Category Archives: Hawai’i

by Joel | 28 March 2008 · 8:27 pm

Akebono: From Rikishi to Pro-Wrestler

Japan-based blogger Ampontan backs into a retrospective of former yokozuna Akebono’s spectacular career in sumo and his troubled career afterwards. The story starts with a wrestling match at Yasukuni Shrine and ends up being a requiem for a yokozuna. Here are a few paragraphs to whet your appetite.

There is a long tradition of professional wrestlers fighting at Yasukuni Shrine. The most recent occasion was April 23, 1961, when Japanese wrestling legend Rikidozan presided over a card that featured youngsters Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki, who would become stars in their own right. (Inoki also would later form his own political party and win election to a seat in the upper house.) The event attracted 15,000 people….

Holding wrestling matches for the divinities at a Shinto shrine is not as outlandish as it may seem. There is a very long tradition in Japan of festivals with competitive events at Shinto shrines. In addition to sumo, which is closely linked to Shinto, competitions at shrines include archery, tug-of-war, and, according to my reference, even cock-fighting. The idea is that the divinities will favor the more deserving competitor, and the victors in these events will have good fortune in the year ahead….

The primary draw this year was the appearance in the ring of the former sumo yokozuna Akebono fighting as one member of a six-man tag team match….

Akebono’s career match record was 654 wins and 232 losses. He won 11 tournament championships, ranking him 7th in the modern era at the time. (After Akebono retired, another foreign rikishi, Musashimaru, racked up 12. Today’s fallen superstar, the Mongolian Asashoryu, later broke Akebono’s records for speed of promotion, and won 22 championships to place fourth on the all-time list. But that’s another story.)…

Eight years ago, Akebono appeared in a sumo ritual at Yasukuni at the pinnacle of his professional fame. Last weekend, few even in Japan noticed as he threw his weight around once again to take down his opponents. He said he was nervous at first, but happy to be back.

He seems to have found his niche. He said he wants to continue his career as a professional wrestler as a single instead of being part of a tag team.

Rikidozan and Giant Baba were the first pro-wrestlers I ever saw—and that was on a black and white Sharp TV in Kyoto in the 1950s, the same place I used to catch the end of sumo tournaments after school. Sumo captured my imagination in a way that pro-wrestling never did.

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by Joel | 6 December 2007 · 7:24 am

Wordcatcher Tales: Shaba, Tekipaki, Baribari

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), p. 102:

Internees called the world beyond the barbed wire shaba. Although I did not like this word and did not use it, nearly everyone else did because it was convenient. Another word, chokuchi, often used by Mainlanders, was new at first to those of us from Hawaii, but it means to cheat. It probably comes from a Chinese word. Instead of tekipaki (quickly), internees said baribari, which I think is vernacular from somewhere in Japan. Farmers from the Mainland who grew vegetables at the camp said kyukanpo for “cucumber.” Japanese often confuse the p sound with b because there is no p sound in the original Japanese language. My friends from Hawaii often say “blantation” for “plantation” and “Poston” for “Boston.” I thought this strange at first. As the influence of Hawaii internees grew in the camps, the use of Hawaiian words began to spread among the Mainlanders. Soon everyone was using kaukau [‘food’], aikane [‘friend’], and moimoi [moemoe ‘sleep’].

This is a strange passage. It sounds as if the author was interned with Koreans rather than Japanese, since mixing up p and b, t and d, and k and g is one of the markers of Korean-accented Japanese. There was also some new vocabulary for me. I haven’t been able to find chokuchi ‘to cheat’, but the others are worth noting.

娑婆 shaba is ‘the world’ or ‘the world outside’, as in shaba ni deru ‘to go out into the world = to get out of prison’. (I wonder if it also means ‘to leave the priesthood’.) But it also appears in 娑婆気 lit. ‘world feeling’, as in shabaki o suteru ‘to give up worldly ambitions or desires’. The author of the passage cited above was a news reporter interned with a lot of Buddhist priests.

