Maybe you’ve done this, too — strolled through the abundance of the new Shirokiya Japan Village Walk to admire all the fancy food and impressive interior design but then caught yourself looking for the remnants of old Shirokiya.
They’re there, like beloved landmarks or the cornerstones of long-gone buildings — the bulging plastic bento trays held together with rubber bands. The puffy desserts shaped into beady-eyed animals that are too cute to eat. The odd pancake-and-squid combo that makes people joke of pregnancy cravings.
In the midst of all that newness is just enough of what people loved about the old.
This is a companion essay to what I wrote about changes for Sunday’s paper, I guess, for while Hawaii has gracefully (and sometimes not so gracefully) accepted (and sometimes tolerated) so many new elements into our community, there are some things, some hallmarks, that have remained, steady and true; and for these there is a measure of gratitude for their endurance. For example:
>> The shakas at the end of the KHON2 News (if you can stay up that late)
>> Reyn’s inside-out aloha shirts
>> Hamura’s Saimin in
Lihue
>> Politicians who sign-wave (annoying, sure, but if a candidate doesn’t get out there in the blazing sun and do some humility-waving, they’re just not serious)
>> Dogs named Koa
>> The wonderful old-book smell of public libraries
>> Wailana Coffee House (and the staff that has worked there forever)
>> Byodo-In Temple (and the koi that have been there forever)
>> Outdoor stages decorated with ti leaf and monstera for elementary school May Day
>> Just one area code, good old 808, for the whole state
>> Outlines of the mountains you knew as a kid
>> Lei at graduation, even if many of the flowers aren’t grown here or aren’t actual flowers
>> The old, slow, pale lizards that have held their ground against the faster, more aggressive anoles
>> Maebo One-Ton chips
>> Takamiya Market
>> Pagoda Hotel Ballroom and guava chiffon cake
>> Volcano House
>> Care packages with dried squid, arare and li hing mui sent to displaced Hawaii residents
>> “Dress” rubber slippers acceptable for evening wear
>> That 4:30 afternoon light, amber like raw honey, shining on the coconut trees
>> Maui sanbai zuke
>> Hilo’s Cafe 100, where just about everything on the menu is a version of loco moco
>> Mango trees surrounded by fields of buffalo grass marking where a house used to be 80 years ago
>> Aloha Tower, with an old elevator that still works
>> Waikiki Natatorium
>> Hanalei taro vista
>> The ingrained edict that makes it impossible to go to a friend’s house for dinner empty-handed
>> School kids sewing thousands of fresh flower lei for Memorial Day
>> The smell of Love’s Bakery from the H-1
>> Standing for Aloha Ball
>> Somebody always knows somebody who can play pakini bass.
>> McDonald’s saimin
Take heart. There are more, so many more, of these lovely things that remain — things that are dear to you in particular or all of us in general. Enjoy them while we have them.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
