Episode 5

Aloha!

Thank you to those who have told me that they like reading what I am writing! I hope you continue to be enthusiastic and I hope I can improve on them also!

There is a new club in the Betsuin. The Aloha Club has been approved by the SJBC Board of Directors, First get together is Sunday, Nov 10th at about 11:30am. You know – “Hawaiian Time” in the Multipurpose Room. Come one, Come All! It’s just an informal group getting together to share a little aloha, talk story, maybe have food ad do a some other things. Rinban said that we have to have a luau. I’m not sure about this yet as I think he was actually kidding – but since he really love kalua pork, maybe not kidding. Maybe fo’ reals!

My first real visit to Hawai’i with a new baby (Elanor) and Rinban (who was known to me a ‘Gerry’ at the time), was super fun and super confusing. As we sat around the floor at the long, solid dark wood table at my mother-in-law’s house, one of the first things I noticed was that although everyone was talking and the mood was friendly, there were sometimes little lizards sticking to the floor to ceiling glass doors on the lanai (I called it a patio) and I couldn’t understand what the people (my husband’s family) were talking about! It sometimes sounded like English or Japanese and then…..I couldn’t distinguish anything else.

Before Rinban and I were married, I’d traveled around the world and rather flattered myself at being able to exist and kind of understand what was meant in any of a dozen countries. A quick list of those countries follows: Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia (Java, Bali), Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and England. However, whatever was being spoken around that table, was beyond my limited grasp of any language.

My sister-in-law took pity on me and asked “Do you understand what we are saying?” I shook my head ‘no.’ She laughed and started translating. You, the reader, if you’ve visited Hawai’i you will recognize this unknown, indecipherable language as what is now an official language in the Hawaiian Islands – Pidgin!

Many, many years and experiences later – Sometimes, I can understand more than Rinban can in local speak, like when the man at the HNL airport gave us directions, we drove away, and Rinban asked ‘What did he say??” And I told him. Other times – I’m, what my mother would say, flummoxed. No clue. Wha?!

Yeah -No plilikia! So come by on Nov 10th. Join in the fun. Prepare to laugh at yourself. As they say in the world – the more you know – the more you know you don’t know!

Cheers & Aloha!