Few things are as inextricably tied to Hawaiʻi’s culture as a fragrant and colorful lei. They’re stacked high on the shoulders of graduates, slipped over the necks of wide-eyed visitors, or draped on community leaders at official events.  

Lei making has a rich and vibrant history across the Islands. Yet over recent decades, the bulk of the lei-making industry has moved offshore, to foreign lands where growers and lei-makers string flowers into strands and sell them back cheaply to us here in Hawai’i. 

Now, the Lei Poinaʻole Project hopes to turn that around. The project created by the nonprofit BEHawaiʻi aims to revitalize and strengthen the local lei industry through community engagement and advocacy. The main mission of the group is to uplift local flower growers and lei makers to preserve the traditions of lei in Hawaiʻi. 

Launched three years ago, the program has engaged propagators on each of the main islands in hopes of building pilot projects into a statewide network of flower growers, lei-makers and vendors that can flourish as it did in the past.  

“You think about Hawaiʻi, you think about a lei,” says Brook Lee, secretary of BEHawaiʻi, who helped focus the nonprofit’s attention on the needs of struggling lei flower growers and lei makers.  

So far, the Lei Poinaʻole Project has connected with 26 existing growers, 22 new growers and 7 propagators. The goal is not just to support the big farmers, but small and medium-sized growers so that a cottage industry can thrive once again.

Sylvia Hussey

“The objective of the project at the end is to have the Lei Poinaʻole Coalition,” adds BEHawai‘i Executive Director Sylvia Hussey. “The lei project is a mechanism in which to form the coalition” that will carry on even after initial startup efforts cease. 

Lee remembers the idea for the Project stemmed from a conversation she had with a lei store owner who told her in 2020 that the lei industry was in decline and needed help. That conversation stuck with her, and when BEHawaiʻi began considering projects to fund, the memory resurfaced. The idea to support a statewide lei network blossomed. 

Lee explains: “There are a lot of people in the community who just didn’t have a touchpoint or a place, or the space, to be able to think about the idea of stewarding this thing, because it’s farm to table, which is important, but that has been the whole sort of agricultural space here in Hawaiʻi for a very long time. And it’s necessary, but we’re just trying to follow in their footsteps and expand the conversation around.” 

In 2022, the group was awarded a three-year grant from the Federal Administration for Native Americans. The grant supported eight existing and 16 new farmers across the state. While the group knew the grant couldn’t solve the problem in just a few years, it helped them start the conversations needed to build the coalition.  

Lee says they aim to help growers who have been quietly maintaining but are at a breaking point and need support. Besides foreign competitors, farmers are facing agricultural diseases and beetle infestations that are devastating long-established farms. When they contacted the USDA for help, she says, some farmers said their concerns were dismissed and they were told to simply burn the trees. 

“We’re hoping to be able to set people up, because we can’t fund it forever, but we wanted to just sort of try to piece it into a way that they can know that they’re certain CTHAR will help,” Lee says, referring to the UH Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. 

CTHAR has been holding workshops to teach people how to plant certain flowers. Experts take the participants on a walking tour of their properties to assess what their problems may be or what they should focus on.  

After the assessments, some farms are encouraged to propagate flowers in locations that have suitable growing conditions.  

Meanwhile, the Lei Poinaʻole Project has been expanding connections between lei-making families and farmers. They’ve had to overcome obstacles, too, including some growers who were hesitant about sharing details about their sites and growing practices.   

“One of the first things we explain about the project is that the project takes none of the production. We just want to help them, if it’s more plants, if it is knowledge, pest control,” Hussey says. Their focus, she says, is: “How can we help them keep all of their production and how they want to distribute that, whether it’s commercially or [through] family.” 

The Project representatives also ask growers how the group can support them through policy changes or by assisting with general practices. Everyone in Hawaiʻi farms differently, Lee says, and each person will favor certain flowers that are culturally based and close to peoples’ ohana or have a special connection to wherever they’re living. 

