Hawaiian Gateway: -- Catalog of site pages to Hawaiian resources, culture, news, music, on-line shopping, food, photos, books and all things Hawaiian. A Gateway to Hawaii.
HAWAII ON-LINE SHOPPING: Comprehensive links to Hawaii on-line shopping sources for food, clothing,
books, music and gifts.
KOREA GATEWAY
Korean Gateway: -- Catalog of site pages to Korean resources, culture, society, military,
news, music, food and all things Korean. A Gateway to the Land of the Morning
Calm. (OUTDATED LINKS)
Korea Resource - Part I covering Korean links, Directories, Computer/Internet Information, Korean Music; Weather; News Web Sites; Korean Government; Reference sources; Magazines/Newspapers. (OUTDATED LINKS)
Korea Resource - Part II covering Tourism; City/Province Info; General Cultural Links; Art; Photography; Korean literature and Language; Korean Studies; Organizations; Business/commerce: Retiree Info (OUTDATED LINKS)
Kunsan City section covers the history of the city from ancient times to the present in
photos, maps, and slide shows.
Kunsan AB section covers the history of base from 1938-Present. Extensive coverage of
the mission and unit histories as told by the men who served at the base.
Osan AB and Songtan section covers the history of base from 1951-Present. Extensive coverage of
the local area and units of the base as told by the men who served at the base.
MILITARY AFFAIRS:
Military Affairs Index: -- Overview of units in Korea. Pages dealing with articles, links and information on the military and POW/MIA issues relating to Korea.
Korean War Reference: -- Maps, photos, links to Korean War with special section on Germ Warfare allegations.
Korean War Medals: -- Korean War Service Medal, medals/ribbons authorized for vets as well as Commemorative medals.
POW/MIA Pages: -- Pages broken down into separate MIA and POW issues dealing with Korea's forgotten men -- after 50 years thousands still lost.
GENERAL AREA:
Postcards -- Large selection for you to drop a line home
KANAKA KITCHEN
Kanaka Kitchen: A Hawaiian's look at "kau kau" (food) in Korea.
HAWAIIAN MUSIC: General -- Concert dates, sheet music, midis, instruments, organizations, etc.
Need a short-timer calendar? Print up a calendar for any year you specify. For real kicks, try the Norwegian calendar. Click on Calendar!
But if you're still not satisfied, check out Calendar Zone. It has calendars for every possible use, occasion, or specialty. A super site for calendar overload. Install them on your computer or print them out...FANTASTIC!!!
Newspapers on the Web -- Newspapers from all over the world! This source contains all the Korean
language newspapers...plus a lot more. Terrific news link source.
If you wish to listen to some Hawaiian music while viewing the page, make a selection below. There are over 360 selections to choose from. Requires Windows Media Player. "Malama haku mele. Kokua mea ho'okani pila" ... Support Local Music!!!
For lyrics, please go to the Table of Contents: Hawaiian Music and click on "Sheet Music." The links for sites that specialize in lyrics and chords are found there.
Exchange rate confusion? How much Korean won to U.S. dollars? Find out with the Currency Converter! Also check out how you can get FREE daily currency updates delivered by email
from Xenon Labs.
Click here to go to Xenon Labs.
Temperature Conversion:
Do you have trouble converting farenheit to celsius -- or vice versa? Here's a
handy little app to make your life easier. Enter a number in either field, then
click outside the text box.
It's 4959 miles...or 7321 km...or 3953 nautical miles. Too far to swim home for
the weekend. Find out the distance between two cities easily. This link uses
the Xerox PARC Server to calculate distances and longitude/latitude.
The following made the rounds of the forwarded email circuit in 2007, but it is so good that I had to post it here...
Subject: Long Time Ago - Was The Best
DO YOU REMEMBER?
Good 'ol Hawaii!
How about... Kent Bowman a.k.a. K. K. Kau Manua, or Lippy Espinda, da
poh mans fren? OR, remember when Hilo Hattie was a performer, not a
store??? How much of this can you remember? If plenny, you REALLY old, man.
When you could buy one big sack of See Moi for a nickel... and then you
ate the whole thing and licked the bag... Gramma said, you go Chinese
School, you say "NO!" she said, you go, I buy you see moi, you say OK.
Windward side... taro patches... rice paddies...water buffalo... When
you mentioned Kaneohe, everyone knew you were talking about the pupule
house... When the tallest building in Honolulu was the Aloha Tower...
Radio personalities like.. J. Aku Head Pupule on KGMB in the mornings
saying "OK, all you SLOBS, it's time to GET UP!!!" Hey, no foget Lucky
Luck's "Lucky you come Hawaii!" and remember Don Chamberlin and "Don in
the fishbowl" from Fran's Drive Inn.. When you lived in Honolulu,
T.H.... Signs on vacant and private property that said KAPU... When the
site of AlaMoana Shopping Center was a big swamp. Waialae-Kahala was
mostly pig farms... and the area next to the airport was a neighborhood
called Damon Tract...
