Lunch in Waikiki

our friends from australia invited us for lunch at the 'cheeseburger in paradise' restaurant in waikiki. it was kinda tacky, with its plastic pineapple cups for softdrinks, and waiters wearing fake hula skirts over their long pants. i took photos, of course! but the talk was good and the food not too bad. i ate one of the 20 different kinds of cheeseburger (what else?). james ordered his usual cheeseburger with no cheese. on the way back to the hotel, i took a picture of a plastic hula girl doll dancing around on the floor in one of the hotel shops. i'm caught by the unreality of it all--this must be what it's like to acknowledge living in the matrix. rather jarring! and kinda spooky! the doll was dancing to 'aloha oe', a song the queen wrote. and just steps away, down the hall, there she was--the queen! twilight zone!

after lunch, we went with them to their hotel room. i had brought my camera and interviewed nyrelle patell, the director of the australian first nations academy for cultural family therapy and counseling (whew! long org name) about her work in north queensland and why she was here in the first place. she came for a conference at the waikiki convention center sponsored by the american counseling association. must have been a thousand people at this convention. anyhow, she was the international speaker brought in for this conference. nyrell happened to find me, as i mentioned in an earlier post, because of kuhio vogeler. she needed to have someone (hawaiian) provide protocol and give permission for her to speak. the conference organizers didn't know what she was talking about but, as i understand, offered her some dancers/chanters from polynesian cultural center. she declined. we ended up taking them all to kekuni's house on thursday. we all stayed until midnight. she explained what she needed and he agreed to provide it. saturday morning, kekuni showed up at the convention center and offered her and the session participants oli and lei. people were blown away by the protocol and their ability to be participants/witnesses to it. kekuni had made a lei out of the puakenikeni flowers in his yard. he had explained on thursday evening that his wife, irene, planted that tree a month before she died. and here it was, pretty huge and full of flowers. so he gathered the flowers and took irene (the lei) along with him to the convention center. he presented that lei to nyrell. and she told the audience the story. apparently people were so moved, they cried. all good!

nyrell invited kekuni to be the keynote speaker at a conference for first nations people re generational trauma in november 2009. he accepted her invite. with any luck, we'll all go along to carry his bag carriers, or set up his equipment, or something.

Willy K in concert

saturday night at the waikiki bandstand, willy k. and kaukahi, a local band, provided music for the prince kuhio moonlight concert. i have to say that was probably one of the highlights of the year (thus far) for me. he was fabulous! his friends, one from mexico, the other from israel, accompanied him, also on guitars. the music was outstanding. must have been a thousand people sitting there, in the dark, enjoying the music. the tourists seemed to like it. but the locals loved it--we could hear them screaming and cheering somewhere behind and to the sides of us. wish i had gotten a clear picture of them, but all i got was fuzzy blobs, which is what you get :-)

maria (who i was sitting next to) and i commiserated on the crazy lifestyle we live--obviously too much work and not enough sitting around listening to and enjoying music. i reflected on my youthful days of hanging out in bars and clubs and, basically, having a "no thinking" life. my sister worked in club pantheon, downtown, kind of a sleazy joint, as i recall. i think she could drink any guy under the table. but it was funny and fun, nonetheless. pre-kids, of course. notice i didn't write pre-marriage, just pre-kids. back then not many women i knew were out partying with their husbands or boyfriends. most of the males were home baby-sitting. my bad. my fun, too. i remember writing around with a bunch of drunk people, mostly women, not thinking at all about the possibility of being killed by someone who could black out behind the wheel. but as i mentioned it was not a time in my life when i was particularly conscious.

the concert started around 6 pm, immediately following the prince kuhio parade in waikiki. i was supposed to be watching the parking lot but ran off just when the parade cars and marchers started to arrive. and i forgot to return! my desire to 'capture' the parade via images overcame my sense of responsibility to the group. that's another way of saying that i ran away from working the lot and worked the road, instead. but i got some good shots. all of the photos are on the aohcc.org website, if folks wanna go look. it has occurred to me that next year at this time some of the folks i've digitally captured will no longer be here. some of those who were here last year are not here this year. ua pau, ua hala lakou--they have departed, and we are saddened because of it. but they were captured in my camera and they still live via images here and there and everywhere.

