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7 . 2 4 . 9 9 The dillution of the "local" culture in Hawaii has been going on for a while now, as the Hawaii of yesterday is not nearly the same it is today. Newcomers to the islands, as well as a large number of residents leaving are shaping the changing identity of Hawaii. James Grant Benton and Arnold Hiura came in yesterday to speak about the Hawaiian "rennasiance" that came about in the 1970s, mainly at UH at a time of academic suppression of Hawaiian and "local" culture from the more stuffy, prestegious areas of academia and mainland culture. It was a time of slack key revival, pidgen-language, local humor, booga booga, the Hokulea. It was a little depressing listening to them talk about the old days, and how things have been becoming more "mainland" now, introduction of street gangs, hard drugs such as batu, tourism, cheesy Hawaiian remake music, watered down local humor. Dr. Grant is going to introduce the section of the class devoted to ghost stories, superstitions in Hawaii today. I think last summer Dr. Ogawa explained folklore in Hawaii very well by saying that if you don't belive in ghosts, then you are surely not from Hawaii--everyone in the Islands at leasts questions the existence of the supernatural. I've been reading his Obake stories and scaring the wits out of myself. i spent the other day talking to my brother well into the night, we were so spooked that he was up all night, and I ended up getting about 2 hours of sleep only because I had class the next morning. As for an example of multiculturalism in Hawaii, I see the Hawaiian ghost story as one of the few universally "local" items that is still very strong today, one institution that still unites everyone who has ever lived here. Grant is known for his famous ghost tours of Honolulu, he starts at 7PM and takes the group through the haunted parts of the city, usually focusing on certain areas, the downtown area, Chinatown, Mo'ili'ili, Waikiki. I've heard some creepy stories about his tours, and there are a lot of stories that come from people's experience after seeing his tour. He's taking the class next week Wed for any of us who are interested. I'm changing my research topic from the bus-study to studying the graveyards of Honolulu. I think that it'll be a little more adventurous and a little more interesting. I just hope that its not too bachi, but I don't think it is really, I'll only visit during the daytime, and I'm not doing anything disrespectful. Driving around now I'm realizing that there are a lot of graveyards around town. A lot of them area quite unkempt too. 7 . 2 4 . 9 9 The presentation on our project on Waikiki went pretty well. I have to start gathering data on my bus study and I have to start on my personal synthesis. This class is actually a lot of work when I think about it. Since I've been blabbing about my Am studies class forever I thought I should shift gears and talk about the other class I'm taking, on Rape and Sexual abuse analysis. Its your typical sociology class, with serious feminist overtones due to the nature of the class. I have to decide on a research topic and get cracking on the literature review, on some aspect of sexual assault or abuse. I've been doing some internet searches with the webferret and I have come across a lot of information sites on various topics. I found a lot of sites on prison rape that was a little disturbing, but very interesting. I think it says something about society the fact that we lock up people in an unnatural environment to which they are subject to being violated and assaulted in every way, including sexually. The other topic that I was toying with is the existance of animated graphic porn known on the internet as "hentai", I think is an unique genre of internet pornography that can say some things about how people think. Much of the storyline in these cartoons are graphic and explicit, many have to do with rape. I just don't know how I would approach this topic though, I mean I can't just sit on my ass and look up porn sites, and call it research, but oh well. I'm probably gonna choose on researching prison rape. I went to Pietro's in Kapahulu last night to celebrate Matt's 21st. Iso's back from the academy, and he bought matt a shot. Its the first time a lot of us had gotten together this summer, which struck me as a little odd since most of us have been around for the entire summer. 7 . 1 7 . 9 9 I went to a Bon dance on Friday, I ended up working in the concession stand selling meat sticks and making Okahara Saimin. It reminded me of chairing the saimin&chicken sticks booth at Carnival Jr. year in HS. I remember working with the 3 Cheerleaders, being exhausted from practice, letting them argue over the work. I remember making all the sales and getting tipped by some of the people there. Anyway, the Bon dance was interesting, I don't ever remember going to one before, although my mom assures me I've been to a couple with grandpa on Kauai. There is a specific way of dancing that you have to do, wearing the Hapi coat and waving a fan, or sometimes a piece of cloth. There are drums in the center of the field where the priest and his assistants sing and chant and play flutes. You make donations to the temple and hang up a banner with your family's name on it, sort of a way of showing your support. Its kind of a collectivist ploy, as you have to donate a reasonable amount, being that everyone at the church can see how much you put in. Tonight I went to Chinatown, I ate at this dim sum resturant with my folks and a family friend. They were talking about small kid time when crackseed costed 1 cent, and a loaf of bread cost 20 cents. They also talked about raising their food and killing it, chickens, pigs, rabbits? It kind of struck me as odd that the food we were eating was in many ways of unknown origin, I was eating some fried pork that turned out to be salmon, the pork hash had some chunks inside of it, the fried taro tasted like fishcake. Afterwards we went roaming around Maunakea street looking at all the little shops opened for the night. I got a honu necklace and my dad bought some of those little chiming stress balls. Hawaii is a special place, I tried to look at the people in the crowds tonight and I honestly couldn't tell the ethnicities of half the people there. I wonder if the Chinatowns on the mainland are as diverse in ethnicity as in Honolulu. Multiculturalism in Hawaii can be seen in the simple action of observing the crowds of people passing in the night. I'm planning on doing my research paper for the Am studies class on the bus lines on Honolulu. I'm not sure what exactly I'll be observing, but I think that the public transportation system is a good place to observe the mixes of people. 