Spirit of Aloha | Features | July/August 2007

TIMELESS WAIKIKI
By Jocelyn Fujii


The long, happy lives of mom-and- pop stores

“Why are you doing this to me?” I whined as my blond torturer pulled me—actually, almost dragged me —along Kalākaua Avenue. “You know I don’t like Waikīkī!” Around us, people thronged. And stared. They were either very pale or sunburned, and no one was in a rush. No one was fussing, either—except me. .

My tormentor, Brad, a joyful refugee from New York, stopped suddenly. “Look around,” he said. “Everyone is happy and having fun. They’ve been swimming, they’ve had mai tais, they’re on vacation, they’re spend­­ing money. There’s a wonderful breeze rust­ling through the palm fronds. Listen, you can hear it! The ocean is just over there. When these folks return home with their suntans, their friends will be jealous. Most people have to save up for years to come here. It’s their trip of a lifetime. And we live here!”

It was a cliché, but who could argue with that? I flushed with shame, then straightened up and followed him. We passed a man painted in silver, and he seemed not to move or breathe. He was entertaining us. Someone else play­ed a guitar, another a tambourine. This was the ’80s, and the Hare Krishnas were in full force. A woman in a sari, a bindi on her third eye, shimmered past a pareu-draped teenager with sand stuck to her deep tan. Store windows displayed expensive handbags, bling and aloha wear. The pleasing scents of pīkake and tuberose wafted between whiffs of ramen and waffle cones.

OWe ducked into a side street, veered down Kūhiō Avenue, and found Azteca, a Mexican restaurant that served homemade tortilla chips and the best made-from-scratch salsa in Hawai‘i. I was starting to fall in love again with this teeming conglomeration of humanity. Then Brad blew it: He nudged me to­ward the International Market Place. Oy. That was a stretch, and the giddiness vanished in the raw consumerism around me. All those crystals, T-shirts and junk! That poor banyan tree: What stories it could tell! Out of the tangle of banyan roots, a fortune teller ap­proach­ed us and “invited” us for a tarot card reading. No, thanks. I surveyed the scene around us: jostling crowds, heaps of trinkets, imported shell lei, cheap goza mats, fringed rayon pareu and pearl oysters galore. Just about everything was made in the Philippines or Korea or other parts of the Far East.

“I’m going home,” I announced calmly, hitting rock bottom in my love-hate relationship with Waikīkī.

There was a time when the Inter­national Market Place was a reason to grow up. Duke Kahanamoku’s nightclub, where the late, iconic Don Ho and the Ali‘is played in the 1960s, was the epicenter of nightlife, a large showroom with throngs of college co-eds clutching their red-and-white “Suck-’em-Up” glass­es and varnished-wood tiki mugs. I kept every glass and mug from my drinks until my tiny apartment couldn’t take it anymore. At Duke’s, Ho played his Ham­mond organ and sipped from his glass of Chivas Regal while the grandmothers and co-eds swooned. He sang, too: “Tiny Bubbles,” “I’ll Remember You,” “One Paddle, Two Paddle.” I re­call seeing large doormen, spaghetti straps on sunburned shoulders and women who nearly fainted if they even made eye contact with Ho. The air smell­ed vaguely of rum and citrus, with intermittent whiffs of Monoi Tiare gardenia oil, the body oil of the decade.

Those who were still on their feet after Duke’s often headed for Coco’s, home of all-night coffee with a tiki motif, shaped like a coconut hat, at the corner of Kapi‘olani Boule­­vard and Kalākaua Ave­nue, where Hard Rock Café is now. When families stopped by in the daytime, children hunted for free gifts in the treasure chest by the entrance.

Waikīkī was racy, too. 3D and The Wave Waikīkī were the hub of punk rock in the ’80s, when alternative music ruled and all-night revelry was the norm. Eggs ’n Things, on ‘Ena Road, served excellent pancakes with fresh-made orange syrup, and the waitresses called you “hon.” People staggered in at all hours with bloodshot eyes, victims of the nearby clubs. At Kapi‘olani and At­kin­son, the exotic Stoplight bar made wet T-shirt contests look tame.

