Comfort in a Bowl

Click on photos to enlarge Father Damian looks out on Punchbowl Crater

"Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men's blood."

Daniel Burnham

Local Favorite!

"I certainly want information, but information isn't an end unto itself. Human intelligence is the ability to make sense of that information."

Nicholas Carr

MMMMM, I took a bite out of the shrimp tempura before taking this picture!

"Food, like a loving touch or a glimpse of divine power, has that ability to comfort."

Norman Kolpas

Sometimes, we know what we mean, even though we don't REALLY know what we mean. Do you know what I mean?

I guess what I'm saying (with spiral logic) is that the things we are most familiar with, the things that bring us homey comfort, can sometimes surprise us with their secrets, and with how little we actually know about them.

This familiar/mysterious dichotomy can come into focus when we try to describe something that "everyone knows" to somebody who doesn't know it. Like Saimin. A while back I wrote about eating Barack Obama's favorite "Zip Min" at local Hawaii restaurant chain, Zippy's. I even included a picture of the giant bowl. http://comfortspiral.blogspot.com/2009/01/honolulu-chinese-new-year.html

What the picture didn't show is the curious evolution of this isle commonplace.

It turns out that our local "Meal in a Bowl" Saimin is an "only in Hawaii" marriage of Japan's ramen noodle with an old Chinese recipe called "sai-mien." And what a happy marriage! Those curly Japanese noodles play very nicely in the yummy golden broth with their won-ton cousins. Their happily crowded bowl is topped with greens, savory slices of Chinese roast sweet pork (char sui), circles of sliced hard-boiled egg, discs of kamaboko (Japanese fish cake - the red & white spiral!), yellow omelet strips and sometimes even teriyaki beef or BBQ chicken on skewers!

Believe me, on a rainy night a bowl of saimin at Zippys, or at local haven, Shiro's Saimin, can make everything in this world seem mellow and OK once again.

At Zippy's the dish comes in a large bowl with a metal cover that has chopped green onions in a special "cup" at the top. Utensils are chopsticks and a Chinese spoon - the while porcelain or plastic kind that are flat on the bottom. Super hot Chinese mustard stands by too! Add a bottomless glass of ice water, and you may have just read my "last meal" before the hypothetical (I hope!) firing squad.

There is a recipe for Saimin via this link:
http://www.shareyourtable.com/origins/2009/saimin

For those of you who have asked, and those who would like to take a gander at some of the very best contemporary Aloha shirts, you may go to the website for Honolulu Magazine Favorite, Tori Richard at: http://www.toririchard.com.

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Hana - What?

Kupuna playing Hanafuda

"I should not talk so much about myself, if there were anybody else whom I knew as well." Thoreau

"There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad." Dali

Japanese plantation workers in Hawaii

(note the Samurai sword)

“I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine”
Oliver Goldsmith

When we moved to Kona on the Big Island (Hawaii) back in the 1980's it was a very different place than it is today. The old folks still remembered Territorial days, and many of them had grown up on, and/or worked the sugar plantations. Obituaries in the daily paper routinely listed places of birth as Japan or China, perhaps Hamakua Plantation, or a tiny Hawaiian fishing village that was only a fading place name that fewer and fewer Kupuna (seniors)remembered.

The local beach park on Ali`i Drive south of town wasn't a place reserved for tourists - excuse me - "Visitors." Kona still belonged largely to the "local" people. Many of us still lived high up on the hillsides and used 4 wheel vehicles daily. It was still common to have "catchment" water systems for home use. Large, wooden tanks beside our "shacks" saved the carefully channeled rain that drummed on our corrugated tin roofs. We washed with it, many drank it. Outhouses like ours, da Lua, or "pit," were common also. The little girls dancing hula every afternoon at the beach park with their kumu (teacher) did not work for the tourism board, they were simply doing what little girls still do after school here in Hawaii. It was just as normal to snorkel daily among friendly Honu "Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles" and colorful reef fish.

We noticed the old timers playing an animated card game. Pretty flowered cards, smaller and thicker than western playing cards, were "THWACKED" down on the picnic table to the delight of all. They reminded me of the domino players I had encountered in Jamaica. "It's called Hanafuda," the old ladies told me. The game was played throughout the "Japanese Camps" of the plantations. I got to witness the last of that generation still playing the game. Yes, it was still a common sight back then to see the seniors playing. Decks were available at Longs Drugs in Kailua Town (they didn't call it Kailua-Kona yet).

I haven't thought about Hanafuda in a really long time. It is one of those flavors that grows fainter as the world becomes smaller and Hawaii more like other places. A local yoga sensei, 71 year old Helen Nakano of Oahu, is trying to preserve Hanafuda in the islands by teaching the game to 1,000 local Keiki (children) by the end of the year.

