HONOLULU, HAWAII – When visiting some place so engrained in our cultural mind for the first time, it leaps from the pages. But there are still surprises lurking at each corner.
Onboard the boat, the captain says that the sands of Waikiki are not from Hawaii at all. Instead, they were transplanted from the States every couple of years. The irony of flying over to stand in your state’s sands is lost on most splashing in the murky waters.
Blocks of Honolulu streets are quiet in the post-dawn hours. At some point, cafe fronts fill with people, and farmers’ markets dot the island.
In Hawaii, though, it is impossible to ignore the whims of nature. The green is only so with the constant rainfall. One must take the good with the not so good, a local says. As such, green mountains are never far in the distance. Some of them are covered with pineapples and some with coffee trees. Both are not native to the land. Likewise, at Pearl Harbor, expect to be recounted tales alluded to through years of education. Collected in one place, it is almost amplified.
One thing is certain – though the waves crash behind us as our plane takes off, the aloha of the island will stay.
Honolulu Book Recommendations:
Waimea Summer, by John Dominis Holt, 1976.
Hawaii sensibility is described in colorful detail by a native Kama’aina in his adolescence.
Hawai’i one summer, by Maxine Hong Kingston, 1987.
The stories depicted in this set are written during Kingston’s stay in Honolulu. Through the essays, daily life is shared in small portions.
Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen, by Liliuokalani, 2016.
The text is written by Hawaii’s last queen, and through her detailed accounting of her life, the reader can better understand what it was to be Hawaiian.
postcardsfromanne.com 