Kids chanting... Ching Chong Chinaman, Sitting on a fence, Trying to
make a dollah, Out of fifteen cents... Red, White and Blue, Stahs ovah
you, Mama say, Papa say, you pake... Grade school JPO's... Junior Police
Officers in their white shirts, khaki pants, polished black shoes, red
helmets and arm bands... 25 cents going Saturday Matinee, Queen's
Theater...I remember 9 cents at Varsity Theater and 25 cents could get
you movie, soda, and popcorn at Golden Wall Theatre....Wearing Band-Aids
and a "limp" to get into the Saturday matinee without shoes... Flipping
milk caps on the sidewalk during recess... and deciding who got to go
first by playing Jung Ken Po... And when you did something dumb
everybody yelled..."Bakatare You!" And when you did something naughty
they shook their finger and said..." A hana koko lele!"
Moonlight swimming... Bonfires on the beach... Strumming ukuleles,
singing and everyone knew the words to all the old Hawaiian songs... You
were greeted with... Ei, bu!... Ei buggah, how you stay?.. or Ei,
blah-lah... Going to Maunakea Street to buy ginger leis... The old Pali
road with the hairpin turns... and if it was really windy, the hood of
the car blew open...
The bestest freshest poi at Ono's on Kapahulu Ave...Also bestest Laulau,
Kalua Pig, Opihi, sticky rice, Lomi Salmon, Pipikaula, Na'au Puaa,
Haupia...Broke da mout'! Dollar bills with HAWAII printed across
them...I still got some... When the Honolulu Stadium was called the
termite palace.
Guys getting their kicks sparking the wahines from under the stands...
soggy bags of boiled peanuts sold by squatting sellers...and Football
players smothered with leis and lipstick walking off the field... Harry
Bridges, Teamsters Union leader, calling union dock strikes...causing
food shortages... Sad Sam Ichinose... Kau Korner, the meeting place with
the "Crossroads of the Pacific" sign out front, the most photographed
sign in the world... The waitresses wearing short skirts, soda hats and
skates bringing your order to the car on a window tray...How good those
hamburgers smelled! "Aloha Oe... eat fish and poi"...
When those lucky people who lived in Waikiki sold their lots for $5.00 a
square foot and we all thought they were getting rich... Everyone
discussing the "Mauka Arterial" and when it was finally completed we all
got lost because we didn't know East from West... All I knew was Ewa
side and Diamond Head side... Mauka and Makai. Holding the 49th State
Fair year after year...and finally becoming the 50th state in 1959...
Looking at Diamond Head... when all you could see fromWaikiki was the
Natatorium and the Elk's Club... Hey, don't forget the Town & Country
Club Riding Stables and the taro patches. Old Chinese ladies with bound
feet shuffling along wearing dark grey tunics and trousers... Japanese
men in Kimonos carrying a towel and a bar of soap walking to a stream in
the evening.. Filipino men from Waipahu on the bus with their game cocks
in cages.. Elderly Japanese squatting, waiting for the bus... Trying to
find the coins wrapped in red paper and pieces of tissue (with holes in
them that the evil spirits had to go through)...from Chinese funerals...
Watching Duke Kahanamoku surfing at Waikiki and shaking hands with him
Beach boys with da kine, ho'omalimali and Hawaiian music under the palm
trees at the Royal Hawaiian and the Moana... Surfers with 8 foot boards
that weighed a ton... Waikiki sand always washing away and having to be
replaced by sand from the windward side... Old Chinese men playing
mah-jongg under the hau trees at Kuhio Beach... Saint Louis boys singing
"We get ten tousand men steel yet, we gonna ween dees game you bet... "
My friend wen go St. Louis but I no tink he remember this. Rubbing
maunaloa seeds on the sidewalk until they got hot enough to burn
somebody's arm... The excitement of the Lurline coming in... Lei sellers
everywhere... "Carnation lei... fifty cents, plumieria.. .three for
dollah".. Local boys diving for coins... big beautiful jelly fish... a
tangle of streamers from ship to shore...passengers tossing leis
overboard as the ship pulls away... if they floated toward shore, they
would return...