てきぱき tekipaki seems to indicate not just quick, but also brisk, decisive, precise, and prompt, quickness with a military snap to it. All these qualities are presumably implied in the name of a Japanese web-hosting service, tekipaki.jp.

ばりばり baribari, by contrast, stresses not just speed, but energy and even fury, as in ばりばり働く baribari hataraku ‘work like a demon’.

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by Joel | 30 November 2007 · 6:03 pm

Tessaku Seikatsu: Mainland vs. Hawaii Internees

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), pp. 81-83:

Internees from the Mainland were more rebellious than those from Hawaii. From the point of view of Americans, this kind of behavior was seen as extremely disloyal but, given the pitiful circumstances under which mainland Japanese were placed, it was to be expected. I would not be exaggerating if I said that part of the responsibility for the recalcitrance of these internees rested on the United States government. Japanese in Hawaii were very lucky in comparison. Throughout the war, most were allowed to live comfortably and keep their businesses. For this we must thank Lieutenant General Emmons, a fair and intelligent man, who was commander in Hawaii when the war broke out.

When the first and second Hawaii groups came into contact with internees from the Mainland, they were generally considered inferior. (By the time I arrived at Lordsburg [NM], this was no longer the case.) Japanese from Panama and South America were also held in low esteem, so they felt much closer to internees from Hawaii. Japanese resent being discriminated against, but they themselves are prone to “closing ranks” to exclude others. Few ethnic groups exhibit this kind of behavior: It is definitely one of the shortcomings of Japanese. Those from the Mainland had suffered greatly under anti-Japanese policies and regulations, so they tried, consciously or unconsciously, to gain satisfaction by excluding those whom they considered to be “outsiders”—Japanese from Hawaii, Panama, and South America.

After we had lived together for awhile, the Mainlanders began to think better of us. Hawaii people often took the lead in promoting events and participated in many camp activities: theatricals, exhibitions, and sports, including sumo and softball. They began to realize we were fairly strong in not only number but also character. We received monthly remittances of fixed amounts from home and were the best customers at the canteen (camp store), which gave us a certain amount of clout. What we hated most was being blamed by Mainlanders whenever something went wrong. But in general we were not reproached and maintained a good reputation in the camps. I think this was due to our strong willpower….

Among Mainland Japanese were quite a number of illegal immigrants who had jumped ship in the San Diego area in southern California to work as fishermen or had smuggled themselves into the United States from Mexico. Lured to this land of Canaan, where honey and milk were said to be flowing, hundreds of Japanese and Chinese attempted the crossing. All along the vast, barren border lie the bones of many adventurers who failed. Swindlers offering transport to the United States for several hundred dollars would open their cargo doors while flying and dump their “shipment” in the middle of the desert without a second thought. I heard all of this from a man who lived in Mexico.

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by Joel | 29 November 2007 · 9:26 pm

Tessaku Seikatsu, May 1942

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), pp. 61-62

We all welcomed newcomers and anything they could tell us of the outside world, but we were also cautious. Many new arrivals held grudges, blaming their arrests on others and calling them “dogs” for collaborating with the FBI. We heard many such allegations. Those of us arrested on December 7, the day the war began, had no such complaints. From the outset we had been listed as persons to be interned if war broke out between the United States and Japan. Some people who should have been listed were not, which of course did not sit well with most of us. A colleague of mine from another island was in Honolulu on business when war was declared. Desperate to return home, he asked a prominent Japanese to speak to the military authorities. When he returned to his hotel, however, an FBI agent was there to arrest him. Both men were in newspaper-related work, so they were prime candidates for internment anyway, but the prominent one escaped incarceration. Similar examples of perceived discrepancies led to suspicion and malicious gossip.

