Your Hawaiian Name Here!

Your Hawaiian Name Here!

by | Apr 6, 2012 | Island Style

People often ask me what their name is in Hawaiian. The request isn’t as odd as it sounds; if you’ve ever traveled to Hawaii, I’m sure you were overwhelmed with all the kitsch offered in stores personalized with Your Hawaiian Name Here!, everything from cheap plastic placemats to high-end solid gold jewelry. It’s a source of endless fascination for tourists who want to make a connection with something exotic.

Unfortunately, the idea of plug and go translations of non-Hawaiian names into Hawaiian is also among biggest shibai exports about Hawaiian culture, right next to pineapple on pizza and coconut bras.

Back in the 1800s, when missionaries translated spoken Hawaiian into a written language, they used only 12 letters of the English alphabet (a, e, i, o, u, h, k, l, m, p, w) and added two punctuation marks (the kahakō and ‘okina) to help convey the way a word is pronounced.  In addition to using only half of the English alphabet, Hawaiian words never contain two consonants together and never end in a consonant. To the English speaker, it’s all a bunch of  broken and elongated vowel sounds sprinkled with a random h, k, or m.

Which got some akamai kanaka thinking: if I can come up with an easy and consistent way to take non-Hawaiian names and give them a Hawaiian twist, I’ll laugh all the way to the bank. Developed over 150 years ago, most non-Hawaiian to Hawaiian name translations are based on a simple letter/sound substitution system that doesn’t allow double consonants or consonant endings. This hidden system gives the illusion of authenticity and explains why name translations are so consistent across various sources and so consistently wrong.

Take Katherine, for example. It’s my mother’s name and a source of endless amusement to my part-Hawaiian father. “Katherine” is “Kakalina” in Your Hawaiian Name Here! translations. It’s also the Hawaiian word for gasoline, super hilarious in a couple of pau hana beers way since my Dad worked for Chevron in Hawaii and later owned a gas station. In typical Hawaiian tradition, he gave her expensive gold bracelets, rings, and necklaces all proudly proclaiming Kakalina in black enameled script. He said that way he could write them off as advertising.

Most of the time the Hawaiian name translations result in pure gibberish. Most of the time. Sometimes they are pee your pants hilarious to those who know a little of the language, making my mother’s gasoline jewelry look merely quaint.

All of which is too bad, really, when you understand the importance names hold in Hawaiian culture. Real Hawaiian names are a sacred, serious business that require much thought, prayer, and consultation among family and friends before being bestowed. (More on this in an upcoming blog.)

If someone really wants to know what his or her name is in Hawaiian, I’ll ask for the origin and meaning behind the name and look for a comparable Hawaiian word or phrase.

Katherine is Greek in origin and is often translated as “pure.”  Hemolele is a Hawaiian word with connotations of flawless, holy, saintly, pure in heart, complete, and person without fault—far more beautiful and accurate for my mother than gasoline.

When it comes to Hawaiian names, keep in mind that Hawaiian words are highly poetic and layered in meaning; things are not always what they seem. It also pays to know who you’re asking. When pestered once too often at a family party on the mainland, Mr. Hilarious once told a nephew that his name in Hawaiian was ‘Okole, which is what my cousin told his friends to call him. Years later when I met up with this cousin and some of his friends, I had to pull him aside and tell him he needed a new nickname. He’d been the literal butt of my father’s joke long enough.

One Boy, No Water: Excerpt #5

by | Feb 16, 2012 | Jolly Fish Press Titles & Authors, MG/YA Fiction, Pacific Literature, The Niuhi Shark Saga

From One Boy, No Water

Book 1 of The Niuhi Shark Saga

“The shark,” said Uncle Kahana, finally blinking. “It wen come tangled in the net.” He shook his ice and looked in the bottom of the glass, seeing what we couldn’t imagine. “He jumped in to save the shark.” He gave his glass another shake. “Daddy knew the shark would make die dead if no cut free. He jumped in the lehua water with his long boning knife, grabbing the net through the bloody blossoms, sawing away. When Daddy left the boat, I leaned over the side and looked down into the water. Daddy stay so small and the shark so big! But he kept working, sliding his knife along the side of the shark, slicing through the net. When Daddy got to the last piece of netting trapping its tail, the shark turned, and his knife wen slip, just nicking the tip of the shark’s tail. I thought Daddy was make die dead. He’d freed the shark so it could feed on him more better. But the shark turned and paused. It looked him in the eye, with that fierce, cold Niuhi manō eye, jet black in the water.” Uncle Kahana shivered in the warm night. “Later, I saw that same eye, just one time that day, wen Daddy started for the surface. It looked up into my young eyes peering over the edge of the boat, and I saw its Niuhi heart. I no know what it saw in mines.”