When KGMB and KGU were the only radio stations... Lots of Mynah birds on
the sidewalks... mongoose living in a neighborhood tree... Going Pali
lookout to "spahk da moon"... "I took my wahine holo holo kaa, I took
her up the Pali, she say "too muchee faa." Pull down the shade, try to
make the grade... Lei ana ika.. black eye!" Going Diamond Head or Ala
Moana to watch the submarine races... Swimming in the streams and
whacking each other on the head with shampoo ginger... Never driving
over the Pali with pork in your car...you going get stuck... No need
test...I wen test for you and the car engine wen maki. Going to "First
Vue" at the Waikiki theater! ...eating crackseed..the palm trees and
flowers that looked so real. .the usher who wore a feather cape and
helmet and ever smiled...Every Friday night at 10:15 and you had to make
reservations. Talking mynah birds...I had one dumb minah bird...never
did speak to me. Lights out... clack, clack, clack... what's dat?...turn
on lights... one BIG centipede! Alfred Apaka... Kalima Brothers... Gabby
Pahinui...slack key...steel guitars... Don' forget Auntie Genoa Keawe.
Surfing at Waikiki and watching the outrigger canoes along side of you
full of mainland tourists wearing bathing caps... Surfing Waikiki all
day without eating, getting red eyes... going back again the next day...
because when you caught those waves and rode them all the way in... it
was worth it! Underwater... trying to catch a ride on the back of a
turtle... Underwater... trying to look at fish and eels without a mask...
Swimming at Fort DeRussy... trying not to get stung by da Portuguese
Man-o'-War...There was a pier behind the Moana Hotel There was a jungle
between the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and Kalakaua. And you can go catch
Samoan Crab, White Crab, Hawaiian Crab and dig for Oysters and Clams in
West Loch. The big tidal wave from Japan that washed up overKalakaua
Avenue... Being able to tell what month it was by the color of Diamond
Head... When inside Diamond Headwas opened to the public again.. hiking
inside and finding big cannons sticking out of concrete pukas. 1949...
auwe!... a big underwater shelf broke off and shook the whole island!
Webley Edwards with his mike walking along the beach and talking to the
tourists... and taking the mike down to the ocean to let everyone
listening on the mainland hear the sound of the waves at Waikiki... on
Hawaii Calls... When all the tourists were mostly movie stars or rich
and came on Matson ships and stayed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and wore
furs in the evenings!.. Walking down Waikiki Beach and sparking movie
stars without their toupees, wigs and make-up... And sell them coconut
hats for $10 per hat. Trader Vic's... Don the Beachcomber's... the Zebra
Room all painted with Zebra stripes outside... Seeing painfully
sunburned and peeling tourists at Waikiki... Doing the Hula in the "May
Day is Lei Day in Hawaii" celebration... Using the uli-uli's, ili ili's
and pu'ili's... making our own hula skirts out of ti leaves... splitting
the ti leaves with our thumb nails and having green hands for a week...
4 digit phone numbers? No, I remember 5 digits.
English standard schools...Japanese language lessons...
When nobody locked their houses or cars..."Right on the kinipopo"...
When anything that said "Made in Japan" was junk... When everyone called
Plumerias "Graveyard Flowers"... (MAKE' MAN!!) When restaurants were
called either Cafes or Grills... Wooden sided station wagons filled with
bananas... "Banana Wagon"... Buying Sushi cones on way home from school
from the Sushi man and his cart on the corner... Sunday morning,
December 7, 1941... masks... air raid drills... backyard bomb
shelters... 442nd, "Go for Broke"... "bobbed wiah" on da beaches...
KILROY WAS HERE... Eating lots of Spam...
Kaimuki red dirt...everything you bought white turned reddish brown...
your sheets, your underwear... Surfing in your palaka bathing suit...
Fitted Holokus with long trains with a loop for your wrist... Tita
dress: cuffed up Levis, Aloha shirt with the sleeves rolled up twice,
ear rings and slippahs... Wearing a white sailor hat.. Wooden slippahs
with two slats of wood across the bottoms...we called them
"clop-clops"... when you could buy sox and tennis shoes that came
in-between the big toe and the rest of your toes... Waking up with mo'os
in your bed, sometime dead because you slept on them and sometime just
their tails were left behind... Shave Ice on a hot day... Finding
Japanese green, white and lavender glass fishing balls in various sizes
floating in to the beaches on the North shore... "Calabash cousins"...
Watching sea weed being harvested on a weekend... Torch fishing at night...
Example of a "dumb haole"... driving up Tantalus and Round Top Drive and
haole says, "I bet these roads are really dangerous when it snows"...
Listening to Hawaii Calls... Playing around the mouth of Blow-Hole...
trying to guess when it would blow... so you could run... Playing on top
of the Reservoir in Kaimuki... When there were so many palm trees that
coconuts were falling on people's heads... and owners cutting them down
for fear of getting sued... Arthur Godfrey playing his ukulele... Hale
Loki... "Hawai-ya, Hawai-ya, Hawai-ya?" and Chesterfields... Listening
to the Japanese radio station and hearing Japanese men grunting...The
traffic cop in a little booth in the middle of the street with an
umbrella over it... Uku-pile-a-roaches and FLIT GUNS... later to be
replaced by...the SLIPPAH... Servicemen... complaining about "life on
the rock", drinking, swearing, hitchhiking, making passes, driving too
fast, and sometimes getting blown off the Pali on their motorcycles...
