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HAWAII - MORE THAN JUST ALOHA



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WORDS © MARION FRIEDEL



"Alooo-Ha!" resounds from the loudspeaker of the Boeing 747 after landing at Honolulu airport on the island of Oahu. The archipelago of seven inhabited and over one hundred uninhabited islands in the Pacific Ocean is reached after a 20 hour flight from Europe, half way round the world.

Aloha: when planes and ships arrive in Hawaii the local people surge towards the Malhinis; the tourists; all bearing their loincloths.

They present garlands of flowers and kiss the visitors. This moment of Hawaiian hospitality can be captured by a photograph for ten dollars. Originally the leis - garlands of flowers - were woven works of art made of fragrant blossoms such as jasmine, frangipanis, tuberoses and hibiscus.

A delicate braid of love, admiration and respect. Today, with 7,5 million tourists a year, the "tourist lasso" is mainly made of interwoven, non-crumple plastic flowers.

Aloha means, above all, business in America’s fiftieth state. Aloha Airlines, an Aloha dog hotel, Aloha household installations, a car workshop, a carpet cleaning company, a chiropractor and an Aloha Baptist church are just a few examples of the almost 200 "Alohas" in the Honolulu telephone book. Aloha is found on bills, as a message on T-shirts, handkerchiefs, soap, sun tan oil, charms, stickers, and car number plates of the "Aloha State," as Hawaii is now called.

Aloha and Hawaii have become synonymous. Sailors’ tales and other parts of Polynesian culture have been condensed by the expert promoters of the tourism sector into a successful, profit-making South-Sea advertising cliché.



Concrete Magic

Of the 300,000 original Polynesian inhabitants of the islands at the time when they were discovered by Captain Cook in 1778, there are just a few thousand pure-blooded descendants remaining. The Hawaiians were the helpless victims of imported plagues, and the population plunged dramatically in the years following Cook’s arrival. The explorer was killed by a Hawaiian chief on his second visit to the islands in 1779, but it was too late for the indigenous people who wanted to conserve their culture. Many more Europeans followed after Cook, and by 1820, most of the remainder of the dwindled population were converted to Christianity by American missionaries.

The population of just under 1.3 million people today is a colourful mixture of races. The majority is constituted by the Japanese and the haoles, the white people, followed by Hawaiians, Philippinos, Chinese, Koreans, Samoans and African-Americans.

Eighty per cent of the population lives and works in Honolulu. The sheltered bay of the capital is the most important port in the archipelago and the political, business and tourist focal point. A narrow rivulet of white sand, Waikiki, lies between the sea and steep, rugged cliffs soaring upwards; a world famous holiday factory location, managed down to the last detail. A long stretch of the asphalted coast is reserved for traffic - sometimes with five lanes. The safest way to the beach leads through the underground garages of the hotels. The odour of exhaust, tar, popcorn, hamburgers, hot dogs and sun tan lotion has eliminated the sweet aroma of frangipani flowers. Nature has been concreted away, asphalted, locked up in asbestos cement tubs and covered with plastic lawns.



Coral Sand

It’s hard to believe, but according to statistics of the Hawaiian Research Department, most of the visitors enjoy this test tube paradise - which is a good thing too, as it means that even on the most densely populated island, Oahu, there is still unadulterated nature, idyllic landscapes and white, practically empty coral-coloured sandy beaches, despite the development of Honolulu and Waikiki.

The dream of the South-Sea paradise, irrespective of how the imagination has conjured up this area, can still become a sensuous reality, whether visited using a hire car, the bus on Oahu, or the flights to the other islands in the archipelago. Temperatures in the "best climate in the world" lie consistently between 22 and 26C, rain is called "liquid sunshine," and luxuriant vegetation with fruits and blossoms, which can be picked all year round, simply flourishes.



Lava Beaches

Hawaii, Molokai, Kauai, Maui, Lanai, Oahu - each island name represents a unique and spectacular landscape with its mountains, wide valleys, waterfalls, rare animals and plants. On Hawaii itself, or Big Island as it is referred to as by the inhabitants of Hawaii, there is the omnipotent, primeval volcanic landscape and growth of the island. The Americans appropriately call them Drive-In Volcanoes, as the area can be comfortably visited by car.

Since 1993 glowing red lava has flowed uninterrupted from Kilauea. A helicopter provides a view into the seething jaws of hell, and allows one to become an eyewitness to the history of the creation of all the Hawaiian islands. The glowing, liquid stone gushes, hissing, into the sea and increase Hawaii’s land mass by a few square metres each day. Big Island is, at 700,000 years old, the youngest island in the archipelago and still "under construction". Its beaches are rarely white with coral sand, but rather black, red or green from lava residue.

The oldest and fourth largest island is Kauai, at approximately six million years old; it is also called the Garden Island due to its exotic beauty and fertility. The sea, wind, sun and rain have created one of the finest coastlines in the world from the edge of an extinct volcano. Due to the constant trade wind, this wild and rugged steep coastline, which is up to 1,000 metres high, receives more rainfall than any other region in this area, and also more sunshine.

The dramatic beauty of the Na Pali coast, with lonely beaches, quiet bays, valleys of orchids, caves as high as cathedrals, waterfalls and clear fresh water bays can only be reached on foot, and for a few months of the year by boot. An authorisation must be obtained in the capital Lihue for the 18km-long Kalalau Trail, as more than 80 people are not allowed to stay in this unique protected nature reserve at any one time.



The Polynesian Island World

"Maui no kai oi" means "Maui is the best," and is the slogan of the second largest island. A wide valley divides the island into the eastern part with the enormous Mount Haleakala crater massif, which is up to 3055 metres high, and the western side which has been developed for tourism with the 1765 metre high Fuu Kukui.

After Oahu and Honolulu, Maui and Laihana - an old whaling port and the capital of Hawaii up to 1845 - are the best-known tourist destinations in the Hawaiian archipelago. The sides of craters overgrown with jungle plants, mountain streams and waterfalls with natural swimming pools lie behind every bend in the road along the Hana coast. In December, the heavyweight humpback whales move their winter quarters to Maalaea bay of Maui, and bring their young into the world there.

A little of the "old Hawaii’" can be discovered throughout Molokai, which is just a twenty minute flight away from Honolulu. Its inhabitants, half of whom are pure-blooded Hawaiians or dual heritage Hawaiians, live in rural tranquillity. "Aloha," guests are welcomed, but development of the tourist industry is opposed.

However, the inhabitants are not just trying to keep authentic Hawaii on Molokai. In the 1970s, after hundreds of years of suppression, there was an enthusiastic revival of the language, dances and legends of the original inhabitants of Hawaii - above all by the younger Hawaiians. They want their own culture and country back, the last queen of which, Lilioukalani, was deprived of power in 1898, and which became the fiftieth American state in 1959.

The spirit of Aloha has not yet fully vanished, and that makes Hawaii unique - and more than just the fiftieth state of America.



HAWAII - MORE THAN JUST ALOHA

WORDS © MARION FRIEDEL