Among the newer arrivals was a minister from Honolulu who joined us at Sand Island about six months later. He gave a lecture one evening, saying: “Quite a few of you who arrived here early on have grown timid. You must be strong! Japan is now waging a sacred war of hachigen ichi-u!” (The correct phrase is hakko ichi-u, meaning “the whole world under one roof.”) Disgusted by his pretentious exhortation, a half-dozen listeners walked out. They ridiculed the priest, saying, “Humph—what nerve! He talks big now, but before his arrest he was running scared. He doesn’t even know his Japanese!”

Most internees worked inside the barbed-wire fence. Even the authorities could not force us to work beyond the fence. The vegetable gardens were located outside the camp, so only volunteers could work there. One Sunday, defense workers at a nearby site took the day off, so some internees were recruited to take their place. The camp authorities got into trouble when the labor union protested.

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by Joel | 28 November 2007 · 5:26 pm

Tessaku Seikatsu: German & Italian Internees

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), pp. 49-50:

About seventy to eighty Germans and Italians were interned in one corner of Sand Island. Their living quarters were next to the Japanese mess hall, and beyond that stood the women’s barracks. Among them were company men, brewing technicians, doctors, laborers, and a young engineer whom I knew from the Waikiki Rotary Club. I spoke occasionally with an old man who had been arrested on Molokai. There were also Dr. Zimmerman, who made news when a petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed on his behalf, and the dashing young son of the minister of the interior of a northern European country who had cruised around the world in a speedboat. We were envious of those, like Professor Tower of the University of Hawaii, who were released early from Sand Island. Mr. Liebricht, a violinist, was paroled later.

Those in charge at the camps did not seem to discriminate in their treatment of Europeans and Japanese. Generally speaking, Germans and Italians gave them much more trouble than Japanese. They often quarreled among themselves, tattling to the authorities like children. In the end, they were ignored. As for cleanliness, Japanese were far superior. Apparently the toilets and bathrooms in the European barracks were very dirty.

At the beginning of 1942, Germans and Italians were also sent to the Mainland. Thirteen men who were American citizens returned to Sand Island on April 28, 1942; a new rule stipulated that citizens could no longer be sent to the Mainland. Those who returned reported on the conditions of various camps and on the Mainland in general, which led me to feel I would be better off going there as soon as possible. Around this time, Captain S became our commander at Sand Island. Once when I was talking to two or three Germans in violation of camp rules, Captain S approached us and asked, “What are you talking about?” I answered, “I was asking about friends who went to the Mainland.” He said calmly, “It’s against the rules, so you should avoid talking to one another.” I replied courteously, “I understand.” If it had been Captain E, I would have gotten a verbal thrashing.

Of the German prisoners, Mr. Otto Kuehn was the most famous. While he was imprisoned in a solitary cell, his wife and beautiful daughter (the wife of a U.S. army officer) were kept in a small cottage in front of the women’s barracks. I do not know what Mr. Kuehn did for a living, but because he had an ongoing relationship with the Japanese Consulate he was indicted as a spy and sentenced to death. Later his sentence was reduced to fifty years imprisonment. After Mr. Kuehn was transferred to a prison on the Mainland his wife and daughter followed. He was the only spy arrested in Hawaii.

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by Joel | 27 November 2007 · 9:08 pm

Tessaku Seikatsu, December 1941

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), pp. 34-35:

On December 24, our first Christmas Eve since our arrest, Mr. Masaji Marumoto arrived at the camp accompanied by an FBI agent. This was the first time someone from the outside (other than military personnel) had visited us. Mr. Marumoto, a lawyer, had come to write powers of attorney, and I asked to meet with him. We were allowed to speak in Japanese, but of course the FBI agent present was fluent in Japanese. Upon his arrival, Mr. Marumoto’s face became deathly pale, perhaps because he saw our surroundings and old friends badly in need of a shave and a change of clothes. I asked Mr. Marumoto to contact my wife about sending me some clothes. Half a month had passed since our arrival at the camp, and Mr. Daizo Sumida, Dr. Takahashi, and I had yet to receive a letter or parcel. We later found out that our letters had crossed with those from home, but at the time we felt somewhat frustrated and suffered from a lack of spare underwear. The day after Mr. Marumoto’s visit, all three of us received parcels of clothes from home.