“A lot of times they don’t like it when people come in and try to tell them how to do something that they are doing for a very long time, there’s some cultural sensitivity around it, right?” Lee says. “Because, of course, they should know how to do it. They’ve been doing it for generations. Yeah, that’s their kuleana. And no one’s here to tell you that your kuleana is wrong or bad. You’ve been doing it. You’ve got the proof. The boots are on the ground.” 

While respecting current practices, Hussey says the farmers in the program also share their knowledge with the next generation and in the process gain a scientific grounding in how best to grow their flowers.

Insight from a New Grower  

The propagation site on Hawaiʻi Island may be furthest along among the pilot projects. It is coordinated by David Fuertes, executive director of the nonprofit Kahua Paʻa Mua. On a five-acre property in the North Kohala community of Kapaʻau, Fuertes has cuttings of a diverse range of flowering plants that, once they sprout roots, are distributed to five families to plant on their own land. 

Flower varieties in the mix include crown flower, pikake, puakenikeni, ʻākulikuli, ʻōlena as well as more common plumeria and orchids. 

Under a makeshift greenhouse, a watering system emits a spray of water for 20 seconds every hour, keeping the plants moist. The team meets regularly to discuss best practices for dipping the cutting stems into homemade root hormone mixtures that enhance root growth. They take measurements and share data so they can replicate the results that are most favorable. 

The first batch of cuttings have been transplanted, and flowers should be ready within a matter of months. 

“The families will supply local lei makers, and they can make their own lei as well,” said Fuertes. “It’s a community-based economic development program. After the initial group of growers are established, we can expand to the next generation of families.” 

Fuertes has a special connection to lei making. His late sister, Nancy Fuertes Ueno, was an award-winning lei maker on Kauaʻi. 

On the one-year anniversary of her death in September last year, Fuertes inaugurated the Aunty Nancy Lei Aloha Garden on his land in her memory in hopes of preserving the art of lei-making. 

At the launch ceremony, Fuertes told a gathering of about 100 people that while the vast majority of lei makers’ flowers come to Hawaiʻi from foreign countries, he hopes this program will help rekindle an interest in lei-making in the Islands. 

“Here in Kohala, we want to make the change. If we can get everybody to grow flowers and get farmers switching or intercropping with flower lei, we can bring the price down for lei,” he said.  

In his blessing to dedicate the site, Kahu Kealoha Sugiyama explained the social and spiritual role of lei. 

“When you pick a flower, it’s a memory between you and the receiver,” Sugiyama explained. “It starts out with one memory, one flower, and you keep adding and adding until the lei is completed. And what was just a single memory, now it becomes a story, a story between you and the lei maker. That story is precious.” 

When Hussey enlisted Fuertes to join the state-wide effort, she already knew his background — he had been her former high school teacher. 

“I was born and raised in Kohala. I’m a Kohala high school graduate, and so when we were looking for a propagation site in Kohala, there was no question who it needed to be. It would be my former ag teacher from high school who has a farm,” Hussey says. “And that’s an example of leveraging relationships to be able to find in the community those propagator sites.” 

Fuertes remembers Hussey developed an early interest in agriculture when she was one of his students.  

He said he recalls Hussey started a paʻu unit in Kohala, the ceremonial equestrian groups that ride in parades, with both the horses and female riders adorned with elaborate lei displays. 

“That was one of her first involvements with lei back in high school,” Fuertes says. 

History of Lei in Hawaiʻi 

Lei making traces back to the early Polynesian settlers in Hawaiʻi, and besides the decorative appeal, lei also served as a tribute to the gods and in some cases signified social rank in society.  

Early lei included nuts, shells and bones as well as a variety of plants and flowers. The maile lei, an open string lei woven with fragrant leaves from vines that grow in cool mountain forests, is considered among the most cherished types of lei. 

Demand for maile lei has soared in conjunction with official events and celebrations. And with the arrival of tourists, and the preference for fragrant plumeria and other brightly colored flowers, lei making became a cottage industry across the islands. 

“So what we have heard from conversations from lei sellers is that the supply is getting harder and harder to get and everybody knows, just by experience, maile as an example right there, very rarely can you get a maile of Big Island, maile of Kauaʻi, fresh maile. It’s being replaced by ti leaf,” Hussey says. 