Excerpted from One Boy, No Water by Lehua Parker. Copyright © 2012 by Lehua Parker. Excerpted by permission of Jolly Fish Press, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Press Release for One Boy, No Water

Press Release for One Boy, No Water

by | Jan 6, 2012 | Jolly Fish Press Titles & Authors, MG/YA Fiction, Pacific Literature, The Business of Writing, The Niuhi Shark Saga

Jolly Fish Press to Swim with Sharks Fall 2012

PROVO, UT—Jolly Fish Press (JFP) has successfully acquired the North American distribution and publication rights to Lehua Parker’s debut children’s book, One Boy, No Water.

One Boy, No Water, the first of five books in the Niuhi Shark Adventure Series, is a fantasy based on an island folklore centered on the Niuhi shark people in Hawaii— imagine water people, angry teenagers, confused parents, a looming mystery, and man- eating sharks! The book is scheduled for a Fall 2012 release.

Originally from Hawaii and a graduate of The Kamehameha Schools, Parker—also known as “Aunty Lehua”—has always been an advocate of Hawaiian culture and literature. Her writings often feature her island heritage and the unique Hawaiian pidgin.

The Niuhi Shark Adventure Series will be JFP’s first middle grade series to be released in the Fall of 2012.

Yes, Lehua, There is a Publisher

Yes, Lehua, There is a Publisher

by | Dec 8, 2011 | Jolly Fish Press Titles & Authors, MG/YA Fiction, Pacific Literature, The Business of Writing, The Niuhi Shark Saga

I’ve been working off and on a middle grade children’s series set in Hawaii for several years. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy writing it—I did—and it wasn’t that I kept running out of ideas—if anything, I had too many. The problem was a much bigger question.

What was I going to do with it when it was done?

There are as many reasons to write as there are writers, some of them noble and pure of purpose and others more, ahem, monetary in nature. The “what to do with it” question was compounded by the fact that my kolohe characters kept insisting on talking in pidgin. Hawaiian Pidgin English, as in Not Standard English which is what most middle grade kids are learning to read in America. No publisher in his right mind would want to tackle a problem like this and the dearth of Hawaiian writers on the national stage publishing works with pidgin seemed to back up this theory, Lois Ann Yamanka and Graham Salisbury being the few exceptions that prove the rule.

So the series lurked in the background of my mind and computer, rising to the surface when no other productive use of my time could be found to avoid housework. What can I say? Laundry has to get done and dishes washed, but like death and taxes I try to avoid them as long as possible. “Working on the series” sounded like a great excuse to me.

A couple of months ago, bored and looking for “a project,” I attended a workshop on the emerging field of self-publishing. Books and publishing—the act of getting the stories into the hands and minds of readers—are undergoing a revolution not seen since Gutenburg showed off his fancy new press. Ebook readers and new distribution channels have created unparalleled opportunities for authors to reach highly targeted audiences and to achieve that basest reason of all for writing: a paycheck.

I would have shouted eureka, but that would have been a little cliché.

Now that I knew what I was going to do with it, I set about writing again and putting all of the building blocks in place to self-publish. Author website and store, check. Blog, check. Fan Facebook page, check. Research best practices, check. Someone to do cover art, check.

And then a little voice said, “Why are you doing all of this?”

“’Cause I have to do something with all these words and stories,” I replied. “No one else will.”

“How do you know?” the voice chided. “Did you ever give anyone the chance to say yes?”

Huh. All of this work was based on the assumption that no mainland publisher would be interested in a middle grade series with pidgin dialogue.

And I was wrong.

Through a series of events that no one would believe if I told them, I got the series in front of a real live traditional mainland book publisher who is seriously considering the books for publication on the national level in a five book, five year deal that doesn’t seem real. The details are still being worked out and nothing is final until the ink is dried on the contract, but wow lau-lau, apparently there is a Santa Claus, Virginia, and for Lehua, a mainland publisher who thinks there’s a market for middle grade fiction with pidgin dialogue.