Manoa Valley... swiping painted candles from the Chinese
Cemetery...laying on the graves to see what it felt like to be dead..
looking at all the photos on the gravestones and wondering about their
lives... sliding down the ti leaf slide and going home covered with
mud... going "mountain apple-ing"...hiking to the falls in the rain
through the bamboo when there was no trail... "liquid sunshine" everyday
about the same time... fire crackers and smoke filling the valley and
the houses on Chinese New Year... When everyone had a pune'e and at
least one old Koa table in their home... When Nu'uanu Valley was a
thick, lush, tropical rain forest... with many upside down falls... the
monkeypod tree in the middle of the road at Nu'uanu and Vineyard...
Kapiolani Drive-In... Fran's Drive In ..KC Drive In (for Waffle Hot Dogs
& Orange Freeze) alongside the Ala WaiCanal...Kelly's Drive In... When
Kalakaua Ave. was a two-way street... Admission to the Honolulu Zoo and
the Aquarium was free... Waialua, Ewa, Kahuku and Waianae sugar
plantations...working in the cane fields... cane trains... the
irrigation system was up on wooden stilts... Honolulu Airport was on the
Diamond Head side of the runway... Jumping into the water holding a Hau
leaf in your mouth so the water wouldn't go up your nose... Working in
the pineapple factory and the fields... Riding horses in Kapiolani
Park... When the Natatorium was called the Tank... The Manapua Man...The
Lunch Truck at Ala Moana Beach and their ONO chow fun. The Japanese
neighborhood vegetable wagon. Lau Yee Chai was on Kuhio Ave. and set off
firecrackers every Saturday evening at 6...
... .THIS WAS THE OLD HAWAII !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOSTALGIA This came through the email, but it was so good in reminiscing da kine good ol' days, I had to put it here. Sheesh, still rememba da smells of the cone sushi shop we used to walk past on the way home from school in da barefoot days of my youth -- shoes only fo' school. Those were the slower, gentler and kinder days of Hawaii -- a way of life now long gone, though the spirit remains.
BRINGS BACK MEMORIES.
"Good Old Hawaii" submitted by Greg & Gerri Delos Santos Reminisce with us as we remember .... When you could buy one big sack of See Moi for a nickel... The Windward side had... taro patches... rice paddies...water buffalo... and when you mentioned Kaneohe , everyone knew you were talking about the pupule house. When the tallest building in Honolulu was the Aloha Tower .... And you could see the Dole Cannery Water Tower from nearly everywhere..
(It was dismantled a few years back, sure hope someone has it in storage somewhere!) Radio personalities like.. J. Aku Head Pupule on KGMB in the mornings saying "OK, all you SLOBS, it's time to GET UP!!!"
(J. Aku Head Pupule was once the highest paid dj in the world!) Hey, and no foget Lucky Luck's "Lucky you come Hawaii!" and remember Don Chamberlin and "Don in the fishbowl" from Fran's Drive Inn...
(Lucky Luck Show .. that's Auntie Genoa Keawe and her group) When you lived in Honolulu , T.H.... Signs on vacant and private property that said KAPU... When the site of Ala Moana Center was a big swamp. Waialae-Kahala was mostly pig farms and the area next to the airport was a neighborhood called Damon Tract...
( Ala Moana Center, under construction) Kids chanting... Ching Chong Chinaman, Sitting on a fence, Trying to make a dollah, Out of fifteen cents... Red, White and Blue, Stahs ovah you, Mama say, Papa say, you pake.. Grade school JPO's... Junior Police Officers in their white shirts, khaki pants, polished black shoes, red helmets and arm bands... Flipping milk caps on the sidewalk during recess... and deciding who got to go first by playing Jung Ken Po... Was 25 cents for the Saturday Matinee, Queen's Theater..I remember 9 cents at Varsity Theater and that 25 cents could get you the movie, soda, and popcorn at Golden Wall Theatre....Wearing Band-Aids and a "limp" to get into the Saturday matinee without shoes... And when you did something dumb everybody yelled..."Bakatare You!" And when you did something naughty they shook their finger and said..."A hana koko lele!" Moonlight swimming... Bonfires on the beach... Strumming ukuleles, singing and everyone knew the words to all the old Hawaiian songs... You were greeted with... Ei, bu!... Ei buggah, how you stay?.. or Ei, blah-lah... Going to Maunakea Street to buy ginger leis... The old Pali road with the hairpin turns...and if it was really windy, the hood of the car blew open...