so yesterday was a long day, but the concert made up for all of it. afterwards, we went with maria to zippy's to eat ice cream and sandwiches. while we were there, i noticed a couple of guys sitting on a table across from us. two young local guys. one of them had a fabulous tattoo on his arm. i kept staring at his tattoo and i think he noticed, as he kept looking over at our table. eventually i just loudly commented to him how striking it was. when you ask about people's tattoos, something i notice about all of us with tattoos, they immediately want to share everything about their tattoo. then they want to show you all the rest. so this guy whipped off his shirt (in the restaurant) and showed us the other tattoo on his shoulder and talked about the significance of the different designs. then the other guy pulled up his pants leg and showed us his tattoo and talked about its significance. then (of course), i whipped off my olelo jacket and showed him the circles on my upper arms and described them as mo`o tails, one on each upper arm, with two mo`o on my back looking at each other. i had thought, of course, about whipping off my own shirt to showoff my mo`o, but thought better of it. didn't want james to have a heart attack, or maybe give me a couple of cracks :-) just kidding, of course. anyhow, we got into a long discussion about tattoos, and finally we went back to eating and to letting them eat. local people are crazy that way. the guy's tattoo on his right arm was from elbow to wrist. it was much like a glove, or maybe gauntlet, and looked somewhat like armor. it only took four hours or so to do. it goes around his whole arm, front and back. anyhow, i left the restaurant convinced i needed to have something like it. then i regretted not getting a photo, so i ran back in, like a crazy person, and asked to take photos. a couple of them are posted. i'm sure they thought i was crazy, but at my age, i don't really care.

Lunch with Australian First Nations Reps

james and i had lunch today with nyrell pattel and her husband and another friend (natives from australia) at wailana. it was interesting, and kinda like talking to ourselves. it took a little bit of time to share info that we thought might be relevant to starting a relationship. i hadn't met them before. rather, kuhio vogeler, a friend, had called from california to ask if i might meet with them and help them out with protocol issues (as if i could!). half hour into our discussion and lunch, we all realized that there was nothing any of us could share that the rest didn't already know about from firsthand experience: same statistics re health, education, economics, prisons, etc, etc. so we got that out of the way. then we talked about what she had in mind when she asked kuhio to help her connect with local people (hawaiians). nyrell wants to network with native people throughout the world to share strategies for healing generational trauma among native populations. she's a native healer as well as a western-trained psychologist. but she seemed to be in resistance to western understandings of illness. that was all good! but she also inferred she thought new age healing methodologies (including reiki) smacked of theft, like the white folks that now call themselves 'shamans' and 'healers' because they took training from somebody who had the 'gift'. nyrell believes that all healers heal because they have the gift of healing, not because they've been trained to heal. okay. i'll support that. then i'll have to rethink my own position on reiki. i know it works for me, or so my students and friends say when i work on their headaches that go away. i took training! yikes!

just as an aside, kuhio (my friend now in california) is on his way to estonia for 5 weeks or so to do research for his diss. he's comparing the struggle for independence of estonia, latvia and other baltic nations to hawaii's case. they were independent. then they were taken over by the soviet union. then they declared their independence again. what strategies did they use? what strategies could we use? i am reminded of a story that niklaus schweizer shared about national symbols, in particular the estonian flag. the people there would raise their own flag above the usurper's flag a little at a time, until one day it was flyin higher. just a small thing, and not many people noticed, but of course all the activists noticed, and they took heart by this action. small steps, indeed. reminded me of the time i was at the palace and someone came over to tell me that the hawaiian flag flying at the state capitol was upside down! i ran over (having my trusty camera on hand) and took photos. by that time, someone inside the building noticed and had come out to lower the flag and turn it right side up. i asked him what he thought happened, and he said it was probably an accident. but i don't think so. it wasn't the first time!

