Welcome to the new year! I’m hopeful this will be a better year than the last. In my first column of 2022, I thought I’d take another look at how those of us in the islands misunderstand or are misunderstood by those on the mainland.
The Honolulu Star- Bulletin’s Dave Donnelly used to give out Statehood Recognition Awards to people who hadn’t gotten the memo that Hawaii is a state.
Some think we’re primitive here, living in grass shacks, without flush toilets, or that you can drive between islands.
The mix-ups run both ways and give me a never- ending supply of amusing reader anecdotes. Here are a few examples.
Fiction
Nanette Napoleon told me, “On a plane returning to Hawaii from a trip to the mainland in the 1980s, a tourist sitting next to me was reading James A. Michener’s book ‘Hawaii.’
“We started to talk about the book, and the woman wanted to know if it was possible to visit the home of the Rev. Abner Hale.
“I had to explain to her that Abner Hale was a fictional character based on the real-life New England Congregational missionary Rev. Hiram Bingham.
“I suggested she visit the Mission Houses Museum to learn about the real-life missionaries. She also asked me how I learned to speak English so well, so I had to explain that although I was part-Hawaiian I was born and raised speaking English at home and at school.
“Although I wanted to explain to her how the Hawaiian language was systematically removed from everyday life in Hawaii, I decided it would be too long a story to explain, and left it at that.”
Flush toilets?
Edwyna Spiegel said, “When I landed in 1966 to begin my kamaaina life in the Islands, my paternal grandmother, Ruth Spiegel, called and asked if they have flush toilets in Honolulu. She thought I was going to live in the wild, I suppose.”
Shipping
Margaret Aurand wrote: “During a recent remodel, I called a vendor in Virginia to ask about shipping a potential purchase.
“‘Oh, sorry. We don’t ship internationally,’ he replied.
“It’s amazing how many merchants won’t ship to Hawaii because they don’t realize it’s one of the 50 states!
“A friend was planning his first trip farther west than California. He phoned me, asking if there was an airport on my island (Oahu). I decided to play along and pull his leg.
“No, but I’ll put a bone through my nose and paddle to the airport to meet you!”
Live in trees?
Nery Heenan said, “When my husband, Dave, and I lived in Westchester County before moving to Honolulu, people were curious of my accent. When I told them I’m Filipino, they’d ask if we live in trees and eat dogs!
“A few times, I’d tell some irritatingly curious folks that I’m from Sweden, that I dyed my hair black and I had a nose job. They believed me!”
Ono for rice
Kealoha Caldeira shared a mainland experience. “Back in 1982 I was the reservations manager for the Holiday Inn Waikiki Beach, which today is known as the Aqua Waikiki Beach hotel.
“My boss and I were sent to Holiday Inn University in Memphis, Tenn., for corporate meetings.
“One night I was so ono for rice and was tired of eating potatoes. I ordered room service, and my eye caught the word rice. When my meal arrived the rice was dark, dirty brown with what looked like twigs and pieces of bark.
“It was just horrible, so I reread the menu and saw the words ‘wild rice’ … never again.
“On the returning leg home, we stopped at San Francisco, and I insisted I needed my rice fix, so we went to Chinatown for Chinese food.
“They brought me a bowl of Uncle Ben’s rice, which I could live with, but when I asked for shoyu, which they called soy sauce, it wasn’t a light brown color and had no salt flavor whatsoever!
“When I landed on Oahu, the first meal I had included my usual shoyu on rice.”
More rice?
Stanton Lum said, “One mainland memory I have was in the mid-1960s when I was hitchhiking from Selfridge AFB (near Detroit) back to East Lansing, Mich.
“I happened to stop in Flint and chose a Chinese restaurant for dinner. The waiter looked at me like I was a curiosity but never talked to me. My memorable surprise was that the Chinese food was served with salad and two butter rolls but no rice!”
Slippers in da snow
Barbara Jurken said, “My nephew went away to Washington state in 1994, and the Hawaii students were still distinguishable for wearing their slippers in the snow.
“One morning he called in great excitement to tell me he was seeing snow for the first time. He couldn’t figure out why only the Hawaii students were outside and enjoying it.
“He was on his way to sled down the nearest hill. Because he did not have a real sled, he was going to use a beach chair.”
Bridges
Dorothy Pyle said, “In the mid-1970s my husband rode his motorcycle across much of Canada. In a rural area of Alberta, he stopped for gas.
“The man pumping gas noticed his Hawaii license plate and then asked him what highway he had taken to get to Alberta.”
Lance Bateman added, “I was asked by a person from California what the bridge toll was to drive here, and by a woman who asked if she needed her passport — in the early 1990s.”
David Komine wrote, “While going to college in West Texas in 1976, I caught a ride with a Texan to Ruidoso, N.M.
“Never having been to Hawaii before, he asked how we get to the other islands and if there are bridges that connect them.
“Being perfectly honest, I said, ‘No bridges, but we still paddle and sail canoes between them, and only a handful are able to swim it’ (without saying endurance races).
“Stunned, he asked, ‘What if you’re too old or weak to do that?’
“I said, ‘Start training.’
“He couldn’t figure out why I was smiling the whole five-hour drive.”
Back in the States …
Bob Kern said, “I was a tour guide until 2012 and regularly heard ‘back in the States,’ and I bet you a dollar that most tour guides today would say they hear it on a regular basis.”
Time zone?
Moke Strassberg added: “Your column reminded me of something that happened to me about 15 years ago, and I honestly thought that it was a rarity. But after reading your column, I realize it was not.
“Someone returning a business call to me from the East Coast called me at about 4 in the morning. I asked her if she realized she was calling Hawaii, and she said, ‘Yes.’
“I then asked if she realized that it was 4 o’clock in the morning. She said, ‘Are you in a different time zone?’
“Really? You can’t make this stuff up.”
Discrimination?
U.S. Rep. Ed Case remembered a misconceptions memory from 50 years ago.
“In the summer of 1967, I was lucky to join legendary coach Soichi Sakamoto’s Hawaii Swim Club on its annual goodwill tour across the mainland. We brought our Hawaiian brand of swimming to meets in places like Fresno, St. Louis and beyond.
“We were a ragtag, chop suey bunch, wandering the country on our Greyhound $99 all-you-can-travel passes and staying in pretty scuzzy hotels.
“We’d get strange looks and comments from time to time, and it took me a while to figure out it had to do with something I wasn’t especially familiar with: race.
“One day in Chicago, we decided to check out Old Town. We hiked north a few miles and, hungry, headed into a cheap restaurant. The waiter stopped us and told us to leave. Outraged, we demanded to know why.”
Case thought he objected to the mixed race nature of the team, but instead, the waiter replied, “You can’t come in here barefoot.” Most of the team was shoeless.
Do you have a story of how the mainland misunderstands Hawaii or vice versa? If so, send me an email.
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Bob Sigall is the author of the five “Companies We Keep” books. Send your comments and suggestions to Sigall@Yahoo.com.
