Immigrant values
While in Hawaii on a recent trip, I visited the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii (
JCCH). There is a permanent exhibit there
Okage Sama De (I am what I am because of you) which goes through the history of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii. It is quite extensive with a lot of old artifacts on display. There is also a video
Ganbare! describing the situation of the Japanese Americans in Hawaii during WWII.
The entrance of the exhibit displays twelve pillars representative of the
Kachikan, the values of the Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. These twelve values are koko (filial piety), on (debt of gratitude), gaman (quiet endurance), ganbari (perseverance), shikata ga nai (acceptance with resignation), kansha (gratitude), chugi (loyalty), sekinin (responsibility), haji/hokoru (shame/pride), meiyo (honor), giri (sense of duty) and gisei (sacrifice). These values from Japan did not melt in seamlessly into the the racial melting pot of Hawaii as well as the strong American influence. What evolved was something different - and it is still changing as the Japanese Americans intermingle through subsequent generations.
Following up
In my blog of
August 4 I criticized Amnesty International for using telemarketing firms and their abuse of their relationship with me to have them call me "on their behalf". My response was to send a note saying that they don't get a contribution from me this year because they wasted what I gave them on the telemarketers. Yesterday I got a similar call from CARE - thus, CARE gets added to my no contribution list. Unfortunately, I think I will have to enclose a note with all of my charitable contributions that because of abuse by some of the recipients, I am letting them know that they do not have my approval to have telemarketing firms call me.
In my blog of
October 6 I mentioned the trend of airlines not providing meals on flights. I just recently took a trip and was appalled at how the vendors at the Honolulu and San Francisco airports jacked up the prices on their food wrapped for takeout. The prices were so high that I decided to buy the food on the airplane. They actually are slowly improving the meals and it looks like they put a ceiling of about $5 for a sandwich with chips or other side snack. They still give beverage service and movies have been free (no charge for headsets). My main criticism of the roast beef sandwich was that they put the horseradish in it, and not in a packet on the side - blech!
Two Close Calls
I just returned from a trip to Hawaii on 10/12/06. I came back through Toronto and drove back to Ithaca. It turns out that I missed the major unseasonable snowstorm/blizzard in the Buffalo area by just a few hours. It was raining in the area as I drove through, but I didn't imagine snow was coming later. On 10/12, they broke the one day snow record in Buffalo, getting over 8 inches of snow - but this was followed immediately by another record breaking day of an additional foot of snow. The NY State Thruway which I drove back on eventually had to be closed down. I was fortunate that I left Hawaii on the 11th instead of the 10th, since there were major thunderstorms that I missed on the day before I flew out. But there was even more that I missed in Hawaii...
Today, I heard about the earthquake on The Big Island (Richter scale 6.3 magnitude) and the massive power outage to Oahu, where I was visiting. I would not have been able to get out easily. I mainly traveled at this time of year to try to minimize weather related problems. Thank goodness for internet streaming - I am able to watch KITV's news coverage (going on right now). I'm actually more up to date with information than my mother who lives in Mililani (they haven't had power for the last four hours or so). The Hawaiian Electric representative said that the power shutdown in Oahu was an automatic system for safety. They are carefully checking the power grid and bringing things up slowly.
Hawaii Farmers' Market and Sustainability
While on a visit in Hawaii, I saw Dean Okimoto, one of my Iolani classmates, on TV. Although he is owner of Nalo Farms in Waimanalo, he was representing the Hawaii Farmer Bureau Federation as President. This group runs the
Hawaii Farmers' Market. He talked about a new cookbook that was just being published (it's not in the bookstores yet, but I will be getting it sometime in the near future). Hawaii farmers are very aware of the need for sustainability in the islands (see
Sustainable Hawaii). According to Dean, there's only a 7 day food supply on hand here - the rest gets shipped in. This does not sound like a good situation. For such a geographically isolated location, Hawaii residents need to be more aware how vulnerable they are. Although I haven't seen the cookbook yet, I hope that there is some information regarding sustainability within its contents.
