Last month I wrote about how mainlanders and islanders misunderstand each other on occasion, and my inbox has received a flood of new stories. Here are some.
Bull Lia Club
Scotty Bowman told me that in 1940, when he was 6, his family traveled to Detroit to pick up a brand-new car. They drove to San Francisco, visited relatives, shipped the car to Honolulu and sailed home.
“One evening we pulled into a California diner. While waiting for our meal, a guy sitting next to my dad at the counter asked if the car parked outside with Hawaii license plates (Dad brought them with him) was his. Dad said it was.
“I thought so,” he said, and asked, “When was the bridge they were building when I was in Hawaii a couple of years ago finished, and how long did it take to drive from Honolulu?
That’s when Dad, the Kohala Sugar Co. electrical engineer, became a member of the exclusive Bull Lia Club.
“The bridge was finished the month before we left Honolulu,” Dad said. “The 2,400-mile trip took us six days, but that depends on how fast you drive. We spent nights in the hotels, ate in the restaurants and refueled at the gas stations built on the bridge.”
“I wonder how many people the fellow later told about this bridge to Hawaii.”
White Hawaiian
Warren Higa told me: “In 1965 I was a 20-year-old Maui boy of Japanese ancestry teaching in a segregated prison in Kentucky. I was a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) volunteer.
“White prisoners lived in dormitories in the front of the prison, and ‘Negroes’ were at the back. The staff was all white, from the warden to the lowliest guard.
“I and the other two volunteers (Caucasian) were housed in the guard dorm within the prison walls. We needed to show our ID badges whenever we left or entered the front gate.
“Making an ID badge is usually a straightforward process, but in 1965 at a Kentucky prison, it got complicated. The ID badge had a box for ‘race.’
ID officer: What is your race?
Me: Japanese.
ID officer: No. There are only three races, Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid.
Me: I’m Mongoloid.
ID officer: Are you from Mongolia?
Me: No.
ID officer: Then you’re not Mongoloid. Where are you from?
Me: Hawaii.
ID officer: Then you’re Hawaiian.
Me: No. Hawaiians are bigger and darker.
ID officer: You’re fair-skinned.
“He finally typed in ‘White Hawaiian’ as my race.”
Soup?
“I was at a swanky steak restaurant in Nashville,” JoAnne Yamamoto told me. “It was dimly lit with candlelight at the table. I ordered a steak, and they brought a bowl of soup with a floating lemon. Hmm, what a nice way to start dinner, with some broth, so I thought.
“It was really bland with only the slight taste of the lemon. Then there was the shocked looks of the people on my table.
‘How was your finger bowl?’
“Oops! If the lights in the restaurant came on, everyone would have seen my red face!”
Basic training
Michael Mochizuki wrote: “In Army basic training in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., at chow time, I took two nice pieces of meat and put gravy on it. It shocked the mainland guys. I told them that’s how I liked it!
“Turned out the soft meat was liver, and the gravy was caramel syrup topping for the ice cream!”
Welsh rarebit
“Back in the early 1970s, on just my second trip to the mainland, Colonial Williamsburg was one of the places visited,” Jean Nishimura wrote.
“For dinner one night my friend and I decided to eat at what must have been a historic restaurant. I decided to order the Welsh rarebit stew, thinking that I would be trying something new.
“When our waiter, at the end of dinner, asked how I had enjoyed my stew, I said that the taste was fine but that I was disappointed that there wasn’t more rabbit in it.
“He smiled and kindly said that I had ordered ‘rarebit,’ not rabbit, and explained the origin of the term.
“On our walk back to the hotel, we heard laughter behind us. We turned to see the waiter sharing with his friend the story of the lady who thought she was going to eat rabbit. FYI … I have yet to eat rabbit.”
Rice
George Butterfield said: “In 1961 I traveled to the mainland for the first time, going to Lincoln, Neb., to start my freshman year at the University of Nebraska.
“Later in the fall, my dorm room neighbor took me home with him to a small town in northeast Nebraska for a couple of days. Because I was from Hawaii, they had rice. It was my first encounter with Uncle Ben’s rice, and it looked a little strange.
“Everyone took a serving, and then we all looked at each other: me at them, because they poured some milk and sprinkled sugar on the rice, and them at me because I didn’t.”
Mounds of musubi
“My dad was a new Hawaii resident in 1973,” Carla Rogers told me, “when he went to a snack shop in the International Market Place.
“He asked for the extra- large ‘mounds’ bar (chocolate-covered coconut). He was given a musubi! He was quite surprised at the first bite.”
Pie
Sharon Maekawa said: “The article about tofu brought to mind a funny incident for me.
“My Japanese American cousin, born and raised in Chicago, used to bring his family here every summer in the 1990s to visit his mom and our extended ohana.
“One year his best friend (Caucasian) and his family joined them, so my family invited them all to join us for a Fourth of July gathering.
“We had the usual grilled steaks, hot dogs, hamburgers, salads, side dishes, desserts, etc.
“I made a pie, which my cousin’s friend’s family immediately dug into. They were gushing over how delectable it was and asked how I made the ‘chiffon pie’ so light, fluffy and delicious!
“I told them it wasn’t a ‘chiffon pie,’ but rather a tofu pie using tofu instead of egg whites and creamed cheese.
“There was a momentary uncomfortable silence as they casually put their forks down and never touched the rest of the ‘chiffon pie.’
“I guess tofu was too foreign for them.”
Kala
Andrew Pereira said: “While working as a waiter at the Chart House in Haleiwa in the early 1990s, I was wrapping up a table with a Southern couple who had clearly just arrived in Hawaii that day and were enthralled by all that they were seeing on Oahu’s North Shore.
“When it came time to settle the check for the meal, the lady visitor looked at me and asked if we took American dollars.
I told her, “Why, no, we only take the kala, or the Hawaiian dollar.”
“After letting the couple ponder for a few minutes how they would change their dollars to kala to pay for the meal, I let them in on the secret that Hawaii was indeed a part of the United States and their dollars could be used for payment.
“They did leave a good tip!”
Is that Japan?
Ron Augustine told me: “I was in one of those waterfront bars in Lahaina with panoramic views. The only land in sight was the island of Lanai.
“A woman (obviously from the mainland) asked the bartender if that was the coast of Japan. Several people almost fell off their bar stools laughing.”
If you have a story of how East doesn’t quite meet West, send me an email.
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com