7 . 1 4 . 9 9 Lots of stuff happened this weekend. busy busy. Thursday I had the honor of meeting one of the original Hawaiian "Beach Boys" the legend Rabbit Kekai. I was down at Waiks with my Am Studies Group doing interviews for our research project and we ended up talking to Rabbit. He was really down to earth and cool, he had some opinions of the way Hawaii is going, and some valuable insight for our project. He is one of the last, he says, of the original Beach Boys that have dedicated their lives to surfing the Waikiki breaks, and honestly, to me he didn't look that old at all. He's stayed healthy by eating "Rabbit food" he said. heh. Usagi sama wa kolohe desu. Hopefully he'll be around for a while to keep the old surf culture going. Times are changing. Friday I saw Austin Powers with my mom and her friend. It was kind of a dissapointment. not as funny as I had hoped, they really upped the moronic level of the film. It was good for some laughs, but I think I liked the first one better. It was ok though. I still need to see Summer of Sam, American Pie, and the Blair Witch Project this summer. Saturday I went to the beach with the Am Studies group, the professor had a pot luck, I brought some pumpkin mochi that I learned how to make the night before, I think it was pretty good. I have to remember to bring the recipe up to Madison in the Fall. Afterwards I went to this Okinawan resturant down Young St. I didn't even know it was there. The menu was kind of exotic, a lot of dishes with different pronounciations and styles. Sunday I went Paintballing at Kualoa ranch, it was pretty nuts, the paintballs leave bruises on your body that look like ringworm. The worst was I got pegged in my neck as I was coming out of hiding after getting shot. I think it was a close range shot since it took the skin off, now I have this bloody scab ring. We had about 25 people running around the course shooting at each other trying to get the opposing team's flag. Those paintballs hurt when you get shot, especially in close range. 7 . 8 . 9 9 And so I saw South Park on Friday. It was pretty crazy. In my opinion it deserves a NC17 rating, or even an X. Nah, well maybe not an X. But it was really really good, I thought. It was just a big wild rollercoaster or profanity and offensiveness on every level, childish, political, racial, social, you name it, they offend. I'd see it again. This weekend was pretty interesting. 2nd term at UH has started, and I'm taking my two 3 cr classes, Am Studies 418(?) "Hawaii's Multiculturalism" and Soc 446 "Analysis of Rape and Sexual Abuse". The Am Studies class is being taught by Glen Grant, Dr. Ogawa's protege, and well known Hawaii historian and ghost story teller. He opened the class talking about the hei'au on the point in Poka'i bay as a special temple representing the 4 major Hawaiian deities, Ku, Kane, Lono, and Kaneloa (War, Creation, Sky, Sea), and how the beach in the bay next to it was a meeting place for people of different clans. Upon landing in the harbor, representatives of each ahupuha'a would converge on the beach accompanied by warriors, each presenting their family geneology chant which would sometimes go on for hours. In taking turns, each representative would listen for common ancestors, crossovers, points of commonality from which they could develop a peaceful and meaningful relationship. Then he goes on to talk about Hawaii's multiculturalism, and how this course is a joint venture with UCLA and MSU, and how half of the students in the class are from UCLA. Fiji came out with his new CD. I think I emailed about 3 or four people that already. Its pretty bad ass. Just some good Island music to calm the soul, Reggae sounds from Hawaii and Fiji, and the world wherever his inspiration comes from. One of the more interesting tracks is one dedicated to Queen Lilioukalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. Its a good buy, or burn, if you have a CDR. 7 . 1 . 9 9 And so I'm a little late on the journal, oh well. I've been busting my ass lately on the last minute surge of work that college professors tend to do a week before finals. Since I'm taking two summer courses, the surge is a little more than normal. I just got back from finishing up a group project at kinkos it reminds me back in the Hata days. At least this one went pretty smooth and easy. Staying up until 2AM on weeknights is something that every college student gets used to after the first semester in hell. oops I mean in higher education. Anyway, I got a comment that a lot of my writings are either depressing, psychotic, or perverted. I ask that person and everyone else reading this to take a moment and ask just how depressed, psychotic and perverted is life in general? heh. actually it seems that whenever I get in the deep reflective mood I'm not a happy camper. But I think I might post some of my older writings back in the dark ages which were pretty damn happy. I have a lot of skit scripts written by myself and cohorts for several halarious english projects over the years. I remember "Our Planet" and "Julius Verderchi", along with some other crazy shit. I went to this conference on psychiatric diagnosis, and I got some detailed flowcharts on prescription guidelines for antidepressents and anticonvulsants. I also got a cool Zolft pen. The part of the lecture I really got into was the section focus on alcohol and drug abuse. Apparently if you're taking any kind of psychiatric drug and taking part in any recreational drug use (alcohol especially), you're really just counteracting the antidepressent. Something to remember if I ever go on Prozac. It makes me wonder what underlined effect these drugs have on kids. Prozac Nation anyone? I've also come up with a list of my must see movies for the summer. I'll even go by myself if I have too. after this week I should have some time to veg a bit. Summer of Sam American Pie Austin Powers South Park I'm wondering if I'll get carded to see any of these. I'm not sure how old I look anymore, I've gotten mistaken for a wide range of ages, 16-27. go figure. |