For Christmas, we were treated to turkey at lunch. The Germans and Italians hastily put up a simple Christmas tree in the mess hall. That night one of the German detainees, a lecturer at the University of Hawaii, gave a talk, and many Japanese attended. He said that he would pray for a quick end to the war and everyone’s good health and that we be reunited with our families for Christmas next year….

On the first day of 1942, our first New Year’s Day since our arrest, we did not get even a piece of mochi (rice cake) and did not feel festive at all. We were filled with anxiety, frustration, and hopelessness—not only for ourselves, but also for the families we had left behind. Unless a man was extremely confident and optimistic, it was to be expected that here he might develop “nerves” or begin to display odd behavior. I noticed that men who had been fond of “talking big” outside were now depressed, turning into shadows of their former selves. Still others, refusing to face reality, clung to their prewar social status, which created problems for everyone.

When we are reduced to living at the most basic level, our good and bad points are clearly exposed. On the whole, educators and priests showed themselves to be the worst of the lot. I was not the only one who felt this way. Of course there are always exceptions: There are many respectable teachers and priests. I regret to say, however, that in the camp I was disappointed in most of them.

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by Joel | 24 October 2007 · 11:00 pm

China Diary, 1988: Subtropical Winter Cold

In 1987–88, the Far Outliers, with their two-year-old daughter in tow, spent a year teaching English at a new community college in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, China. The following is one of a series of articles I wrote in 1988. I sent them to a Honolulu newspaper, but they were not interested. So now I offer them as a retrospective on coastal China twenty years before hosting its first Olympics. At the same time, I am scanning in a lot of our old China photos and uploading them to my Flickr account or to my WordPress blog to illustrate this series.

Zhongshan lies just below the Tropic of Cancer at almost the same latitude as the Hawaiian Islands. Bananas and sugarcane, hibiscus and bougainvillea, mango, papaya, and palm trees are abundant. But the continental weather makes the winters much colder than Hawaiian winters—unless you live halfway up Mauna Kea or Haleakala.

The first time we got a real winter monsoon, the temperature dropped from 25 degrees Centigrade (77F) to 5 degrees (41F) in 24 hours. During winter, the southerlies and sunny weather can give daytime highs of 20 degrees Centigrade (68F), and the northerlies and cloudy weather can take overnight lows down to 5 degrees.

Houses are unheated, with no hot running water. The floors are mostly bare concrete or tile. The universal building material is plaster-covered brick and mortar. The doors and windows fit so poorly in their frames that houses are drafty. So the temperature inside is almost the same as it is outside, except for a slightly lower wind-chill factor.

The average is 22 degrees Centigrade (72F)—11 degrees (52F) in the morning, 11 in the afternoon!

Our apartment sat on a hilltop, fully exposed to the north wind blowing down over the flat delta. The kitchen, bathroom, and toilet all faced north. The winter wind gave each room its special torture.

The half-inch gap under its balcony door makes the kitchen the coldest room to work in. Chinese kitchens don’t have ovens, and wok meals require minimal cooking time and a good bit of washing and chopping time. Icy tap water didn’t make washing anything very appealing.

The watertank lid on our western-style toilet broke before it was installed, and the jerry-rigged flushing mechanism fell to pieces soon after we started using it. So after testing our mettle on the cold toilet seat, we had to dunk a hand in freezing water and pull out the rubber stopper to flush.

Until well into winter, we either took cold showers or filled a small plastic tub with hot water to wash with. Those are the two options available in most houses there. Then, in January, our school finally installed the gas hot-water heater they had bought for us.

The water heater had first been mounted above the western-style bathtub. But there was no room to fit the gas canister in the same room, so it was taken out again.

