Let me just start by saying that I've never considered myself a picky eater. I'll try just about anything once, and there are very few things that I haven't liked. Or at least that's what I thought until yesterday evening. Yesterday was our first "drop-off" day. Basically what that means is we are given a task, driven around the city and dropped off in random locations, and told to report back to a certain place at a certain time. The task yesterday was to bring back something we'd never seen before. We were to meet in the International Food Court in Waikiki. Well, 6:30 came and we all gathered with an assortment of food- almost all of it from China Town. I'll be honest, there were some tasty things. Ok so maybe two. The rest...I just couldn't do it. Maybe it was the barrage of different tastes, or maybe it was the way they looked. I dont know. I tasted all of them. Most of them I could not finish. I ate Mexican that night for dinner. Yes I know...Mexican in Hawaii? It wasn't spectacular but it was something I knew.
Let me back up now and talk about the rest of the day. The lectures yesterday focused on the Hawaii sovereignty movement. In high school I'd written a paper on the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani so I had some idea of the issues involved, but I had not known that many Hawaiian's were so passionate about the issue still. Basically after the missionaries came to Hawaii they also turned to agriculture and commerce and succeeded in becoming very rich and influencial. Some of them became key advisors to the king and were able to direct public policy. Land ownership went from communal to private with missionaries and foreigners owning large chunks of prime real-estate. Over the course of several decades the political intrigues continued, many Hawaiian's were becoming unhappy with the constitution as it stood, and when Queen Liliuokalani attempted to change it the captain of one of the U.S. naval ships brought his men onshore and demanded her surrender to avoid bloodshed. Ok, so it's not exactly everything that happened but its a very general and brief overview. It's been a while since I wrote the paper. What you should take out of this is that the Queen was forced at gunpoint to surrended. She went to Washington to appeal. Nothing was really done. Things just happened and before anyone realized Hawaii was a state. The issue that the soverignty movement has is that Hawaii was an internationally recognized country that became a state and land was taken over by the US government but there was no treaty ever signed. Technicalities perhaps, but also quite big issues when you now consider that many native Hawaiian's have no land. Land for most Pacific Islanders is a huge issue. They see the land almsot as part of themselves. It is a valuable resource because there is so little of it. It is something that must be cared for if it is to in turn provide the resources that will allow them to survive. So yesterday was devoted to lectures on that issue. One of the nice aspects of SIT is that it brings in experts in the different fields so our speakers are lecturing to us on things about which they are very passionate.
After the lectures we went to the Bishop's Museum which houses many cultural items from around the Pacific. It's quite interesting to see the similarities but also the differences across the various islands. It's also just absolutely amazing to see some of the things they made. One of the things that absolutely fascinated me was the way they take the coconut fibers and are able to get them to a point were they can weave mats and nets. Think of the amount of time that would take!!!
From the Bishop's Museum we all left for our drop-off. It was a little different in that we all left from the same place and were just told to go do our own thing. I took the bus to China Town and wandered around there for a little while. Even though I didnt really care for some of the foods that came from there, it was a very interesting place to walk through- especially the food market. The fruits and vegetables they have, the fish, the whole chicken, the randomness of some of the items. It is definately a very different culture. If you've never been to a Chinease market and have a chance to do so- do it. It's interesting. From there I took a bus to King Kamehameha's statue and walked the 5-6 (?) miles back to Waikiki. The weather was perfect for a walk and it was nice to just have the time alone to think. When I got to Ala Moana I turned towards the beach and walked along the water for a little while. All in all, yesterday was a good but long day.
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