(Canlis Restaurant) Canlis Restaurant - how many of you ate here after a special event? After prom or graduation dinners .... best steaks in town, served by kimono clad waitresses. The bestest, freshest poi at Ono's on Kapahulu Ave. .. with the bestest Laulau, Kalua Pig, Opihi, sticky rice, Lomi Salmon, Pipikaula, Na'au Puaa, Opihi and Haupia. Broke da mout'! Dollar bills with HAWAII printed across them...I still got some... Going to high school football games at the ole stadium --- lovingly called the Termite Palace . Guys getting their kicks sparking the wahines from under the stands...soggy bags of boiled peanuts sold by squatting sellers..and Football players smothered with leis and lipstick walking off the field...
After the games, going to Chunky's to hang out and check out the competition ....
(Chunky's dig the '56 and '57s) Harry Bridges, Teamsters Union leader, calling union dock strikes...causing food shortages...everybody stocking up on rice, toilet paper, spam .... Sad Sam Ichinose... many of the promotions at the "Civic Auditorium" were his.
(The Old Civic Auditorium) Kau Kau Korner, the meeting place with the "Crossroads of the Pacific" sign out front, the most photographed sign in the world... The waitresses wearing short skirts, soda hats and skates bringing your order to the car on a window tray...How good those hamburgers smelled! Coco's replaced them and Hard Rock replaced Coco 's.
"Aloha Oe... eat fish and poi"... When those lucky people who lived in Waikiki sold their lots for $5.00 a square foot and we all thought they were getting rich... Everyone discussing the "Mauka Arterial" and when it was finally completed we all got lost because we didn't know East from West... All I knew was Ewa side, Diamond Head side and Mauka and Makai. Holding the 49th State Fair year after year.and finally becoming the 50th state in 1959... Summers spent working at the cannery... even with double gloves on, by the end of summer your arms were all acid burned ...
(These ladies were called 'trimmers') Looking towards Diamond Head... when all you could see from Waikiki was the Natatorium and the Elk's Club. Hey, don't forget the Town & Country Riding Stables and the taro patches. Old Chinese ladies with bound feet shuffling along wearing dark grey tunics and trousers... Japanese men in Kimonos carrying a towel and a bar of soap walking to a stream in the evening.. Filipino men from Waipahu on the bus with their game cocks in cages.. Elderly Japanese squatting, waiting for the bus... Trying to find the coins wrapped in red paper and pieces of tissue (with holes in them that the evil spirits had to go through)...from Chinese funerals... Watching Duke Kahanamoku surfing at Waikiki and shaking hands with him. Beach boys with da kine, ho'omalimali and Hawaiian music under the palm trees at the Royal Hawaiian and the Moana... Surfers with 8 foot boards that weighed a ton... Waikiki sand always washing away and having to be replaced by sand from the windward side... Old Chinese men playing mah-jongg under the hau trees at Kuhio Beach ... Saint Louis boys singing "We get ten tousand men of steel yet, we gonna ween dees game you bet... My friend wen go St. Louis but I no tink he remember this. Rubbing maunaloa seeds on the sidewalk until they got hot enough to burn somebody's arm... The excitement of the Lurline coming in...Lei sellers everywhere... "Carnation lei... fifty cents, plumieria.. .three for dollah".. Local boys diving for coins...big beautiful jelly fish... a tangle of streamers from ship to shore... passengers tossing leis overboard as the ship pulls away...if they floated toward shore, meant they would return... When KGMB and KGU were the only radio stations... Lots of Mynah birds on the sidewalks... mongoose living in a neighborhood tree... Going Pali lookout to "spahk da moon"... "I took my wahine holo holo kaa, I took her up the Pali, she say "too muchee faa." Pull down the shade, try to make the grade... Lei and ika.. black eye!" Going Diamond Head or Ala Moana to watch the submarine races... Swimming in the streams and whacking each other on the head with shampoo ginger... Never driving over the Pali with pork in your car...you going get stuck... No need test...I wen test for you and the car engine wen maki. Going to "First Vue" at the Waikiki theater!...eating crackseed..the palm trees and flowers that looked so real. .the usher who wore a feather cape and helmet and never smiled...Every Friday night at 10:15 and you had to make reservations.
(Another one bites the dust!) Talking mynah birds...I had one dumb mynah bird...never did speak to me. Lights out... clack, clack, clack. what's dat?...turn on lights... one BIG centipede! Alfred Apaka, the Kalima Brothers, Gabby Pahinui...slack key, steel guitar and Auntie Genoa Keawe..
