had two lions. The drummers could be as young as about 8 years old, but there were also adults switching in and out. The lions would collect dollar bills from the crowd -- people stuck the bill into the mouth and the lion would dance and bow. Strings of Chinese firecrackers popping and cracking made the lion dance and stomp all around the explosions. Each club had a couple of men managing, telling the kids when to switch out under the costume (it was really sweaty work, dancing all bent over underneath that heavy blanket), and swatting the costume if it ever had a firecracker burning on it. The Yeung Dak Lion and Dragon Club seemed to have staked out our part of the street, perhaps by tradition, and those lions danced up the stairs to us and bowed before the altar, honoring ancestors, and then moved through the room collecting dollars.

The dance troop in front of the Tsung Tsin Club. There were, maybe, 12 different troops on the streets of Chinatown.

The percussion section of the troop. 

Hana, feeling a little squeamish, feeding the lion.

There was a long quiet gap while we waited for the Chinatown Narcissus Queen and her court to pay us a call. Many people went home as it got later and later, but we stayed because we had never seen this before and because Auntie Annette seemed to be there for the long haul. Eventually at about 9:15 there were shouts, announcing the arrival of the Queen and her court, as well as the business-attired Chamber of Commerce. The whole thing was a bit comical but also completely straight up. The girls in their crowns and gowns climbed the stairs, smiling and waving, sat at the table that was cleared and waiting for them, drank water out of plastic cups (Chinese people are so not fancy), and had their pictures taken with members of the Tsung Tsin club. The Chamber of Commerce people stood around and smiled. Such good local theater.

The queen, and some of her court.

I was pleased to be able to identify myself as the granddaughter of one of the presidents in the portrait gallery. Rebecca said immediately that Grandpa Hiu looked like a white guy, which is interesting because I think he looked so Chinese. It made me feel like one of the group in the room, even though I have so little Chinese identity most of the time. There are enough hapa haole (mixed) people here that I look like I could live here.