We built it, but they won’t come

Tony Peraica, a Republican campaigning for the board presidency of Cook County, Ill., staged a ‘luau’ on June 17 to mock County Comissioner Joan Murphy’s upcoming trip to Honolulu for the National Association of Counties’ (NAC) annual conference, scheduled for July 15 to 19. Peraica’s assistants donned aloha shirts and handed out lei to the crowd. ‘The taxpayers,’ announced Peraica, ‘understand what Hawai’i is all about.’ His crude tactics worked–Murphy paid her own way.

According to Chicago’s ABC affiliate, ‘The problem is Hawai’i itself, an exotic vacation paradise half a world away.’ That may be the problem for beleaguered county officials, swamped from coast to coast with stinging criticism that the NAC conference is nothing but a free vacation on taxpayers’ dimes. The problem for the conference, and for Hawai’i’s ambitions to become a convention mecca, may be much larger. So far, dozens of county leaders have cancelled their NAC plans following a groundswell of popular outrage over the trip. To what extent that outrage has been orchestrated is unclear, but the complaints that have arisen so far can be traced almost exclusively to Republican leaders.

‘I am not going to Hawai’i at the taxpayers’ expense,’ says John Glasscock, the Republican nominee for county commission chairman of Decatur, Ala. ‘I think it’s a long way off for a conference and it’s going to be very expensive.’

A Des Moines, Iowa, official was a bit more candid. ‘There is real work and real education that goes on at these meetings,’ says Polk County Supervisor Robert Brownell, also a Republican. ‘But any time you have a meeting in a place like Hawai’i or Las Vegas or Miami, people wonder if it’s just a paid vacation.’

Several other would-be conventioneers echo Brownell’s sentiment that though they understand that work gets done in Honolulu, their constituents don’t. While the perception of Hawai’i as a relaxation paradise is in at least some measure a case of chickens coming home to roost after decades of ‘hula girl’ marketing campaigns, it is nevertheless a problem that must be addressed if the Hawai’i Convention Center is ever going to live up to its promise.

Local tourism officials are trying to meet the challenge head on, but so far the results have been a bit lackluster. When Hawaii Tourism Authority marketing vice president Frank Haas argued to Eric Zorn, columnist for the arch-conservative Chicago Tribune, that Honolulu was an affordable and well-equipped convention destination, Zorn called Hass’s complaints ‘the world’s saddest song on the world’s smallest ukelele.’

‘It’s greedy,’ Zorn informed Haas in a June 21 column, to want to be ‘heaven on earth’ and a legitimate convention destination. Zorn did not explain why this was greedy, but Haas and the rest of Hawai’i’s formidable marketing team will no doubt be spending a lot of money in the coming months to counter the perception.

In the end, the joke may be on Peraica’s Cook County. The slated destination for next year’s convention is–go ahead, guess!–Chicago. Already another stalwart defender of the midwestern taxpayer, the Northwestern of Oshkosh, Wisc., has called for the convention to be pulled from ‘high-priced’ Chicago and held in Omaha, Neb.

You’d think Chicago, a major urban center, would know better than to get involved in the knee-jerk public-sector bashing going on in locales such as Duluth, Little Rock and Savannah. But then again, what more could we expect from the political class that gave us the police riot at the 1968 Democratic convention, or the paper that gave us ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’?

–Joel Harold

Seen & heard

Middle-aged white woman: ‘You should come Hawai’i. All mix, the people.’
Older Chinese man: ‘Yeah?’
Woman: ‘All mix. Everybody half. In Hawai’i, you gotta marry different. It’s like a rule. So everybody half. They call it ‘hapa haole.’ Hapa means ‘white’ and Haole means ‘foreigner.’ You should go. No white, no black, no yellow. Everybody half Russian, half Chinese, half Greek, half Japanese, half French, Eskimo, but all half-half.’
Man: ‘In China, everybody Chinese.’
Woman: ‘They got everything in Hawai’i. Cookies. Newspaper. Coca-cola. Cabbage. Everything.’
Man: ‘In China got everything too. Dioxin. Dirty water.’
Woman: ‘I have a house in Hawai’i.’
Man: ‘I don’t have a house.’
Woman: ‘Well, come stay with us. You don’t need money.’
Man: ‘No, I need money. You have so much money, maybe you give some to me.’
–On the 30-Stockton bus, which cuts through the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown, last Sunday