anyhow, back to the meeting today. the white woman in the photo with nyrell is a german woman who happened to be walking by outside the restaurant and offered to take our photo (which is why i'm in it!). so i took her photo with nyrell. she mentioned that it was a shame the terrible history of the u.s. in hawaii and how they stole the land. that made us all smile. james told her he felt germans were much more aware of such issues than most americans, and thanked her for her comments. he was remembering, of course, our friend and compatriot, sabine deiringer (now at cambridge finishing up her phd), who always struck us as being particularly cognizant and sympathetic to our efforts at resisting white american hegemony. not to mention that we miss her dearly.

we invited nyrell and her party of 4 to meet kekuni at his house tomorrow evening. hopefully he'll actually be there! last week he wasn't around, even though the meetings are standing meetings! oh well...

after we left the restaurant, i asked james to drop me off at waikiki beach near the police station so i could take surreptitious photos of tourists and others hanging out at the beach. something weird is happening to me. i've turned into a photo nut, trying to capture photos i think are interesting, colorful (i like red in particular), and catch some kind of action that tells a story all by itself. the photos above are two photos that i particularly liked. feel free to comment, if you're reading this.

Tuesday Stuff

i had an excellent interview today with palani vaughn on why he didn't support the filming of the life of princess kaiulani now taking place at iolani palace. he had been asked, originally, to play the part of kalakaua, and this was months ago. he asked then to see the script, but none was provided until earlier this month. what they did give him was a couple of lines to look at. when he finally got a copy of the script and read it through he thought it was pretty bad and suggested some revisions to the writer and director. he shared several emails with them over the months, but to no avail. they weren't interested in changing the script. apparently (and i say this because i haven't read it myself) the script calls for sanford dole to be the champion of the princess. he advocates on her behalf because she favors annexation to the u.s. she's greatful for the willingness on the part of the usurpers to grant hawaiians the right to vote (like hawaiians didn't have it already), and dole opposes lorin thurston who does not support, on this issue. he becomes her champion. never mind there were these two great petitions in opposition to annexation of hawaii to the u.s. that part gets left out of the story. never mind that the princess supported the queen against the annexation, against the takeover by u.s. military. supposedly the writer (who researched for 10 years, by golly!) knows his stuff. never mind everybody else in hawaii, including hawaiian academics, who have a difference (and documented) take on what really happened in hawaii's history. 'it's just a film' is the stock answer. 'it's just a story'. and, according to palani, they did consult with hawaiian experts--who?

palani made a good case about kuleana--whose responsibility is it to see that things are done properly? whose responsibility was it ever? ours, all ours. who stands behind the princess, in her line? kalakaua, lili`u, their kupuna back to the beginning of time? ua hala lakou--must be all our responsibility now. palani's argument was simply to be pono. that seems to have no place in our lives today. most people think such issues are irrelevant, that the purpose of life is to make money and to do it in every way possible at the least cost to oneself. but there's something to be said about speaking up. so he did. he maika`i loa kela.

it's not as if hawaiians don't have enough crap to deal with, enough loss. after a while, depression sets in and sometimes people don't even know why. i'm back to kawika liu's explanation about self-determnation (or lack, thereof), and what happens when a family, a group, a lahui gets hit time and again. they get tired. no one listens. no one believes. people turn them off. and after a while, they stop talking. hawaiians aren't quite there yet. they're still talking :-)

Monday at the Palace

i had heard there would be a protest at the palace this morning. henry noa and the reinstated government were there when we arrived, and handing out flyers about why they were protesting the filming of "the last native princess", or whatever the film would be called, because of a badly written script that portrayed a view of the princess as in support of the annexation of hawaii to the u.s. somehow, sanford dole becomes the hero in this film, in opposition to lorrin thurston. since i haven't read the script (yet), i can't say much more, but it was interesting to hear what folks had to say. i videotaped henry and, later on, soli niheu, about what each considered the primary issues. as soon as i edit, i'll post these short interviews online.

soli was there to talk with the film crew about whether or not they should take some responsibility for the filmmaker's portrayal of accurate hawaiian history. not sure what the response was. but from the few i spoke with, very few, if any, had even read the script! no one seemed to have much to say about anything substantive. the medic guy i met, sonny, was clear about his job as medic. he was there to take care of the cast and crew. the security guys were there to take care of equipment, etc. it was hard to have any kind of substantive discussion with folks whose primary reason for being there was 'the job'. understandable. so okay, i understood.