(Gabby) Surfing at Waikiki and watching the outrigger canoes along side of you full of mainland tourists wearing bathing caps... Surfing Waikiki all day without eating, getting red eyes... going back again the next day.. because when you caught those waves and rode them all the way in... it was worth it! Underwater... trying to catch a ride on the back of a turtle.... trying to look at fish and eels without a mask... Swimming at Fort DeRussy ... trying not to get stung by da Portuguese Man-o'-War...There was a pier behind the Moana Hotel. There was a jungle between the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and Kalakaua. And you could catch Samoan Crab, White Crab, Hawaiian Crab and dig for Oysters and Clams in West Loch . The big tidal wave from Japan that washed up over Kalakaua Avenue .... Being able to tell what month it was by the color of Diamond Head...When inside Diamond Head was opened to the public again..hiking inside and finding big cannons sticking out of concrete pukas. 1949...auwe!... a big underwater shelf broke off and shook the whole island! Webley Edwards with his mike walking along the beach and talking to the tourists... and taking the mike down to the ocean to let everyone listening on the mainland hear the sound of the waves at Waikiki... on Hawaii Calls. When all the tourists were mostly movie stars or rich and came on Matson ships and stayed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and wore furs in the evenings!.. Walking down Waikiki Beach and sparking movie stars without their toupees, wigs and make-up...And sell them coconut hats for $10 per hat. Trader Vic's... Don the Beachcomber's... the Zebra Room all painted with Zebra stripes outside... Seeing painfully sunburned and peeling tourists at Waikiki. Doing the Hula in the "May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii " celebration... Using the uli-uli's, ili ili's and pu'ili's... making our own hula skirts out of ti leaves... splitting the ti leaves with our thumb nails and having green hands for a week... 4 digit phone numbers? No, I remember 5 digits. English standard schools...Japanese language lessons... When nobody locked their houses or cars.. "Right on the kinipopo"... When anything that said "Made in Japan " was junk... When everyone called Plumerias "Graveyard Flowers"...(MAKE' MAN!!) When restaurants were called either Cafes or Grills. Wooden sided station wagons filled with bananas.. "Banana Wagon"... Buying Sushi cones on way home from school from the Sushi man and his cart on the corner... Sunday morning, December 7, 1941... masks... air raid drills, backyard bomb shelters... 442nd, "Go for Broke"... "bobbed wiyah" on da beaches... KILROY WAS HERE... Eating lots of Spam... Kaimuki red dirt...everything you bought white turned reddish brown... your sheets, your underwear... Surfing in your palaka bathing suit... Fitted Holokus with long trains with a loop for your wrist...
(National Dollar was in Kaimuki too) Tita dress: cuffed up Levis , Aloha shirt with the sleeves rolled up twice, ear rings and slippahs... Wearing a white sailor hat.. Wooden slippahs with two slats of wood across the bottoms...we called them "clop-clops"... when you could buy sox and tennis shoes that came in-between the big toe and the rest of your toes... Waking up with mo'o in your bed, sometime dead because you slept on them and sometime just their tails were left behind... Shave Ice on a hot day... Finding Japanese green, white and lavender glass fishing balls in various sizes floating in on the beaches on the North shore... "Calabash cousins"...Watching sea weed being harvested on a weekend...Torch fishing at night... Listening to Hawaii Calls... Playing around the mouth of Blow-Hole... trying to guess when it would blow... so you could run... Playing on top of the Reservoir in Kaimuki... When there were so many palm trees that coconuts were falling on people's heads... and owners cutting them down for fear of getting sued... Arthur Godfrey playing his ukulele... Hale Loki... "Hawai-ya, Hawai-ya, Hawai-ya?" and Chesterfields .... Listening to the Japanese radio station and hearing Japanese men grunting...The traffic cop in a little booth in the middle of the street with an umbrella over it... Uku-pile-a-roaches and FLITGUNS... later to be replaced by...the SLIPPAH..
(Shot of Liberty House - not sure which location, think it's Kahala Mall) Servicemen... complaining about "life on the rock", drinking, swearing, hitchhiking, making passes, driving too fast, and sometimes getting blown off the Pali on their motorcycles... Manoa Valley ... swiping painted candles from the Chinese Cemetery ...laying on the graves to see what it felt like to be dead.. looking at all the photos on the gravestones and wondering about their lives. Sliding down the ti leaf slide and going home covered with mud... going "mountain apple-ing"...hiking to the falls in the rain through the bamboo when there was no trail... "liquid sunshine" everyday about the same time...fire crackers and smoke filling the valley and the houses on Chinese New Year... When everyone had a pune'e and at least one old Koa table in their home... When Nu'uanu Valley was a thick, lush, tropical rain forest.. with many upside down falls... the monkeypod tree in the middle of the road at Nu'uanu and Vineyard...Kapiolani Drive-In... Fran's Drive In ..KC Drive In (for Waffle Hot Dogs & Orange Freeze -- umm ono!) alongside the Ala Wai Canal ...Kelly's Drive In... When Kalakaua Ave. was a two-way street...
