travel

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Culture and Traditions

Following the horrific New Year’s fireworks accident, I noticed that the leadership in Hawaii has been misusing the very terms that are being used to defend illegal aerials Those guilty of using them are justifying their actions under the guise of “culture” and “traditions.” Trying to claim that is far, far from the truth.

As one who is of Okinawan, Chinese, and Japanese descent, we had an array of traditions followed each year. My grandparents taught us the importance of these practices that they adopted from their parents.

It was customary that we’d go to Cultural Plaza each year with my grandfather. We’d park in the stinky lot and have our usual Chinese meal at Empress Restaurant then go down by the courtyard to watch the dragon and lion dances. The noise of the drums would terrify me as a kid.

Following the lion dances, we would have the red firecrackers burned to help ward off the evil spirits. This would start off with a line of popping followed by a big mass burnout at the end. Anytime this started, we were cleared away from the area before it was started. No one except for the fuse lighter was allowed to be close and he’d run right after setting it off.

Another Hawaii tradition of NY was mochi pounding where we’d take out a very old utsu, aka mochi pounding stone, to make a tradition dish eaten every new year. It took the entire family to prepare for this event where we’d prep the stone, rice, and kin (mochi pounding mallets). There was a coordinated effort to safely pound the rice grains to stick together followed by the pulling of it apart into individual pieces. At the end, everyone took part in the tradition and had a plate of mochi to enjoy after.

When I look at our cultural practices and traditions, I see a theme of community involvement where people can come together to safely celebrate another year. These efforts took a lot of care and consideration to put on so many can participate in to carry on to future generations. We were conscientious about our fellow neighbors when these events took place.

Fast forward to the present day where we have people trying to culturally appropriate customs to justify their inconsiderate and dangerous behaviors with leaders having to be “sensitive” when discussing it on the media is absolutely absurd to me.

Let’s call a spade a spade here. Make no mistake that my ancestors would have never seen the actions of illegal aerials as a “tradition” or “cultural practices.” The fact that there are thousands of people feeling justified in hijacking the cultural practice with illegal aerials is utter disrespect for what it meant to my ancestors.

No one in their right mind would set off a firework that can reach 2000 degrees and potentially kill or maim a life in a dense neighborhood where kids and kupuna reside. Nor would a decent citizen even think about blowing their fireworks at all times of night and day either to wake up neighbors or scare animals who are getting lost and hit by cars.

We all have a duty to each other and let’s take it to heart in action and in word in 2025.

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New Year Tragedy

Every year there are hundreds of illegal aerials and bombs set off around the holidays. These are no consumer grade fireworks but commercial grade types. Despite it being banned, thousands of folks across the state have these in their possession.

While some blow their stash off on New Years, quite a few blow them off at random times, shaking neighborhoods and scaring pets and people. It’s annoying as hell to hear these loud booms go off unexpectedly.

Politicians have “tried” to regulate this but have pretty much failed, desire the many injuries, deaths, and property damage. I get mad thinking about this because these same politicians were so quick to legislate on GMOs then pesticides based on sketchy evidence and fear campaigns over a decade ago. Farmers were seen as the danger on the community and it was plastered all over the social media of the need for such legislation. The truth eventually has come out and the anti-GMO activists have all but dug out of Hawaii with their shallow roots here. Damage was done to our agricultural community by transplanted weeds who had no genuine attachment to our culture.

Last night on NYE, I decided to make a good dinner for my folks and headed out to their place. While enjoying our feast, their neighbor started shooting off aerials and some random kids parked across their home doing the same.

As we watched these blow off, we noticed stuff flying right over my folks’ house. My son went outside to do his little party poppers and came inside with a handful of aerial debris found on our cars and driveway. My dad was livid since he landed up cleaning the debris last year.

We decided to take this evidence to the neighbors and those kids to tell them to move away or stop. The neighbor saw us coming and realized that we were not happy and my dad gave it to them. Then we walked over to the kids and told them to quit shooting stuff over our property. Thankfully they all obliged.

Fireworks were everywhere last night and and a huge tragedy occurred on the densely populated neighborhood of Salt Lake. It appears that an explosion was set off in a home killing and injuring people in the area. Such tragic way to start the new year.

While legislators were quick to jump on to the alleged dangers of farms, they are completely helpless and useless in protecting the greater community from a proven danger. There’s no sense of priority to address this issues despite the growing amount of actual harm caused by the illegal use of fireworks. They were quick to legislate buffer zones with very poor evidence based on the alleged dangers of pesticides, but won’t protect people from an illegal bomb that has killed.

While fireworks kill and maim, our farm like others, continues to grow safe and nutritious food for the community every week year after year following regulations, but a general homeowner can possess hundreds of dangerous aerials in their home and no one bats an eye. Something is afoul here.


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The Good Old Days

So many of us long for the “good old days” that we thought was a much simpler life. However, once you actually learn the truth, life was much harder than it seemed. It was actually tough back then to make a living to support a growing family. It took a tremendous amount of sacrifice to make it, but there was a key difference.

When my grandfather decided to pursue farming, he needed resources and that came from the Okinawan community. They all descended from villages in their home country and maintained their connections to each other. They all helped each others’ families in some fashion to put food on the table, have shelter, and get their children educated. The community worked together to support one another.

Fast forward to the present and that sense of community has appeared to have disappeared. I had a vision and hope to build the Kaneohe community again through running our Kaneohe Elementary School Fun Fair earlier this year. We had not had a fair for the PTO for some 5 years and a group of us fearless parents and dedicated staff decided to hold it.

I was lucky to kind of have a guide from previous fairs but in a span of 5 years, many things completely change and we had to make revisions. Some of those changes including having food trucks instead of parents cooking the food and adding on crafters too. We also had to dig up old games for kids to play and create new ones.

When we started the planning, it was clear we needed manpower and focused on using the captive audience of the May Day program to announce the plans. In my mind I thought that parents would be excited to volunteer and help but was wrong. We had several tell myself and the PTO president that they were busy that day, despite not even having a day finalized. Ok, so be it.

The actual planning really started in June for an even in September with a core group of about 10 of us. I had taken on an OT student for 12 weeks and somehow managed to plan this fair. Every night I was up to at least midnight figuring out the details to make this happen.

Time flies and the fair day arrived and I was there at 6 am prepping everything. I worked the set up crew, bouncy houses, got craft and food vendors arranged, ran games, relieved the DJ, brought food for our guests, and even cleaned up. That day added some 12 miles worth of steps. It was completely exhausting but good to see kids making great memories while raising much needed funds for the classrooms.

I had planned to have thank you posters made that day but found it had been vandalized which really got me mad. So many had donated time, money, and items for the event and we could not even write a note of thanks. That blew my mind on top of seeing the very parents who told me they were busy that day walk up to the bouncy house.

In the old days, people stepped up to help each other. They’d see a problem and lend a hand. Everybody knew whose kids were whose. Kaneohe was really a small town back in the day. People shared of their time to help one another. That is something that we need to bring back into our community again.

When I looked back at why I was running around so much, I saw the problem. I had asked for 180+ volunteers for 1.75 hour shifts and we had 142 signed up. The actual count that signed in was 124 making us short close to 60 people. My 12 miles of walking proved the lack of volunteers.

In my determination to see things right, I got permission from the principal to speak to the kids to make those thank you cards right. It took time but the ones redone were beautiful to help showcase the gratitude of the kids who really had a good time.

Sometimes getting mad can really lead to clarity, which is what happened. On top of helping for the elementary school, I attended my high schooler’s parent group and learned of their plight to earn funds for their graduations. That got my mind thinking how we can help them too while putting on the fair.

We’ve come off of a very divisive year of events and we have to rebuild our human connections. That is why I’m willing to give of my time and sweat equity so that my kids can grow up in a better world.

The good old days of helping out, volunteering, and giving back are valued that are so needed now.