‘Are they joking? Oh. My. God.’
–Cinema Paradise attendee upon encountering her first unisex restroom in the new venue Next Door (it’s a very cool restroom)

Bring the noise

A planned cafÈ is the first in a series of initiatives the University of Hawai’i at Manoa is taking to revitalize the campus’s old Quadrangle area. Officials plan to construct the cafe on the bottom floor of Saunders Hall, in an open space on the makai side of the building, extending out into the area between Saunders, Hawaii and Crawford halls.

‘The purpose is to make the Quad more than just a thoroughfare,’ says Richard Dubanoski, dean of the College of Social Sciences. ‘There are very few places where students can meet and talk.’

The Quadrangle is the courtyard area between six buildings on the ‘ewa side of the campus, most notably between Hawaii Hall, the school’s oldest building, and the Architecture building. Dubanoski says he hopes the coffee shop will draw the UH community to the area. ‘We’re trying to develop niches to bring people together.’

According to a 2002 campus survey, the majority of Saunders tenants are interested in a full-scale coffee shop serving healthy food at a reasonable price. The survey also revealed an appetite for cuisine different from the usual campus fare. Dubanoski said that Sodexho Marriott Services, UH Manoa’s food provider, is in negotiations with a potential food vendor for the cafe.

Concerns have been voiced about the project, primarily over noise that will likely be caused by an increase in foot traffic and conversation. Some believe noise from the bottom floor will resonate up the seven-story main chamber and echo throughout what is now one of the school’s quieter buildings.

Anthropology professor Alice Dewey, who has an office on the third floor of Saunders, says ‘I’m not [usually] bothered by noise.’ However, she experiences problems when parties or gatherings are held downstairs. ‘It’s the echo,’ she says. Dubanoski says that noise is ‘one of the main problems we’ll have to address.’

Once Sodexho Marriott contracts a food vendor, Dubanoski will pursue funding for the project, which will cost $100,000 to $200,000, from an outside donor. The dean says that he hopes to start construction this summer, so as to not disrupt classes during the semester.

–Jarrett Keohokalole

Sweet Sato

Hawai’i art-world luminaries–such as painters Satoru Abe and Harry Tsuchidana, Contemporary Museum curator James Jensen and art collectors Fred Tanaka and Herb Connelly–gathered at Maui’s Kahului Union Church June 17 for a memorial service for painter Tadashi Sato, one of Hawai’i’s most respected artists. Sato died June 4 at the age of 82.

Sato’s nickname was Sugar–the English translation of his surname. It’s a name that also applies to his art, which is as sweet as it is skilled. In his trademark crosshatched brushstrokes, Sato mused–often abstractly–upon the natural elements that surrounded him. In the later part of his life, Sato lived in Lahaina, near the sea, where he fished and was inspired by the tide pools, the water, the sky, the trees and the rocks. But he is probably best known as the creator of Aquarius, the mosaic on the floor of the State Capitol.

Sato was influenced by European modern art and the post-World War II Abstract Expressionist movement in the United States. It was an art about universals, inspired by a time of serious reflection and hope for the future. Sato trained in New York City, where he lived after serving with the 442nd in Europe. While his art is in many ways the expression of a historical moment of American triumph, it is also deeply shaped by the aesthetic style of his Japanese heritage, with its reverence for nature, simplicity in form and the poetry of the moment. Although many in Hawai’i like to claim this luminary as their own, Sato–like his friend and mentor, the late Kaua’i artist Isami Doi–was truly a global citizen.

–Keiko Bonk