Band on the Run: Chinese History in Lahaina, Maui

by Ember Swift on

Ember Swift, Canadian musician and touring performer, will be keeping us up-to-date on what it’s like to tour a band throughout North America. Having just arrived back from Beijing where she spent three months (check out her “Canadian in Beijing” series), she offers a musician’s perspective on road life. Enjoy!

I had to get away from resort land today. I packed my shoulder bag and computer, sunscreen, a camera, a hat and a book to read and slung it over my shoulder before I hopped down the stairwell to the lobby of the hotel (the elevators take too long.)

No one was around from the wedding party and I hung around the front entrance for about fifteen minutes before I decided to just walk. I had no idea how far it is to Lahaina by foot, but I was willing to do the trek. Anything to find some history and culture and conversation with locals.

Twenty minutes into my walk, I could tell it was going to be about an hour’s walk before I’d hit the town. I was still walking by the grounds of other resorts and other golf courses, so I hadn’t even made it from the overall resort-world “campus” yet.

I saw a bakery truck pulling out of one of the resort driveways and I flagged him down. Turns out the driver, “Jules,” a native Hawaiian guy, is an ex-musician and visual artist who still plays guitar for himself when he’s got down time. We had a great chat as he drove me into town. The whole drive took another fifteen minutes, nearly, and so it was great to meet an interesting (and generous) person and even nicer to not have to walk.

He dropped me off on “Front Street” with a smile and wished me well. I was then in Lahaina where tourist shops are bursting from every opening, t-shirts and bathing suits and postcard racks extending their advertising onto the sidewalk like tree roots on a wooded path to trip you into the shops.

Shopping is the last thing I’m here to do so when I saw the Chinese historical museum I turned in without a second thought.

Sitting behind a desk and looking gentle and open was an amazing woman with silver hair and a brilliant smile named Busaba Partacharya (in Thai — Thailand being her native country — or Yip Gwai Gee, in Catonese). She has been in Hawaii for fourteen years researching “the ancestors here,” as she put it – or, the history of Chinese settlement in Hawaii. She’s just volunteering but has put together several documents and traced several family clans to Maui over the years.

She and I spoke some Mandarin together and she asked me all about my trip to China. We bonded over research topics and our love for China and the notion of ancestry. I stood there at the front entrance for about fifteen minutes before she invited me to look around the museum and I remembered where I was. She gestured widely with her arm in a slow and graceful sweep outward as though she were sitting in a perpetual state of tai chi calm.

I had been so taken by her that I hadn’t even looked around me until then. I put down my shoulder bag by her desk and wandered in. I already felt at home.

The museum is a large wooden house-like structure that used to the clubhouse for the early Chinese settlers. Originally, many Chinese came to Maui (and the other Hawaiian islands) to work on things like the railroad, the sugarcane plantations and irrigation drilling into the mountainside. Many Chinese returned back to China but several stayed. This clubhouse was built in 1912 by the fraternal Wo Hing Society, a chapter of the Chee Kung Tong society that has roots in 17th century China. This society formed a social gathering place and also helped the Chinese in Lahaina maintain social and political ties with China.

Around the 1940s, most of the Society members had moved away to greater opportunities and not many Chinese people chose to remain in Lahaina. This building fell pretty to termites and rot until 1983 when the Lahaina Restoration Foundation entered into a long-term agreement with the Wo Hing Society to restore the building and open it to the public.

The first floor is a collection of Chinese artifacts gathered in Lahaina, as well as old photos from the Society, and the second floor displays the old cook stove and cooking utensils from when the cookhouse was located there. There is also a temple upstairs that offers incense to various Buddha or Bodhisattva shrines around the room.

When I came back down, Busaba motioned me over to her desk again and began to talk to me in greater detail about her work. She is in the midst of a long-term translation project for documents that were printed by the Wo Hing Society that were discovered in 1999. Some date back as far as 1906 and chronicle the activities and stories of the Chinese society in Lahaina at that time and until it largely dispersed.

She is currently the only one working on the project and she is looking for help. She’s volunteering and looking for people to help her with the work. She gave me several fliers to put around Toronto when I got back there (or any place I thought it would find others, she said) to hopefully connect with the diasporas of Chinese people around the world. There’s no money in it, she said, but the translation is slow and needs other minds and energy. The stack of papers on her desk were testimony to this truth. Too much for one person, for sure.