Different lei carry different meanings with the color, flower and occasion. The maile lei was once revered by aliʻi and is given as a sign of love, respect or a blessing. 

“One of the differentiators is that it is not the demand side of lei,” she says. “There will always be a demand. It’s on the growing side and the mitigating [efforts] helping more growers there, and anybody, not just commercial growers, but family growers, school growers, backyard growers, more lei flower growers.” 

Matching Price with Value 

Another goal of the project is to change consumers’ understanding of how much labor goes into lei. More than just its price, lei hold the spirit of the farmers and those who sewed it together.   

“We know that monetizing or valuing lei is not just in a price point,” Hussey says. “We all know family members at a wedding, even graduation or Mother’s Day, that someone has given you a lei, that they have grown, they have sewn themselves, is worth so much more than when you purchase.   

“And that also influences the price point. People complain, ʻOh, the pikake is $15 a strand. My gosh, if you knew how much effort it was to grow that pikake and how valuable, you wouldn’t complain. You would value and mahalo the lei seller and the lei grower for that value.”  

The Lei Poinaʻole Project is seeking help to quantify the financial importance of lei in Hawaiʻi, starting with a baseline estimate of current local production. 

Every island has its own relationship to lei making and sewing. Oʻahu has lei stands at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and many lei shops on Maunakea Street in Chinatown.  

One shop in Chinatown is the family-owned Lin’s Lei Shop.  

Manager Tony Ngyuen says that it is difficult to measure how much work goes into a lei since everything is handmade. Some flowers have a special way to be plucked and processed, and can be sewn in different ways. The cost of the lei reflects the input of farmers as well.   

The most popular lei are usually the white fragrant flowers like pikake, puakenikeni, ginger and tuberose. Ngyuen explains that when picked, tuberose has a brownish tint on the outside, so it is cleaned to be white and peeled to be used in lei.  

Lin’s Lei Shop purchases pre-made orchid flower lei from Thailand since the labor is cheaper and they sell for less.  

“They create a product that is long-lasting and economical,” Ngyuen says. “It makes sense, and it provides a strong supply for the demand here.” 

One pre-made orchid lei in the shop’s lineup, already made in Thailand, is the famed Christina style lei. The Christina lei was designed in 1990 by Beth Lopez and created to honor the memory of her daughter Christina who died from lupus when she was 22. The design uses a needle and thread to sew together over 500 orchid centers. 

“Imagine the amount of work involved to make this,” says Ngyuen. “They just take a single petal from a single flower, and they create this,” he said.  

Some orchid lei have a negative reputation for being cheap or imported, but Hawaiʻi Island used to have its own honohono orchid that was specially farmed.  

 “We don’t want people to get a bad rep that lei orchids are bad, like orchids are part of our history and our culture as Hawaiian people,” Lee of BEHawaiʻi says. “But these are a different type of orchid that are mass produced in Thailand brought in by the pounds of loads.”  

Other than the orchid lei, Ngyuen says that all of the other lei he sells are handmade in Hawaiʻi, and in the back of their Maunakea Street store, family members can be seen making lei. They get their flowers from multiple farms and hobbyists across Hawaiʻi. 

While most lei are made in-store, sometimes they purchase pre–made lei from people who have trees in their backyards. Ngyuen pointed out a traditional lei made from hala, the fruit of the pandanus tree, that was made by a recreational lei maker. He said that it’s an older style of lei that isn’t usually sold anymore. 

Many lei shops, including Lin’s Lei Shop, sell flowers and lei to the mainland for graduations and other celebrations.  

“It seems like the lei culture is spreading,” he says. “So now, especially on the West Coast, it’s very common for people to receive lei for graduation. The whole West Coast, right from Washington to California, they all use lei, I think it’s good. Do I have a problem with them selling at Costco? No, not really.” 

“Support local if you can,” he says. “But other than that, enjoy a lei, enjoy the craftsmanship, enjoy the artistry. And yeah, support the industry.” 