but as james continues to remind me, this is not really the issue. rather our concern has to do with not minimizing the princess by revising history so that the actress who plays her part makes her look stupid, or weak, or unintelligent. she was none of those things. and she dearly loved her country (our country). it was made clear that none of the folks involved in production had considered (or would consider) any of these points. oh well...

i watched people accessing the palace, the balconies, the whole area so freely, without consequence, i suppose. unlike hawaiians who must always face consequences when they think they can access the palace without 'permission'. money can provide permission. rumor has it that the film co. paid the friends of iolani palace %50,000. that's nothing we could ever do, thus we have less compelling reason for access. and our concern is always for our behavior while on the grounds or in the palace--protocol still rules us. but no one else is held to or holds themselves to those same standards. it wasn't that long ago that hawaiians trying to access the second floor to offer hookupu to the queen at her door (not even in her room) were denied the ability to do so by fip security, and by their watchdog lua group. sad days, indeed, for hawaiians who face consequences for wanting to pay tribute, as compared to businessmen whose tribute is in the form of dollars. reality check!

i heard from kehau watson that abigail kawananakoa had called for a press conference today at 11:30 am at the state capitol. unfortunately i wasn't able to make that one. but her reason for the press call was to inform them of her filing an injunction to stop the filming at the palace. i have no idea why that is. i did hear from security that she caused them to change the title of the film from "the last princess" to "barbarian princess" (or some other title), as she claimed to BE the last princess. too bad she hasn't seen fit to hook up with those of us stils advocating for the restoration of the hawaiian kingdom. more on this tomorrow!

Sunday Non-Easter Rant

james and i cut the grass at the burial mound today. we invited robert (more about him later) to meet us at the palace to offer his oli to the kupuna still in the mound. he helped us cut the grass--very helpful! certainly the place looked and felt much better when we were pau.

after that we went to ranch 99 for lunch and met ruth hsu there. good talking. we decided all three of us (james, robert, me) would be guests on ruth's 'tuff talk' show. her topic: what does it mean to be a hawaiian today? it was an hour show. the time flew by, literally, as we were so engaged in the discussion. one of the issues we touched on was what it means to take responsibility for the well being of the family, the group, the lahui. i was moved by some of the things that both james and robert shared. i think we actually out-talked ruth, effectively using up all the time!

just a bit about robert (see photo above)--he saw james and me talking on one of the half hour shows on hawaiian spirituality. my number is listed in the end credits, and he called me last tuesday and shared his story on the phone. robert's mother was a cousin of kawena pukui. robert shared an incident that happened to him when he was a student in kau. his teacher found out that he was related to mrs. pukui and suggested he write his genealogy. so he decided to meet her and went with his sister to her house on oahu. when he and his sister arrived, there was another person there, an 81 year old man named william meinecke. mr. meinecke shared that he had just flown in from kau because he had been having these recurring dreams about coming to oahu to visit with mrs. pukui. in his dream, he was given information and an oli to be given to "the boy". he had no idea who "the boy" was, but got on the plane and came over anyway. in the dream he was given one part of an oli. mrs. pukui was supposed to have the other part. and together they would provide to "the boy" the two parts of the oli.

so robert and his sister, armed with tape recorder, sat with the two kupuna and taped the discussion, including the two parts of the oli. they sat for several hours. robert taped the whole talk. a week or two later, robert mailed the tapes to pahala, to the school, and asked that a transcript of the tapes be made for him. then he forgot about it. some time later, he called again to check on the progress of the transcription and found out that pahala school had burned down. the woman who answered the phone said that the tapes had been lost. this was in 1974. so for the last 34 years, he hadn't thought about it at all. last week he called the school again and asked, this time, about his former teacher. he was told that she had retired, but was living in the area. so he called the operator and got her number and called her. he introduced himself. during the talk, he asked if she remembered about the tapes. she said yes, and that she had the tapes! she had been holding them for him all this time, even though others had inquired. she did not pass them on to anyone. they will soon be in his possession again.

robert went on to share that ever since he met the two kupuna and was given the oli, his life has changed. i guess you could say he has regular visitations. when he came to the burial mound today, he offered his oli to the kupuna there, in asking permission to enter. it was his hookupu.

i'm not really sure what any of this stuff means, but i'm certain it means something. it's too soon to tell. but our talk on ruth's show touched on some aspects related to this story. it has to do with cumulative impacts--actions/activities that have to occur before the next thing can occur. if you believe there are no accidents, then everything that happens happens for a reason. and the next thing can't happen until the first thing happens (if you get my reasoning). everything happens in order.