I said I would offer what I could and she said, “The ancestors always bring the answers. Maybe you’re one of them.” And then she winked at me and wished me well. I wished her well too and told her I’d try my best.

And I will.

I felt thoughtful as I continued into Lahaina to check out the rest of the town. Thoughtful and peaceful. “Wo Hing” means harmony and prosperity (in Cantonese) and I think some of that hopefulness had come up through those museum floorboards and found its way into the breathing of this visitor.

Least Religious Countries

by Iva Skoch on

When you travel to Europe, don’t be surprised to find that many Europeans don’t believe in God. I have even witnessed some alcohol-infused conversations between Americans and Europeans that almost ended in fistfights over His/Her existence. When you travel to the following countries, you might want to pick a less controversial topic of conversation … umm, maybe George W?

Here are the Top 10 least religious countries in the world:

1. Sweden (up to 85% non-believer, atheist, agnostic)
2. Vietnam
3. Denmark
4. Norway
5. Japan
6. Czech Republic
7. Finland
8. France
9. South Korea
10. Estonia (up to 49% non-believer, atheist, agnostic)

The one that surprised me was Israel, ranking 19th, with up to 37% claiming to be non-believer, atheist, agnostic. Compare that with the United States, ranking 44th, with 3-9% non-believers, atheists, agnostics. (I think I have met them all on the streets of New York City, too.)

The survey concluded that “high levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality. Most nations characterized by high degrees of individual and societal security have the highest rates of organic atheism, and conversely, nations characterized by low degrees of individual and societal security have the lowest rates of organic atheism. In some societies, particularly Europe, atheism is growing. However, throughout much of the world — particularly nations with high birth rates — atheism is barely discernable.”

Big in Japan: The Subtle Art of Eating Blowfish (Part III)

by Matthew Firestone on

This is the third and final installment in a three-part series on the subtle art of eating blowfish. If you’re new to the feature column ‘Big in Japan,’ be sure to check out Part I and Part II before reading below.

Still hungry for blowfish? Thought you might be.

Much like choosing a good pizza joint or a romantic spot to sip a cocktail, your fugu experience can vary depending on the restaurant. Excellent fugu will have you begging for a second plate. Poor fugu will have you gasping for your last breath.

Truth be told, most fugu-eating takes place at specialty restaurants, which are fairly easy to identify even in the urban jungle that is Japan.

(Case in point – you don’t have to speak Japanese to find this popular spot in Shibuya).

How do you know that a restaurant is serving fresh fugu? Simple.

Blowfish are kept alive in large aquariums prior to serving. If you ask politely, a chef will sometimes let you choose your fish, and then slice it up in front of you with a fugu-hiki (literally fugu-pulling; ふぐ引き), a specially designated knife that is only used for filleting blowfish. Think it’s annoying when someone leaves peanut butter on your butter knife? How about a splash of neurotoxin on your steak knife.

If you really want to sample the full culinary spectrum of fugu, you’re going to have to spend between ¥10,000 and ¥25,000 (US$80 to US$200). The centerpiece of this meal is fugu sashimi, which is usually extremely thinly sliced, and arranged in a decorative pattern on a porcelain plate. Although first-time consumers of fugu are surprised to discover that blowfish is rather tasteless compared to fish such as tuna or salmon, aficionados focus on the delicate texture and the elegant presentation.

Of course, a good fugu chef will dress up the dish with homemade soy sauce as well as a small dab of freshly grated wasabi to cleanse the palete and clear the sinuses. A great fugu chef will dress up the dish with a citrus-accented ponzu dipping sauce as well as a small dab of poison to numb the palette and clear the mind.

Accompaniments to fugu sashimi include a variety of blowfish organs and parts that you probably didn’t think were edible. Blowfish fins can be flash-fried in hot sesame oil, and then served in a carafe of hot sake. Blowfish skin can de-spiked, crisped over a hot flame and then sprinkled over a fresh salad of white radish and cucumber. Blowfish testicles can be eaten like grapes – although it’s something of an acquired taste, the flavor is reminiscent of salty milk. Delicious.