Several months later, it was remounted in the bath, holes were drilled through the wall into the toilet where the gas canister was put, and a rubber tube was run through the wall to the heater. Then it turned out the water heater needed repair, so it was taken out again. A month or so later, it was reinstalled. This time both water heater and gas canister were placed in a more open area outside the toilet—to reduce the chance of asphyxiation in the toilet or explosion in the bathroom. The workmen had to drill new holes and run new pipes through the toilet and bathroom walls. But they didn’t feel the need to clean up the debris they left behind.

So now the hard part of taking showers was turning the hot water off and feeling the cold air all the more severely. The hard part used to be first turning the cold water on yourself.

There were two real advantages to the cold indoor temperatures.

First, the household mosquitoes take a vacation. Still, we usually lowered our mosquito nets at night, if only for that added layer of gauze between us and the cold.

Second, we didn’t have to refrigerate the Chinese-made old-fashioned peanut butter to keep the oil from separating. In fact, we could have just unplugged the refrigerator if we hadn’t kept a few things in the freezer.

To counter the cold, we drank many cups of hot tea, using the teacups to warm our hands as the tea warmed our throats. We learned to make ice tea from hot tea in 20 minutes—without ice or refrigeration.

We didn’t have to count calories. We just had to keep shoveling them in. We developed more of a sweet tooth than we used to have, and our bodies demanded between-meal snacks to keep the furnaces stoked.

We dressed for dinner—and for lunch and breakfast—in the cold dining room. We even had to dress for bed, sometimes sleeping with our socks on—a barbarous custom!

As friends from Winnipeg, Canada, who were teaching there observed, cold is not so bad when there is somewhere you can go to get away from it. In our house, the only place we could escape the cold was under our quilts.

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by Joel | 23 October 2007 · 6:08 am

China Diary, 1988: Cheap Rent, Expensive Food

How would you like to spend only ten dollars a month for rent? The only catch is that you have to move to Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, China, and work at a local company for local wages.

Rent in Zhongshan looks good no matter how you figure it, but comparing the cost of living there with the same in Honolulu is still a bit tricky.

If you convert a Honolulu income of $2,000 per month to Chinese currency at the official rate of 3.7 yuan to the dollar, you would have more money to spend in a month than most people there make in a year. At the blackmarket rate of exchange, you would have twice that much. A couple who wanted to retire in Honolulu and live on their Zhongshan pension of 500 yuan per month would find first that they could not legally convert their yuan to “hard” currency at the official rate. If they then exchanged it on the blackmarket, they would end up with little more than $60 a month to live on.

But of course most people in Zhongshan earn Zhongshan wages and most people in Honolulu earn Honolulu wages. We need to match prices and wages in each place. So let’s compare fairly average working couples with one preschool-age child. Both couples are full-time teachers. Each month, Mr. and Mrs. Zhang in Zhongshan receive 500 yuan between them, if you average in the periodic bonuses they receive. Mr. and Mrs. Hara in Honolulu bring home $2,000 after taxes, union dues, and so forth.

A typical monthly wage in other parts of China would be about 100 yuan. Prices are also lower, as are the choices of goods available.

Each month the Haras turn over $600, nearly one-third of their take-home pay, to their landlord, Mr. Chong, Zhang’s uncle. The Zhangs’ work unit—their college—provides them housing, but charges them 10 yuan each month for rent, 2 percent of their income. Gas, water, and electricity cost the Zhangs about 30 yuan (6 percent of their income). The Haras pay $40 a month (2 percent) for utilities.

The Zhangs are very lucky to have a telephone. It costs them about 25 yuan per month (5 percent of their income). They pay by the minute even for local calls. One time Zhang called his uncle in Hawaii and talked 10 minutes, at 12 yuan per minute. He’ll wait for his uncle to call him next time. The Haras pay $25 a month for their phone (1.25 percent). They rarely call the mainland but do call the neighbor islands occasionally.

The Zhangs pay about 40 yuan per month (8 percent of their income) for full-time daycare for their 3-year-old. That includes breakfast and lunch six days a week and occasional doses of medicine. The Haras pay $300 a month (15 percent), to a private daycare center. That includes lunch and snacks.