Here’s to the new year!

New School Blues

New School Blues

by | Dec 4, 2011 | Island Style

I hated having to go to a new school, and the change between Kahului Elementary on Maui and Kamiloiki Elementary on Oahu couldn’t have been more dramatic. At Kahului the kids were only one or two generations from the sugar cane plantation and lived in multi-generational homes. The teachers taught in pidgin, and everyone had one pair of slippahs, period.

At Kamiloki the kids were Japanese or haole from upper-middle class families and never wore the same clothes twice. Most kids were simply marking time in a public elementary on their way to a private intermediate school and had extra tutoring classes on weekends and afternoons to give them an extra edge. No one spoke pidgin, not even the kids, something I didn’t realize until the first parent-teacher conferences when Mrs. Goo, nose in the air, sniffed that I needed to learn standard English; my pidgin was deplorable.

“Excuse me?” said Mom. Since I only spoke standard English to my mother, a haole from the mainland, she was understandably confused.

“I said Lehua does not speak English well. Her constant use of pidgin disrupts the class and the teaching I am doing. We speak English in this school, and Lehua does not.” She sniffed again. She was lucky it wasn’t raining.

“Lehua, would you come here a moment?” she called.

I popped my head into the doorway. “Yes, Mom?” I said.

“Mrs. Goo says you need to speak standard English in class, not pidgin. She seems to think you can’t.”

“Oh. I thought pidgin was for school and English was for home,” I said in perfect non-pidgin accented English. I glanced at Mrs. Goo. She was catching flies, her mouth was so open.

“You need to speak as you are spoken to,” Mom clarified.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what I was doing. I think in both, so it’s hard sometimes to remember which I’m speaking. I’ll pay more attention.” I gave Mrs. Goo side eye. Wow, I thought, she going for one fly catching record!

“Thank you. Now wait for me outside,” said Mom. “We’ll discuss this more at home.”

Oh, great, I thought, more drilling with tree/three, sshtreet/street, libarry/library. Shoulda sparked out da rules befoa time. At least I no going get lickins tonight. I hope.

Unfortunately, things haven’t changed all that much since I was in Elementary school. Every school has its own rules and customs and heaven help the kid who can’t figure out which teacher is mean, which likes to joke, and when you can and can’t ask to go to the bathroom.

My kids, Aaron and Cheryl, are both going to new schools this year, moving from a private school to public schools. While I knew there would be differences, I never expected some of the things we’ve discovered.

New School Rules

Cheryl
“My teacher isn’t assigning us cubbies, so every day you use a different one.”
“Why?”
“’Cause there are 30 cubbies and 31 students, so someone isn’t going to get one.”
“So what happens if you don’t get one? Where do you put your stuff?”
“I dunno; I’ve gotten one every day!”

Aaron
“Only 6th grade boys get the swings. You’re supposed to do a cool trick off the swing. If you land it, you get more street cred with the boys. If you biff it, all the girls come fluttering to see if you’re okay. It’s a win-win.”

Cheryl
“My teacher has a thing about walking in the halls. He keeps yelling “space and pace” and “quiet!” We’re supposed to march single file, with our arms folded, hugging the wall and the blue line. It’s like an Olympic sport with him. He wants us to beat the other classes, whatever that means.”

Aaron
“The idea of hot school lunches is more exciting than the real thing.”
“Why’s that?”
“Let’s just say they rank below the Train and Wendy’s, around McDonald’s level. That’s pretty bad.”
“You’re saying you want me to buy more ham and turkey?”
“Please!”

Cheryl
“There’s this kid on the bus who wants to sit by me every day.”
“Oh?”
“She’s only in 1st grade, though.”
“Maybe she wants to sit by you so she can feel like one of the big girls.”
“Uh, I don’t think so. She keeps talking about how it’s a good thing I’m not a stranger. Otherwise, she’d kill me.”
“Find somewhere else to sit.”
“Tell me about it.”

Aaron
“I finally have a locker.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah. Only it’s as far away from my class and the band room as possible.”
“Run fast.”
“I can’t. If the security cameras catch me at my locker after school starts or running in the halls, I lose a whole citizenship grade for the semester. Citizenship is 50% of your overall grade in each class.”
“What? What’re you supposed to do with your trumpet if they won’t let you use your locker during the day and you can’t have it in your regular classes?”
“I have no idea. Quit band?”
“Nice try.”