Well, that brings us to the end of the three-part series on the subtle art of eating blowfish. If I haven’t yet been able to get your mouth watering and your stomach growling, stay tuned as I’ve only just begun to unlock the vast treasure trove of Japanese cuisine.

** Special thanks to Flickr user schorschi_san for snapping the shot of the fugu restaurant near my apartment **

You’d Be Well Behaved Too If You Only Got Two Weeks Vacation a Year

by Brett Atkinson on

Following up on Justin’s recent post about how well American tourists are regarded by a poll of 1500 European hotel managers, I thought I’d dive into the data about how many weeks vacation per year residents of the United States get in comparison to other countries.

In my home nation, New Zealand, the legal entitlement has traditionally been 3 weeks per year, but recent legislation has now increased the minimum period to 4 weeks. A handy ready reckoner lists that folk in India are entitled to a massive 60 days per year, and the lucky people of Finland get 35 days off every year. Just further south Danes get 6 weeks to drink beer and go Nordic skiing. At the other end of the scale, the busy people of Singapore and Hong Kong only get 7 days holidays every year.

Coming from geographically isolated New Zealand, I really take for granted the need to have time to travel and see the world.

What’s the deal like in your part of the world, and if you’re an American, what do you think about only getting 10 working days off every year?

Thanks to Vincent Ma on Flickr for the pic of his workspace.

Big in Japan: The Subtle Art of Eating Blowfish

by Matthew Firestone on

In the 18th century, the famous Japanese poet Yosa no Buson expressed his love for eating blowfish in this simple but elegant haiku:

I cannot see her tonight.
I have to give her up
So I will eat fugu.

Like the great poets of old and new, Buson is no different in that he yearned for a woman that was not his love. However, in the great tradition of finding comfort in food, he instead turns to fugu (??, blowfish) in order to mend his broken heart.

Indeed, there is perhaps no Japanese art as subtle and beautiful as that of eating blowfish. Some people swear by the tea ceremony. Others prefer Zen Buddhism. For me however, it’s blowfish, the deadliest of delicacies.

A famous Japanese story tells the tale of three men, who prepared a dish of fugu but were afraid to taste it out of fear of death. Driven to the point of despair, the wisest amongst them serves the dish to a beggar in order to test its potency. Later, when the men return to find that the beggar is still alive, they breathe a sigh of relief, and immediately dine on the fugu.

Like most Japanese folk tales, trickery and deceit are ultimately vanquished by wisdom and craft. This particular tale being no different, the beggar secretly hides away the stew hoping that the three men would eat it first. After seeing that they were alive and well, the wise beggar retires to the back streets, and eats his fugu with peace of mind.

This of course brings about the question: why exactly is fugu so deadly?

Blowfish packs a lethal punch in the form of tetrodotoxin, an extremely potent neurotoxin that paralyzes its victims while they are still conscious. To put things into perspective, this means that you are fully aware as your throat closes, your lungs deflate and drift slowly into death’s arms.

There is no known cure.

Of course, Japan is a country of safety and order, so thankfully the majority of deaths occur when untrained people catch and prepare the fish, accidentally poisoning themselves in the process. The most dangerous culprit is the liver, which is regarded as the tastiest morsel of the blowfish. If you’re lucky, the liver will contain only enough poison to numb the palette and raise the adrenaline. If you’re unlucky however, the liver will contain enough poison to kill you ten times over.

Of course, Japan is also a country of pride and honor, which is way blowfish liver (though illegal) is one of the most coveted of meals. In 1975, the famous Kabuki actor and ‘Living National Treasure’ Bandou Mitsugorou VIII requested four servings of liver from a fugu chef in Kyoto. Unable to refuse the request of someone of such an elevated stature, the chef served the livers to Bandou Mitsugorou VIII.

He died just minutes after – with his pride and honor intact of course.

Although illegal in Europe and all but a handful of restaurants in America, the subtle art of eating blowfish is still very much alive in modern Japan. Not surprisingly, eating fugu with a bunch of crazy companions is something that just sort of happens after spending too much time in Japan. It’s equal parts stupidity and peril, with a healthy dash of self-reflection and humility thrown in.

And yes, before you post comments regarding my culinary background, I have in fact eaten fugu, and I will most likely eat it again.

(In case you’re wondering, I did in fact survive with my nervous system intact).

Click here for Part II of the Subtle Art of Eating Blowfish.