Since their work unit furnishes their house, the Zhangs live close to work and pay little for transportation. They own two bicycles. Mrs. Zhang bought hers for 170 yuan (34 percent of their monthly paycheck). The Haras owe one more year of car payments at $170 a month (8.5 percent of their combined net), on the car they bought three years ago. They alternate chauffeuring.

Both the Zhangs and the Haras keep in touch with their relatives by mail. It costs the Zhangs one yuan (0.20 percent of their monthly income) to send ten airmail letters within China. But it costs them 20 yuan (4.0 percent) to send ten airmail letters abroad.

The Haras, by contrast, pay $4.50 (0.225 percent of their monthly net) to send ten airmail letters to Japan. It costs them $2.50 (0.12 percent) to send ten letters to the mainland.

The Zhangs recently made photocopies of family documents to help a relative emigrate. They paid 2.50 yuan for ten pages (0.50 percent of their income that month).

The last time the Haras photocopied ten pages, they paid 50 cents (0.025 percent).
The Zhangs spend about 40 percent of their income on food, 200 yuan per month. The Haras spend about 20 percent of their net on food, $400 per month.

Both couples eat a lot of rice, the Zhangs 50 lbs. a month, the Haras 25 lbs. Each 25-lb. purchase costs the Zhangs 12.50 yuan (2.50 percent), and the Haras $5.00 (0.25 percent). The Zhangs could buy government-ration rice through the state store but the quality is much worse. So they cash in their ration and use the money to offset the cost of the better rice they buy on the private market.

The Zhangs eat much less meat than the Haras. They pay about 4.50 yuan per pound for pork (0.90 percent of their monthly income), 3.50 per pound for chicken (0.70 percent), and 3.00 yuan for a 12-ounce can of luncheon meat (0.60 percent). The Haras pay about $2.70 per pound for chop suey pork (0.14 percent), 99 cents per pound for chicken (0.05 percent), and $1.30 for a 12-ounce can of luncheon meat (0.07 percent).

Produce such as bananas, bean sprouts, cauliflower, celery and tomatoes cost between .40 and 60 yuan per pound in Zhongshan, 0.07 to 0.12 percent of the Zhangs’ monthly income. Similar produce in Honolulu ranges from 39 to 99 cents per pound, 0.02 to 0.05 percent of the Haras’ monthly net.

In proportion to typical local incomes, then, rice and meat cost ten times more in Zhongshan than in Honolulu. But fruits and vegetables only cost two to three times more. Of course, the Zhangs are able to spend much more of their money on food because they spend less than one-tenth as much on rent.

Imported food is outlandishly expensive in Zhongshan. A six-ounce jar of instant coffee costs the Zhangs 20 yuan, two months’ rent (4 percent of their earnings). It costs the Haras about $4.00 (0.20 percent).

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by Joel | 6 October 2007 · 6:06 am

Hawaiian Words in Bonin (Ogasawara) Speech

From English on the Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands, by Daniel Long (Duke U. Press, 2007; Publication of the American Dialect Society, no. 91; Supplement to American Speech, vol. 81), pp. 65, 67:

Many words in use in the Bonins even in the late twentieth century are thought to be derived from the contact with Pacific Island languages that occurred from the 1830s until the end of the nineteenth century. Today these lexemes are used not only in the English of the Bonins, but in Ogasawara Japanese and the Ogasawara Mixed Language as well. Hawaiian words form the majority of the Oceanic-language words we find in the Bonins. Since Polynesian migration to the islands occurred only in the early history of the settlement, it seems clear that most of these words came to the island during the first half of the nineteenth century.

I’ll list some of the most straightforward examples, where the meanings and the sounds correspond most closely. The following list presents the Hawaiian word first, then its various derivatives in the Bonins, where the pronunciation has been influenced not just by Japanese and English phonology (and the lack of orthographic standards), but by varieties of Hawaiian that are now nonstandard (for instance, those that retained t in place of King Kamehameha’s k).