Variations of Hanafuda are still played in Japan and Korea. The 12 suits stand for the 12 months and are "faced" by flowers, birds, and animals emblematic of those months in Japan.

Around 100 years ago in Japan a company was started to produce Hanafuda cards. And the company is still producing Hanafuda decks to this day, although they are better known for the more modern amusements that they provide worldwide. The company's name: NINTENDO!
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MTM: Queen's Hospital

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
Leo F. Buscaglia


“How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning


Original Queen's Hospital



Queen Emma & Kamehameha IV 1859

“I remember when I used to sit on hospital beds and hold people’s hands, people used to be shocked because they’d never seen this before. To me it was quite normal.”
Princess Diana

In the 19th Century, introduced illnesses and diseases were decimating the Native Hawaiian population of these islands. Though Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV were sovereigns of ALL of Hawaii's residents, including American, European, and Asian subjects of the Kingdom, they felt a special Kuleana (responsibility) to preserve their own people to whom they were bound by an ancient genealogy. The two monarchs did not disdain to humble themselves, visiting private homes all over O`ahu to solicit funds for a modern hospital at the foot of Punchbowl Crater.

2009 is the 150th Anniversary (1859) of the founding of The Queen’s Hospital (today: The Queen's Medical Center). The only hospital in the nation with a royal pedigree, Queen's serves all of Hawaii and the Pacific. Once can scarcely read Honolulu history, or literature that is set here (From Here to Eternity, House of Many Gods, Molokai, Honolulu) without "visiting" this hospital that is such a major part of our community.

Trippler Army Medical Center, Kuakini (Formerly the Japanese Hospital) Kapiolani Women's & Children, Shriner's, Kaiser Moanalua, and The Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific, are local hospitals that also serve us with great distinction; but to enter Queen's is to enter the fabric of Honolulu in a unique way. You're likely to notice a Kupuna ( senior citizen) softly playing a ukulele in the lobby. A portrait of the Queen herself, along with distinctive Polynesian & historic art is on display in this cutting edge modern facility.

Here we interact with so many ethnicity's and life stories: Micronesians suffering the lasting effects of nuclear testing, neighbor islanders wary of the big city, tourists from every nation who find themselves unexpectedly and deeply ill, so very far from home - all find solace and Aloha here at Queens. Mostly it is the local staff, from physicians, nurses, skilled technicians to maintenance and office workers, who keep the graciousness alive.

While pondering this week's My Town Monday post I realized that it was a no brainer. I have spent lots of time at the hospital recently visiting my Dad. This place with it's precision, history and warmth has become dear to my heart. I hope this brief post has touched yours today!

You can read more about the Royal couple here: http://www.huapala.org/U/Ua_Nani_O_Nuuanu.html

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Just Another Dawn

Diamond Head: Another Dawn

“Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day. Such is the salutation to the dawn.”
Sanskrit Proverb

Honolulu Fire Department (HFD) Note the surfboard for rescues!

"The pillar of the world is hope.

African Proverb

Treasure the love you have received above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished.
Og Mandino

This morning, walking on the beach, I set up for my 7,000th shot of diamond Head. "How many pictures of her do I need?" I wondered. But immediately I realized how every season, time of day, and quality of light paints even the most familiar things in infinite and wondrous permutations.

I already have enough pictures of Diamond Head? One might as well say: "I already have a picture of my mother. Why would I want to take another?"

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Neighbor Island Nene

Click on photos to enlarge! Far away from Honolulu. Rural Big Island

“We artists! We moon-struck and God-struck ones! We death-silent, untiring wanderers on heights which we do not see as heights, but as our plains, as our places of safety!”
Friedrich Nietzsche

A world of worlds on a green leaf

A wanderer is man from his birth. / He was born in a ship / On the breast of the river of Time.”
Matthew Arnold

The gentle Nene Goose mates for life

“The family is one of nature's masterpieces.”
George Santayana

The winds of the world can blow you off course, especially if you soar far beyond your local skies.

To see your fledgling nest from the top of the highest tree reveals other, undreamed, unexpected vistas of possibility.

At first there is only excitement. Excitement and (to be honest) fear. But the excitement, or the wanderlust, or disgust with your surroundings, goads you higher. The sun is intoxicating, the winds of early Spring beguile like new playmates.

Discomfort is part of the game. Unaccustomed food and voices feed your days. But each moment un-moored bursts with presence. Even boredom is romantic as you explore the streets of a new town before it's morning begins.

