A few weeks ago I wrote about how East doesn’t always meet West, and readers wrote to share more examples of such misconceptions from their personal experiences. Here are some.
Willson Moore told me his wife, Sally, attended Mills College in Oakland, Calif. During Christmas vacation in her freshman year, her roommate invited her home to Chicago to visit her family.
After enjoying a home-cooked meal, Sally complimented the hostess by saying it was wonderful “kaukau.”
“No, Sally,” said the mother, “it is not ‘cow cow’ but ‘baa baa’ (lamb)!”
Pineapple tree
Kathy Ebey wrote, “I moved to Hawaii in January 1976. I fell in love with this place the minute my feet touched down on the tarmac (this was before ‘airport gates’).
“I immediately jumped into the middle of everything Hawaii had to offer and everything that the state and its people embraced.
“However, my Navy husband never stopped reminding me that when he asked me to move from Washington, D.C., to Hawaii with him, I said I would if he could promise we would live on a high floor of a high-rise condo building with an ocean view and a pineapple tree with pineapples I could pick from our balcony.
“He never let me forget that one!
“Then, after living here for several years, I noticed an Amtrak ad in the paper saying they were offering a special fare for U.S. citizens. We had always talked about taking a train trip, so I contacted Amtrak to make a reservation.
“When they quoted me a higher price, I referenced their ad, and they quickly advised that the ad clearly stated it was for U.S. citizens only.
“I advised him that Hawaii was a state and we were U.S. citizens. He told me to quit trying to cheat the system and hung up on me.
“I didn’t know whether to go after him and his job, stand in awe at his level of ignorance or just have a good laugh. My husband chose that moment to gently remind me about my ‘pineapple tree,’ and we both had a good laugh.”
Pandanus
Ken Takeya said, “When I was at Church College of Hawaii (BYU Hawaii) back in the 1960s, I met a girl from the mainland who asked me about pineapples growing on trees.
“Back then the campus had a few hala trees. I climbed up one and picked a fruit from the tree since it does look like a pineapple.
“She carried it around for weeks. Even though people knew, nobody said anything to her. Eventually, it started to fall apart into little pods.
“She then asked me if she should eat it now since it was getting ripe. I finally told her the truth, and everyone had a good laugh.
“I did go to the Kahuku Supermarket and buy her a real pineapple afterward, and she forgave me for what she called an ‘awful prank’ since she had taken pictures of the tree to show her family that pineapples really did grew on trees.”
Saimin
Bryant Ching told me, “In the fall of 1963, after taking my first trip to the mainland, I arrived at our family’s newly acquired restaurant, the Chinese Tea Room in Corvallis, Ore.
“The cooks, who were all from China, thought I might be Indian as weeks on the beach made me dark, and by my pidgin-influenced English.
“They asked in halting English what I would like to eat: I quickly answered, ‘Saimin!’ There was deafening silence as the cooks looked at each other.
“I saw the bewilderment, and I immediately asked for wonton mein. A few minutes later I was given a plate of a few fried wontons on some fried noodles. Later, my aunt told me to order wontons IN noodle soup.
“Needless to say, I didn’t order saimin or won ton mein until I got back to Hawaii again.”
Sometimes it helps
“I was a freshman, attending college in Oregon,” Clyde Matsui told me. “One night I was pulled over for failing to make a complete stop. The officer spotted an open bottle of Thunderbird wine lying on the back seat. He cited me for ‘minor in possession.’
“I had to attend an arraignment in municipal court the next day. The judge was stern-looking, which had me worried. When my case was called, I approached the bench.
“The judge started by telling me that ‘MIP’ was a serious offense that was likely to stigmatize me for the rest of my life. By then I was really worried.
“He went on to scold me, saying that, as a student, I had an obligation to not tarnish the reputation of my school in the community. At this point, in my mind’s eye, I could see myself serving a stretch in the county jail.
“But then he said that as serious as my charge was, he had no option but to sentence me to a weekend stay in jail and require me to do community service to ‘fix the damage’ to my school’s reputation. I was doomed.
“He said that it was no excuse for any American to not know the law, but that ‘I see from your license that you are from Hawaii. Maybe then, being a foreigner, you didn’t know the laws of the United States. I encourage you to learn them.’
“With that, he dismissed my charges (including the stop sign violation), and I was released with no further proceedings.
“Mahalo to the judge. His ignorance was my bliss!”
Pau?
Rowland Ho said, “In the mid-’60s I was in the Air Force. In basic training, at meals one person was in charge to say ‘eat’ and ‘dismissed’ once the table of four was done.
“My Hawaii buddy was in charge with me and two other Caucasian guys. When finished, my buddy said, ‘You guys pau?’ They looked at him like he was talking a foreign language. I had to interpret. ‘He means are you guys finished!’
“I asked my parents to send me a postcard of the grass shack from the Kodak Hula Show in Waikiki. I’d show it to some people and tell them this is my house in Hawaii, and they believed me!”
Slippahs
“In 1981 I worked as a waitress/hostess at the old Ferdinand’s restaurant in Waikiki, in the Cinerama Coral Reef Hotel on Kuhio Avenue.” It was named after Ferdinand the bull, who liked to sit under a tree in Spain and smell flowers.
“Quite a few tourists would ask me if I normally wore a grass skirt, and if I lived in a grass shack, and if our people were happy.
“One older woman once asked me if I was used to wearing shoes!
“Signed: Penny Nakamura from Haleiwa, wearing my slippahs, but can wear shoes, too!”
Houlihan’s
Fran Bellinger told me, “When we were attending a conference in Sausalito, Calif., our Hawaii group decided to go out for dinner. We asked our host for a recommended restaurant. She proudly replied, ‘Yes, Houlihan’s!’”
Bellinger and her friends did not know this was an Irish name. They all thought she had said “Hula Hands.”
“We drove back and forth on Bridgeway, the main street of Sausalito, all four pairs of eyes looking both left and right. Getting nowhere and getting hungry, we stopped and pulled our car up to the curb and began discussing our options.
“Suddenly, one of us read aloud a sign she spied ‘Houlihan’s’! We all roared with laughter! The next day, we did a group share at our conference. The host was amused at the cultural differences between Irish and Hawaiian words sounding alike.”
Do you have a funny story about islanders and mainlanders misunderstanding each other? If so, drop me a line.
Bob Sigall’s “The Companies We Keep 5” book contains stories from the past three years of Rearview Mirror. “The Companies We Keep 1 and 2” are also back in print. Email Sigall at Sigall@yahoo.com.