Feminism not­with­standing, topless joints were jumping in the 1970s. Down the street on Kalā­kaua, the dancers at the Lollipop drew hordes of servicemen on R&R. Behind the Lollipop, a secret bar called the Hide­away sold 25-cent draft beer.

Family entertainment centered on the beaches and movies.

Now long gone, Waikīkī theaters were the real deal, not the claustrophobic cookie-cutter multiplexes that came to re­place them in other parts of town. The old Waikīkī Thea­tre, with its 1,300 seats and neon marquée, was the queen of Ha­wai‘i theaters, featuring a fountain and fishpond in its garden courtyard and a rainbow-shaped proscenium inside. Droop-proof plaster palm trees added to the tropical décor. You could dress up if you wanted to. The audience applauded the or­ganist, and the usherettes—yes, usher­ettes—in crisp, white uniforms with red sashes, made an art of seating people. Architect C.W. Dickey, who designed the building in 1936, would turn over in his grave if he knew that his gracious masterwork had been sacrificed for a shopping complex in 2005.

I was too young to know Gump’s on Kalā­kaua, which closed in early 1951, but it defined Hawai‘i style for generations. So did Canlis, the swank, chic bastion of understated elegance, where orchids sprouted from lava-rock walls and tiki torches lit the entrance. The waitresses, dressed in kimo­no, served steak and lobster and made everyone feel grown up. When development claim­ed this Honolulu landmark in 1989, a piece of Hono­lulu died.

Mauka of Canlis, across a parking lot, at the popular hangout called Hula’s Bar & Lei Stand, the opposite scene prevailed. The disco dancing never stopped at this small, gay nightclub, and the regulars were fiercely loyal. Patrons sniffled suspiciously after emerging from the bathrooms. The hu­mongous Hula’s banyan tree, festooned with billions of tiny white lights, was visible for blocks. When Hula’s was displaced by a retail complex in the late ’90s, the regulars en­circled the tree and tears were shed.

Brad, my Waikīkī guru, describes ex­tra­ordinary nature sightings even from the belly of the concrete jungle. As a breakfast waiter in Waikīkī throughout the 1970s, he worked hard in the mornings, pocketed his tips, and spent the rest of the day bodysurfing at Sandy Beach. He still gushes about the sights from his former workplace, the 30th floor of the Sheraton Waikīkī: white terns riding the updrafts, whales breaching and spouting, spinner dolphins by the hundreds in the days before jet skis. Once, when his parents visited from New York, we spotted a turtle in the ocean from the 21st floor of the Hyatt Regency Waikīkī.

“You can see eight different types of fish in five minutes off the jetty—just Diamond Head of the Kapahulu Groin,” he says. “Even today. Moorish idols, ye­low tangs, manini, humuhumunukunukuapua‘a—they’re all there.” One night, he says, he saw a night rainbow in the skies above Waikīkī Beach.

Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, I ac­com­panied my kupuna, Nana Veary, count­­less times to the Halekūlani and Michel’s at the Colony Surf. She had a regular oceanfront table at Michel’s, where she had breakfast frequently and freely gave her time in counseling people. Friends and acquaintances from all over the world met her there. When they returned home without her ad­dress, they wrote to her in care of Michel’s. These outings were always memorable to me, not because of the poshness of the surroundings, but because of the profound and timeless connection the Vearys had with Waikīkī. Nana’s daughter, Emma Veary, sang at the old Coral Lānai, where the Halekūlani’s Orchids is now, in the days when it had stone floors and a roof darkened by hau leaves. Wherev­er she performed—the Halekū­lani, the Moana, the Royal Hawaiian—the golden-throated Emma sang “Waikīkī” for her mother, who always sat with Em­ma’s York­shire terrier hidden in a basket under the table.