In Ithaca, sustainability is also an important issue(see
Sustainable Tompkins). Ithaca is very progressive with respect to environmental and sustability issues.Take a look at my
earlier blog from Sept. 16, 2006, where Ithaca "green" behaviour is mentioned with Vermont's.
Volleyball
Volleyball is really popular in Hawaii - that is, the University of Hawaii women's team - otherwise know as UH Rainbow Wahine (Hawaii for woman). They've dominated the Western Athlethic Conference over the past ten years or more and have had very high national rankings as of late. They provide a good role model for girls to get involved in athletics.
In Ithaca, the Cornell Volleyball team has won the Ivy League Championship (actually shared co-championships) for the past two years and is off to a good start this year. This was catalyzed by their coach, Deidre Collins (a former UH Rainbow Wahine player) who led the team to a championship in her first 2 years. It's interesting to note that if both Cornell and UH had survived in the NCAA Tournament last year, they would have played each other. Although the Cornell team is great in the Ivies, it is not nearly up to the caliber of play in Hawaii.
When I'm back in Hawaii on a visit during volleyball season, I will watch the UH games with my mom on TV. Unlike the football games, there is no local blackout of the home games. The whole state is rooting for the UH volleyball team, while in Ithaca, the team is still not getting its proper recognition community-wide. But with Coach Collins, I'm sure Cornell will continue to improve and continue to win Ivy titles. Perhaps it will even win some games at an upcoming NCAA tournament.
Cutting corners on airline costs
A disadvantage to living on the East Coast is the extended travel demands, both in distance and time. In the recent past, maybe going back around 7 years, they always fed you two full meals on extended flights. Then about five years ago, it became one small meal and a large snack. The trend has continued, so that over the past year or so, airlines are not including meals with their flights in the coach cabin. You do get beverage service, with a tiny back of snack pretzels included - anything beyond that you have to purchase, or bring on board yourself.
I feel sorry for the catering companies who used to provide meals for the airlines - many workers in this area have probably been laid off. The snack vendors in the airport areas probably have increased their business- at their inflated prices. The other alternative is to eat the limited selection on the plane at a moderate price. These meals are all cold and borderline in acceptability. Since they aren't all used, I'm sure they are also older on the average when compared to the catered hot food.
Now they don't bother collecting for headphones with the in-flight movies and TV shows, but there sure are a lot of commercials. Now you can use your own headphones. The headphones that are left behind are questionable in cleanliness now. Remember the old days when they used to put a fresh cover on the headrest on every flight. Or when the blankets and pillow cases were all clean and rewrapped. Not anymore.
I just hope that we won't start hearing about epidemics based on airplane flights. You aren't on long enough, unlike the cruise ships which have had problems. And now that they aren't serving meals, there's less chance of giving everyone food poisoning.
Sushi and Sweet Bread
I grew up eating sushi in Hawaii. Usually, it was on special occasions, such as New Year's Day, and my Mom would make many rolls - she hand-rolled them using little bamboo mats. You had to get special ingredients. You had to use the better grade of seaweed (nori), the sushi type, not the musubi (riceball) type. My Mom usually used unagi (eel) instead of tuna (a common substitute). There was also the red-colored dried shimp powder (sometimes green also, but not often), kampyo (gourd, which comes in dried form and has to be rehydrated in boiling water), sometimes takuwan (picked daikon, a large radish, usully colored yellow). She always made the maki-zushi type (in rolls). The other popular type was the inari-zushi, which used pouches made from aburage (fried tofu).
Nowadays, you can get sushi in the regular supermarket, at least in Ithaca, and it's not so hard to get. You can even get King's brand sweet bread sometimes (which they call Hawaiian bread), although we always knew it as Portugeuse Sweet Bread (pronounced "Po-do-gi"). I miss the Buck's Bakery brand sweetHowever, it still doesn't taste quite the same as what my Mom made. Everytime I go back on a trip, I will eat sushi and sweet bread at the very least.
