“Howzit, brah!”
“Howzit!”
My husband overheard this exchange between two Hawaiian locals in a shopping center on our recent vacation. It was his first introduction to pidgin, the local lingo.
After experiencing pidgin, my haole (HOW-lay, meaning Caucasian, foreigner) husband has since tried many other pidgin-like phrases on me, most of them he made up himself. It’s quite funny to experience his variety of linguistic humor and/or imitation of different languages. Now, he texts me in pidgin even though it’s been at least two weeks since we’ve been back from our vacation.
This morning, he texts: “How’s it?”
Me: It’s spelled, “Howzit.”
Him: How u know?
Me: Looked it up on the internet. (Because everything you read on the internet is true, right?)
Back to our vacation…
Fresh off the plane in Honolulu on our way to the rented house in Kailua (which we shared with our family who arrived a few hours before us), we drove on the Likelike Highway, known as Route 63, pronounced LEE-keh-LEE-keh.
I practiced other street names on the way. I was trying to prepare myself so I wouldn’t look so haole. I was attempting, in vain, to boost my self-esteem by not displaying any blatant haole ignorance. Why? Because I’m Japanese. But I’m really a wannabe Hawaiian girl.
At the risk of digressing, I’ll share that I only remember a few pidgin phrases from my high school friends (yes, Todd, Craig, and Jodi). My favorite was “da kine” which can virtually mean anything. “The word you use when you don’t use the word,” is my favorite definition I found on the internet.
Back to our vacation…
“Humuhumunukunukuapuaa.” “King Kamehameha.” “Iolani Palace.” These words were the highlight of our conversation traveling one day from Kailua to the Ala Moana mall. It was our homeschool language arts lesson for the day, which included many other hard to pronounce street names.
A history lesson on King Kamehameha (kuh-MAY-uh-MAY-uh) and the Iolani Palace were the topics for Social Studies.
My haole (yes, Caucasian, white) husband and I taught homeschool math by explaining the time change on the flight over to Honolulu from the mainland.
The subject of science was the most memorable. The kids learned about two different types of sharks, let’s say, upfront and personal. The two older kids and haole husband paid good money for the thrill of stepping into freezing cold water in an 8’x8’ cage to view sharks. They saw Sandbar and Galapagos types.
We also toured Hanauma Bay’s historical museum before snorkeling. That’s where we learned that the unofficial Hawaiian state fish is the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa. (It's pronounced HOO-moo-HOO-moo-NOO-koo-NOO-koo-AH-poo-AH-ah; yes, it’s the name of the fish song in High School Musical.)
We satisfied the PE requirement through a few different activities. Sunlight and fresh breezes invited my son and me to run barefoot on the Kailua beach. The kids swam in the ocean. And the kids and haole husband surfed for the first time on Waikiki Beach. Yes, I was jealous. (Now vain and jealous.) Well, someone had to make sure the 2 and 4 year olds didn’t get swept out too far in the big ocean. But…I still got a nice tan.
And this is my wannabe Hawaiian surfer girl story.
But it wouldn’t be complete, however, without mentioning a few of the things I loved most. I loved sipping wine and hanging out with family on the lanai. I loved the North Shore coffee, cookies, and window shopping. I loved the long walks on the sandy beaches with my husband. I loved our shopping at the International Marketplace. I loved our family outing to the Outrigger to have appetizers with the tiki torches at Duke’s. And I loved the many memories that we captured and brought home to share.
But one very special trip was to get shave ice. It’s not everyday, when you live on the mainland, that you can experience it the way locals do. Cool and refreshing…. Make sure, however, that you don’t call it “shaved ice” or compare it to a snow cone, or you’ll be haole for sure.
*Since this is neither formal nor free of grammatical errors, I’ve omitted all okinas. That’s the backwards apostrophe that makes Hawaii into the more proper form, Hawai`i.
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