(Original location was on the Ala Wai ... moved to Kapahulu later, closed a few years ago.) Admission to the Honolulu Zoo and the Aquarium was free... Waialua, Ewa, Kahuku and Waianae sugar plantations...working in the cane fields... cane trains...the irrigation system was up on wooden stilts... Honolulu Airport was on the Diamond Head side of the runway..
(It was so novel when planes first started arriving, hula dancers met the arriving passengers) Jumping into the water holding a hau leaf in your mouth so the water wouldn't go up your nose... Working in the pineapple factory and the fields... Riding horses in Kapiolani Park ... When the Natatorium was called the Tank... The Manapua Man...The Lunch Truck at Ala Moana Beach and their ONO chow fun and the curry beef stew over rice when you're cold from swimming. The Japanese neighborhood vegetable wagon. Lau Yee Chai was on Kuhio Ave. and set off firecrackers every Saturday evening at 6...The Waikiki Lau Yee Chai was the place to go for wedding receptions, special dinners. We used to walk through the garden in the back of the restaurant and look through the screens to see them cooking.
(The original, beautiful Lau Yee Chai - it's reincarnation is at Waikiki Plaza ) Going to dances at the Ala Wai Clubhouse and dancing under the stars (and sometimes raindrops!). Riding the electric boats on the fragrant Ala Wai Canal .. Going to the Saimin Stand for a bowl of saimin for 15 cents and BBQ stick for 10 cents...wonton mein for 25 cents. And, big cone sushi for 5 cents a pc.
Statehood was in July, but the official date is 21 Aug on my birthday.
Muted commemoration as Hawaii turns 50 as a state (Aug 2009) Hawaii welcomed its entry as the 50th state with a new postage stamp Friday but independence supporters marked the day with passionate protest — including an effigy of Uncle Sam being beaten and Hawaii's star cut out from the U.S. flag. State leaders called Friday's events a "commemoration" of Hawaii's 50 years of statehood rather than a "celebration" out of respect to Native Hawaiians and their unresolved claims since the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom.
A few hundred Native Hawaiians marched through the street of downtown Honolulu with an effigy of a 15-foot Uncle Sam holding machine guns and riding in a tank made of cardboard. They chanted in Hawaiian, blew on conch shells, waved ti leaves, carried upside-down Hawaii state flags and yelled, "We are not Americans! We want our country back!" "Genocide" and "imperialist" were written across the cardboard machine guns.
At the end of the march, protesters knocked off Uncle Sam's hat, which contained a U.S. flag from which they cut out a star that represented Hawaii. They lit the star on fire and held it up to a crowd yelling "freedom." "We were never the 50th state," said Kaleo Farias, one of protesters that cut the U.S. flag. "It was an illusion, fabrication, something that was told to us that never happened. ... We're not part of the United States." The events commemorating Hawaii's 1959 admission into the union have been light on flag-waving and parades. Instead, they have focused on the state's economic future with panel discussions on tourism, alternative energy and Hawaiian rights.
Elsewhere in the nation, however, Hawaii statehood was being marked as a cause for celebration with one of the more elaborate displays taking place Friday in New York City's Times Square, where dancers dressed in traditional Hawaiian costumes and taught people how to Hula dance.
Outside the Hawaii Convention Center, the protesters argued that Hawaii's statehood was never legal and that the islands should return to its status as a sovereign nation. Lynette Cruz, an organizer of the march, said the demonstration was recognizing that, "the United States has engaged in imperialism forever. The idea of building a state on top of a wrong doesn't make sense." Inside the convention center, the official statehood events highlighted Hawaii as a model for diversity while attempting to dispel misconceptions of the islands as an exotic location separate from the rest of the country.
Hawaii's Bryan Clay, who claimed the title of "world's greatest athlete" after winning gold in the decathlon in Beijing last year, said many Americans still think of the islands as a place with grass huts that requires a passport to visit. "Hawaii is far more than just a beautiful vacation spot," Clay told a packed audience of more than 2,100. "In the case of Hawaii, more so than in other states, perception is different from reality."
Others spoke about how the rest of the country should look to Hawaii as a model for how people of different backgrounds can get along, preserve their natural resources and develop renewable power. "The mere mention of Hawaii draws recognition that overcomes language and geographic barriers," said Gov. Linda Lingle. "We are regarded as a true island paradise where the unique hospitality of our people, abundant natural resources, diverse heritage and host culture sets us apart."
President Barack Obama, who was born in the state, signed a proclamation marking the anniversary and said that in his youth he learned from Hawaii's diversity and how different cultures, blended together into one population, were made stronger by their shared sense of community. The proclamation said: "The Aloha Spirit of Hawaii offers hope and opportunity for all Americans." The postage stamp, available nationwide Friday, shows a painting of a longboard surfer and two paddlers in an outrigger canoe. (Source: Daily Journal.)
