“The Japanese city of Honolulu!” burst from my astonished lips, once we were out of the station and walking toward the famous fish market. For the Japanese are in possession of block after block of tenements, stores and eating places, that fairly overlap one another, while both men and women go about their business in the national garb of kimono and sandals.
The market was more or less depleted of the beautiful colored fish Jack had been so desirous for me to see, and we plan to come back some time in the early morning, when both the fish and the quaint crowd are at their best.
Not until in the business center of the city proper were our eyes gladdened by the sight of our own kind and of the native Hawaiians, though the latter have become so intermixed with foreign strains that comparatively few in Honolulu can be vouched for as pure bred. According to the latest census, there are less than 30,000 all-Hawaiians in Hawaii Nei, with nearly 8000 hapa-haoles (hap-pah-hah-o-lays—quickly hah-pah-how-lees), which means half-whites. The total population of Honolulu is around the 40,000 mark, and of these roughly 10,000 only are white.
I had pictured Honolulu differently; and the abrupt evidence of my eyes was a trifle saddening. The name Honolulu is said to mean “the sheltered,” and it would not inaptly refer to the population of far-drifted nationalities that shelters in its hospitable confines.
Soon, however, all temporary dash to my hopes became absorbed in the types that had given rise to disappointment, and in the unfolding of the town itself, with its bright shop windows, and sidewalks where real, unmistakably real, Hawaiian wahines sat banked in a riot of flowers, themselves crowned with leis (lay’ees—wreaths), and offering others for sale.
Many of the Japanese are of a totally different breed from those in the cities of California—the refined, student house-boys like our Tochigi of the gentle voice and unfailing courtesy. The coolies in Hawaii are of bigger, sturdier frame and coarser features, with a masculine, aggressive expression in their darker-skinned faces. Jack’s practiced eye leads him to think that a large proportion of them is from the rank and file that served in the Japanese-Russian War three years ago.
We lunched in the Alexander Young Hotel, a modest skyscraper of gray stone. It is altogether too continental looking for this sub-tropic zone, but has a delightful café in the top story, affording a view of the city. Here we learned two new dishes of the island. One was an “alligator-pear cocktail,” sliced avocado in a peppery tomato-sauce; and guava ice-cream, the deliciously flavored crushed fruit staining the cream a salmon pink.
We could not help noting how many men go about in woollen business suits of the cooler mainland. Jack remarked:
“I leave it to any one if it isn’t silly that in a tropic city the conventions of altogether different climates should make slaves of men!”
I am glad we are not obliged to follow their example, but may happily be counted with the “white-robed ones” who compose the fitting majority.