In my garden

when i came back from ukiah, i vowed to plant a little garden. not exactly a 'peace garden', as gabe had planted, but just a 'wish for a better world and respect the `aina' garden. it wasn't hard to do, as i got akoni to help me and we started with plant starters from home depot. i cheated. we've yet to put up a sign, and probably will never get around to it, but at least we (akoni and i) started. one day we may even bring ourselvesf to actually eat these things, but probably not. we've adopted them, like pets. they're beautiful to look at and don't demand too much attention. i, personally, just get a kick out of thinking that i could actually help something to grow and to be beautiful just for the sake of growing and being beautiful.

i imagine building a nation ought to be done with exactly those kinds of feelings--to help something bloom so that along the way we can see the beauty of it emerge from all the energy and commitment put into laying a healthy foundation. kawika liu spoke in my intro class yesterday on the topic of "self-determination as a determinant of health" (good thing i took notes or i wouldn't have remembered the title of his ppt.). what he discussed was the differences in health between whites and asians, on the one hand, and brown/native people, on the other--given the same socio-economic, education, and age status. white people and, in hawaii asians, do much better healthwise than pacific islanders, hawaiians, filipinos, etc. his research showed that 56% of differences were unaccounted for, after you factor in smoking, diet, genetics, etc. and i'm probably being too simplistic in my own summarising of his talk, but bottom line is that our ability or inability to govern ourselves, to have control over our own lives in every aspect, from work to social relations, to where and how we live, to what we eat (or what we can eat) determines our level of health. and the result of not being able to practice self-determination has resulted in high stress/low control lifestyles that make us susceptible to every kind of illness. he cited statistics for heart disease, diabetes, and asthma. hawaiians, pacific islanders, and to a lesser extent filipinos, fit the profile. it's the same profile for native americans in the u.s. and black people. higher ed generally means access to better jobs. better jobs mean more money, health insurance, ability to make choices. people are not always at the mercy of the 'system'. being poor has the opposite effect--no money, homelessness, a feeling of hopelessness, being at the mercy of the elements and of society in general, and feeling shitty about oneself. such experiences contribute to a feeling of wellbeing or not.

i would like to think my students got something out of this lecture. i think maybe a quarter of them did. the rest looked like class fell in the middle of their naptime and they were fighting to stay awake. that may have been due to the delivery, but i don't think so. it had more to do with the topic--who gives a rip about health disparities, anyway? i think there's only one person in class who's over 30, not counting myself, and very few of them see this issue as having any relatioship to them at all, so no wonder the nodding heads! all that makes me feel a little sad. these guys hold the future in their hands, whether we like it or not. that's the point, nowadays, of pushing higher ed. somebody's gotta do the work of the future. the present rockheads (most of them) who are supposed to be leading in government don't seem to be doing a good job, if statistics are to be believed.

i like to think of my students as being part of my garden. most of them thrive and are beautiful. and we won't eat them. we just watch them blossom and we send good energy and hope to hell they don't go out and damage an already fragile world. they'll have to contend with bugs and drought and others less kind who WILL eat them, but for the most part, as long as we keep watering and the sun keeps shining, they'll survive. some will thrive and go away and do good work. john kaimikaua, when he was teaching at HPU windward campus, actually wrote a chant talking about the students at HPU--the last two lines of his ole are "ola ka aina i ka wai ola mai ka lewa, ola ka lehulehu i ka hana pono maika`i": the land lives by the life giving water from the heavens; the people (students and the community) live and thrive by their good works. i think when john wrote this, he was watering the garden, a much bigger garden than HPU students, really it was the garden (aina) of the whole world. his message was for the whole world. maybe he was gardening the gardeners.