Haw. kamani, tamani ‘hardwood tree, Calophyllum inophylum’ > Bonin tamana, tamena, tremana
Haw. lahaina ‘type of sugarcane’ > Bonin rahaina ‘sugarcane’
Haw. lau hala ‘pandanus leaf’ > Bonin rawara, rawarawa, rauhara, rowara, rohara, roharo, rūwara, rohawo, lohala ‘pandanus tree’
Haw. moe ‘sleep’ > Bonin moe-moe, moi-moi ‘sex, copulation’
Haw. puhi ‘moray eel’ > Bonin puhi
Haw. uhu ‘parrotfish’ > Bonin ūfū, uhu
Haw. wiliwili ‘leguminous tree, Erythrina sandwicensis’ > Bonin biide-biide, bari-bari, uri-uri, ude-ude ‘Erythrina boninensis’

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by Joel | 26 August 2007 · 12:40 pm

Polynesian Languages: Useful for American Football QBs

I don’t have much interest in American football. I grew up paying more attention to baseball and sumo. But an intriguing off-topic comment by football fan BitterOldPunk in a thread on Language Hat pointed me to a story in today’s New York Times about a remarkable quarterback on the University of Hawai‘i football team.

HONOLULU — After every home game, Colt Brennan waves to his probation officer as he leaves Aloha Stadium….

Brennan, Hawaii’s star quarterback, is on the cusp of what could be a transcendent season in his senior year. He is projected to make a run at the Heisman Trophy, and his coach insists that he will be the first quarterback selected in the N.F.L. draft. His strong right arm, combined with a soft schedule, have people around college football’s most remote program believing that Hawaii’s chances of making a Boise State-like run to a Bowl Championship Series game are, well, not remote.

Those possibilities, for the player and for the team, are even more noteworthy considering the improbable, circuitous road that Brennan, 24, took to Hawaii.

Brennan backed up Matt Leinart in high school in Southern California, went 3,000 miles to a prep school in Massachusetts and was the fourth-string quarterback at Colorado as a walk-on before being arrested and thrown off the team. He then spent spring break in a Colorado jail during a year in junior college and landed at Hawaii only because a reporter showed an assistant coach there a film of one of Brennan’s junior college receivers.

The final twists in Brennan’s rise toward stardom and redemption may be the most compelling of all, however. If not for the anonymity of being a backup, the uncertainty of chasing a scholarship and the humiliation of wearing an orange jumpsuit, he probably would not have the thrill of a Heisman chase, the allure of being a possible first-round pick or the recipient of the affection of an entire state.

“The consensus between myself and Colt’s high school coaches is that Colt is the person he is today and the quarterback he is today because of the path he took,” said Dan Morrison, Hawaii’s quarterbacks coach. “I firmly believe he is who he is today because of the road he traveled.”

It’s a fine story of personal redemption and of those who had faith in him, but the bit that got notice on Language Hat was the following.

Soon after Brennan arrived, in the summer of 2005, Morrison, the quarterbacks coach, advised him that the culture of the island valued humility and character. Having spent spring break in jail that year, Brennan hardly needed a humility check.

“I had gone through a real embarrassing time in my life,” Brennan said. “I was humiliated and I needed to go find myself somewhere else. Hawaii had that appeal to it. It was my getaway, my escape.”

So he kept his mouth shut and did his best to blend in. He took three semesters of Samoan as a way to bond with his offensive linemen, all of whom are of Polynesian descent. (Morrison beamed when telling of Brennan calling an audible in Samoan last year.)

I suspect that Brennan has also learned a bit of New Zealand Māori, because Hawai‘i is one of a growing number of American football teams that psyche themselves up (and psyche their opponents out) before games by performing Māori-style haka, first introduced into international sports by New Zealand’s famed All-Blacks.

The blog A Nice Gesture has quite a compilation of commentary and video of haka being performed by, among others, New Zealand’s Tall Blacks before a basketball game against Argentina, and a whole range of American football teams from Hawai‘i to Utah to Texas.

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