You land beside still waters. Children, lovers, madmen, and the aged share a few moments and their crusts of bread with you in the long afternoon light. You sleep with your dreaming head buried in oil slicked feathers, and wake each day to the first day of life in the Garden. But something clicks, the temperature, or temper tantrum of a fellow wanderer. And the sky, always the sky, renews its imprecations as you fly to embrace new winds. Forward always forward. Calling, always calling.

Sometimes answered.

At last, a most heroic flight. With fleets of feathered navigators - far far from accustomed climes, at the end's reach of endurance, above an endless water sky.

First a feeling, then a smell, a change in the vast empyrean. Till low clouds sing the joy: Land! A verdant mountain rises from that endless sea of purgatory. Land! You remember. You once had feet and still wings beside a rock instead of unconstant clouds. Remember?

It wasn't just a dream!

Water and water bugs. Ferns and bracken. No fox, no snake, no lightning. And maybe just because you're finally tired, after crossing the greatest crossing of them all, nudged by upper level jets and the lack of landing for mile upon night, and day upon mile. . . at last you stretch your neck content. Your tail end waggles in satisfaction as you feed. We few are the far fliers. We are the very best!

And after many ages pass, you forget that any other place, any other life ever existed. You are a distinct species: The Nene Goose, State Bird of Hawaii.

We now understand that this emblem of Hawaii, genetically distinct from any other bird, was once an immigrant, a malihini.

It was once a Canada Goose. A visitor off course who stayed, who changed.

Like me.

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Aloha Friday!!

Click on photos to enlarge!

Remember when I was little, and you took me to the beach?

"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough." Albert Einstein

Distant Diamond Head

"Anything done out of fear, is a prayer to the devil."

Anonymous



Yes, these men are working half-submerged!


"Are you still colonizing life, or have you gone 'native' yet?"

Anonymous

Before there were casual Fridays, there was "Aloha Friday" here in Hawaii.

The world famous "Aloha Shirt" was initially developed in Honolulu during the Thirties. First, colorful Japanese yukata fabrics were used. Then tropical prints were imported from Tahiti and Samoa. Traditional Hawaiian tapa cloth patterns, and Javanese batiks became popular too.

Ellery Chun, a local alumnus of Mr. Obama's school, Punahou and of Yale University (1931) changed the name of his family's King Street dry goods store from Chun Kam Chow's to King-Smith Clothiers. He arguably developed the concept there, and many consider him to be the father of the aloha shirt. Other local companies such as Gump's Department Store, and Watamull's East India Store, soon commissioned Hawaii artists like Elsie Das to create floral textiles emblazoned with local foliage, surfers and hula dancers. Mr. Chun's sister, Ethel, hand painted her own motifs that were then reproduced on cotton or silk in Japan. Today those vintage "silkies" are worth quite a lot of money!

Other classic-era Aloha Shirts were marketed by Branfleet, Kamehameha, and Royal Hawaiian. But only Mr. Chun had the foresight to trademark the term "Aloha Wear."

In 1947 the City of Honolulu began encouraging locals to wear Hawaiian shirts to work during the Summer months. Soon enough, Fridays year round became "Aloha Friday"s. Ultimately the shirts became ubiquitous, no matter the day of the week. Today in Honolulu's downtown business district few of the men one see's on the streets are wearing suits and ties. The only major exceptions seem to be attorneys and court workers who, nonetheless manage to look "local" in some indefinable way. It's easy to spot a "foreign" businessman in town for a meeting. The conservative grey suit is a dead giveaway!

Of course, the subdued patterns favored by local businessmen for office wear are a far cry from the loud shirts that a visitor to the islands might buy. Companies like Manuheali`i, Tori Richard, and Reyn Spooner are major producers of the finer sort of Aloha Shirt. Couples walking the sidewalk in matching Aloha Wear might as well wear a sign reading: "Tourist." But that's OK. Our whole economy is based on the visitor industry! So wear what you like, and have a wonderful day.

As the song says: "It's Aloha Friday - no work till Monday." See you at Da Beach! Mahalos to Alan Brennert, author of Honolulu, for his research on the topic.

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Choose Your Path

Click on photos to enlarge! Empty beach - Full sky

"The opposite of prosperity is not extinction."

Ian Parker

Undisturbed Morning, Waikiki

"Look deep, deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."

Albert Einstein

Blooming Aloe & Fuel

“When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it.”
Charles de Lint

While learning to ride a motorcycle, I was taught the importance of focus. "Where you look - is where you will go." When an obstruction or pothole appears in the road, the eye is drawn to it. But instead of fixing on it, the experienced rider looks at the road ahead, glancing along the clear path around.

Too often, we focus our energy & attentions on that which troubles or displeases us. The rule of attention attracts to us more of the same; We encounter about what we expect to.

In fact we are often oblivious to easy solutions, as we beat our heads bloody on the wall beside an unlocked door. . .

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