I heard many of Nana’s stories about the Waikīkī she loved, including her time at the Natatorium. “I was the lifeguard matron there, and I couldn’t even swim,” she would chuckle. During the war, when young people were restless and distracted, Nana, her husband, their three children and 21 boys lived under the stars at the Natatorium for a time. The boys, who called her Ma, were regulars there, some of them with no homes to return to. When they were picked up for vagrancy, Nana bailed them out and took them in. Too numerous for the Vearys’ Kapahulu home, they lived under the stars and took shelter under the Natatorium bleachers.

“We washed our clothes in the showers or the ocean and dried them on the bleachers,” Nana wrote in her book, Change We Must. “The boys went surfing and swimming, and when they came home, they took out the ‘ukulele and gui­tars and played music. We cooked our meals on hot plates or an open fire, and, when the boys caught fish, we had a feast! “I think that was the happiest time of my life, really.”

Eventually the boys straight­ened out and everyone found homes, including Nana and her family. The Natatorium boys, their children and grandchildren, all stayed close to Nana until she died in 1993.

I think of these stories often as I witness the changing landscape and burgeoning commercialization of this storied strand of beach. To counteract the sense of loss, I have developed selective vision. No one has to drag me kicking and screaming down Kalākaua Avenue anymore. Some days I may even lead the charge, right down to the Halekū­lani’s House Without a Key to watch Kanoe Miller dance hula at sunset, or to Petite Garlic for bouillabaisse, or to Kaimana Beach for an early snorkel before the crowds arrive.

“I always say that I’ve outlived this world,” mused Emma Veary recently. “I have so many beautiful memories of Waikīkī. I used to love to walk very early in the morning, when nobody was on the street. I’d walk on Kalākaua Avenue, all the way up to Lewers and back. Every once in awhile, when I come to Honolulu, I still go there at 5:30 in the morning and walk through Wai­kīkī when no one is around. The memories flash back because you don’t have all the noise and people. The nice thing about having been there back then is that I have the ability to erase everything I don’t want to see.”

In 2001, in the days following 9/11, I was assigned to write a story on Waikīkī for The New York Times. Until commercial flights were once again authorized, there were only a few people on the beach and streets, and then New York-to-Honolulu fares were as low as $400 round-trip. One couple I interviewed had just flown in from Canada and were grateful to have the world-famous beach to themselves. Another couple, having arrived from Oregon the night before, said their impression of Waikīkī was “sur­real.” A teenager sitting on the beach had driven in from Waiana‘e to take in the historic experience—an un­crowded Waikīkī. “I wanted to see what this was like,” she told me. “I have never seen Wai­kīkī without tons of people, and I was curious. It’s sad today, but I like it.” She decided to stay for sun­set.

Nearby, the statue of Duke Kahana­moku held a lei in its outstretched arms, and a couple lounged on the velvety green belt that had recently been in­stalled between the asphalt of Kalā­kaua and the sandy beach, a legacy of Hono­lulu’s former mayor. At this uncharacteristically quiet time, Waikīkī was never more beautiful. Dozens of new trees—wiliwili, coconut, plumeria—provided shade and color tempering the hard edges of the resort.

It didn’t take long for the beach to fill up and reclaim its honkytonk heritage. A few months later, I was walking down Kalākaua Avenue through the jostling crowds and overheard a newly arrived visitor calling home. He was in front of the International Market Place, his cell phone glued to his ear. He wore a new T-shirt and a wide grin. “Hey—we’ve just arrived in Wai­kīkī, and the weather is beautiful,” he said. “Please, don’t forget to feed Percy, and, hey, don’t worry about us—we don’t miss Detroit at all!”

JOCELYN FUJII, a free-lance writer, lives in Honolulu. She is the author of Under the Hula Moon and other books on Hawai‘i.

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