On the anniversary of Hawaii Statehood, the OTHER side of the Hawaii issue was again resurfaced -- and really has not gone away. It deals with the Kingdom of Hawaii and the Hawaiian people. It is a sovereignty issue as the Kingdom of Hawaii was ursurped by the Unitied States with the help of its US Consulate Stevens -- and the help of US naval guns trained on Honolulu along with US Marines positioned next to the Iolani Palace where Queen Lilioukalani was imprisoned. The Blount Commission was sent and the ursurption by the white Oligarchy was condemned, but President Cleveland did nothing. The Kingdom of Hawaii became the Republic of Hawaii and later the US annexed it into the US. The injustice was recognized when then President Clinton formally apologized to the Hawaiian people for the actions of the US government -- BUT it didn't give back the lands. The big gripe is that the crown lands to be used for the people of Hawaii -- interpreted to mean the HAWAIIAN people -- was taken and used to benefit all the citizens of Hawaii -- meaning EVERYONE. The outrage runs deep in the Hawaiian people for the injustice done.
Aloha, Segregation -- The Akaka bill would create a race-based state in Hawaii (Dec 2009) President Obama speaks proudly of his childhood in Hawaii, so we wonder what the state's voters think of his support for a bill that would redistribute its wealth based on race. That's what would happen under the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, which Congress is trying to sneak through in its final days this year.
Sponsored by Senator Daniel Akaka, the bill would transfer a percentage of public-owned lands to a native Hawaiian government within the state of Hawaii. The legislation would collect some 400,000 ethnic Hawaiians scattered across the country into a newly affiliated tribe, eventually endowed with the powers of a sovereign state, including freedom from state taxes and regulations and separate police power.
Proponents say the plan would duplicate the legal scenario set up for Native Americans, but the Akaka bill carves out new territory. Unlike Indian tribes made up of tightly knit populations that have lived together continuously, participation in the new group would be available to nearly anyone able to trace their roots back to a Native Hawaiian ancestor, no matter where they now reside. U.S. Civil Rights Commission member Gail Heriot told Congress in June that, "If ethnic Hawaiians can be accorded tribal status, why not Chicanos in the Southwest? Or Cajuns in Louisiana?"
Under the Akaka bill, someone will have to divine exactly who qualifies as a Native Hawaiian. In the bill's current version, the determination would be handled by a nine member commission staffed by experts in native Hawaiian genealogy. That, says the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, amounts to racial discrimination and would "subdivide the American People into discrete subgroups accorded varying degrees of privilege."
The Supreme Court has already ruled that elections based on a blood quota violate the Fifteenth Amendment's ban on restricting voting along racial lines. In its 2000 decision in Rice v. Cayetano, the Court held that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs could not hold elections limited to ethnic Hawaiians. "Ancestry can be a proxy for race," the court wrote, "and is that proxy here."
While the current version of the Akaka bill doesn't offer specifics on which lands and natural resources would be transferred to a new sovereign Hawaiian state, earlier versions contained striking demands by Native Hawaiian groups. According to Tom MacDonald at Aloha for All, which opposes the Akaka bill, original demands included the transfer of all lands taken by the U.S. government including military bases and national parks which could be leased back at market value.
With some 38% of the state falling under public ownership and thus theoretically available for transfer, the benefits accruing to racial Hawaiians could be significant. For those without a drop of Hawaiian blood, the amount of lost tax revenue and other costs will also be sizable. According to a study by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii and the Beacon Hill Institute, the total amount of state tax and land lease revenue lost annually could range from $342.8 million to $689.7 million, depending on the percentage of public land ceded to the project.
The state could also expect to lose as many as 20,000 private sector jobs and more than $200 million in investment. The burden will fall on non-Native taxpayers, costing the average taxpayer between $705 and $1,461 in real disposable income a year.
Perhaps that's why polls show that despite the support of the Congressional delegation, Hawaiians themselves have mixed feelings. According to a Zogby poll this week, a majority of Hawaiians oppose the bill and 76% oppose higher taxes to pay for the new nation tribe. Even Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle, a longtime proponent of the legislation, has been having second thoughts about her support after proposed changes to the text this week.
Senator Akaka clearly hopes a Democratic Congress will push through the bill that has failed many times. But Hawaii was created in a spirit contrary to the racial exclusivity shaping the legislation, and Congress shouldn't let that history fall victim to victimhood. (Source: WSJ.)
GAMES:
BOOK STORE: -- Book reviews.
AWARDS: Our site awards ... but only if you're totally bored.
MILITARY AFFAIRS:
KANAKA KITCHEN
Miscellaneous Photo Albums:
Download here 
HAWAIIAN MUSICIANS: Alphabetically listed:
NEWS:
