Hawaii Trips by Ruth Paget
The first trip I made to Hawaii was in 1979 after spending a month in the Peoples Republic of China as part of a youth tour from inner-city Detroit, Michigan.
Tropical Honolulu reminded me of Guangzhou and Hong Kong after flights from wintry Tokyo and Beijing. Peking had recently changed its name when the PRC resumed formal diplomatic relations with the U.S. We had to fly from Tokyo to Honolulu, because there were no direct flights from Beijing to the U.S. at the time.
The youth tour members were staying in Honolulu with host families before our long trek home to Detroit. The house I stayed in was surrounded by trees with two-feet leaves, which looked like swaying teeth.
My host family was native Hawaiian. I liked taking a long shower and letting my hair dry in the warm, tropical Hawaiian breezes. As they made dinner, they teased me about tourist eating all the Hawaiian food. I ate roasted pork, pineapple, mangoes, and macadamia nuts. I had recently learned to like Chinese food and was learning to like Polynesian food, too.
The entire youth tour was treated to a beach luau prepared by our host families. Afterwards, we made our first presentation about what we had learned from our travels in China to the Honolulu chapter of the U.S. – China Peoples’ Friendship Association.
Before we left Hawaii, one of the Japanese members of the U.S. – China Peoples’ Friendship Association gave us a presentation about immigration to Hawaii. The Japanese and Portuguese were the largest groups, who made up the farmworkers on the pineapple plantations.
My next trip to Hawaii came decades later with my husband Laurent and daughter Florence. We went to Honolulu and rented a car. Florence drove all week around O’ahu.
The first place we visited was Pearl Harbor. I noted that ports tend to be in working class neighborhoods. We drove from Pearl Harbor and went to a golf club for cheeseburgers.
Florence had a Moon touring guide and made a checklist of places to stop at and photograph and film with the video function on her phone.
We spent the week eating poke – a kind of seasoned sushi with sesame seeds, visiting the Dole Plantation and eating sweet-and-sour pork made with pineapple and shave ice there, and eating grilled red fish with tropical fruit sauces at the hotel.
We began our days at Wailana Café, which served coconut milk as creamer, unctuous Portuguese sausage, and sweet Portuguese bread.
I have had grand times in Hawaii and discovered that I really like coconut milk in my Kona coffee.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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| Ruth Paget Photo |