“We do mostly film processing, which is 35mm film and 120 film. We can print it or scan it. We also do a lot of video transfers, old VHS tapes, beta tapes. We do audio cassette transfer, LP record transfers,” says owner Eric Phillips.

Even in the digital age, film photography still has a cult following among both amateurs and pros. “A lot of the younger generation didn’t grow up with film. It’s kind of new to them. It has a softer, warmer feel. It’s not as harsh as a really crispy digital picture, so it’s kind of inviting.”

Brett Sullivan, one of Rainbow’s employees, is pictured holding a strip of negatives. Negatives are “the film inside the canister once you develop it. It has the images on the film,” explains Phillips. “Basically, you put light through the negative and it makes a positive image. That’s what we scan to make the digital files.”

And in a meta twist, photographer Aaron Yoshino shot this image on film, then had it developed at Rainbow. Classic.

“Art + Flea is the island’s original makers market, and it paved the way for others. Nowadays, makers markets are everywhere,” says Jeff Sanner, Hawaii Business Magazine’s creative director.

Sanner has been selling his art at Art + Flea for over 13 years. “The space features a diverse range of creators, including illustrators, painters, vintage clothing collectors, cut and sew, woodworkers, crafters and more.”

Aly Ishikuni, who co-founded Art + Flea in 2010, in December opened her latest iteration of MORI, Art + Flea’s permanent store, now inside Capitol Modern. She is pictured in the store with some of the items for sale.

Sanner says the space is a lot “like the Etsy marketplace, but with a local touch. It has provided opportunities for hundreds of small business makers to showcase their goods in a brick-and-mortar setting.”

All six episodes of the first season of “Moku Moku,” a half-hour comedy that follows three friends on Maui, aired on local TV station K5; the shows are currently streaming on Amazon Prime’s pay-per-view service and can be viewed for free, with ads, on Tubi. The second season is now being filmed on Maui. The show is produced by Laulima Studios, a Maui-based entertainment company launched in 2024 by Hoke, Jonathan Melikidse and Brad Starks. Hoke says Laulima Studios’ main goal is to prove Hawai‘i can produce films, TV shows and more, with local camera operators, directors, producers and all the other talent needed.

Hoke says Hawai‘i doesn’t have a huge platform, like shows produced in Hollywood. “We’re connected,” though, he says. “It’s a small enough industry where we’re all hopping over to each other’s shows, but there’s never been a need to band together, because we were kind of fixated on California.”

He looks to the global popularity of South Korean music, movies and fashion as inspiration for how to market a region’s talent internationally. Hawai‘i has a large talent pool, Hoke says, but struggles to keep creatives in the industry because they don’t get enough work.

“Hawai‘i makes hammahs every day. We are a hammah factory,” he says, using the new-school pidgin for hardworking and talented people.  “We have a problem going on with Hollywood. … They don’t think that Hawai‘i has really good camera operators because of many misconceptions about who gets hired.”

He describes a catch-22-like situation: When big movies get filmed in the Islands, few local people are hired. The thinking is that they lack experience, so instead of pulling from Hawai‘i’s talent pool, producers fly in a lot of mainland professionals. If more local people were hired to work some of the smaller projects in the Islands, they’d eventually have the experience needed to move on to bigger projects. But that’s not happening either.

Hoke says his passion for organizing a Hawai‘i-based film industry and talent pool derives from his background. He grew up on the mainland, where both he and his family worked hard to stay connected to their Hawaiian identity. And as a son of engineers, he was taught to think outside the box to get things done.

The three founders of Laulima Studios met on the sets of independent projects on Maui. They talked about how Maui and Hawai‘i film creatives lack the competitive edge that is commonplace in Hollywood and other centers of entertainment. “That’s the other thing: A lot of artists don’t like being salesmen,” Hoke says.

“From a business standpoint, our studio is looking to do everything we can to give back to the community, as far as opportunity, as far as creating quality content that’s not just going to go straight to video and never heard of again. We really want to feed the next generation. We really just want to be useful.”

Starks says big-budget movies set in Hawai‘i typically have the same storyline: a long-term couple arrives, checks in at a high-end resort, they drink their weight in mai tais and they don’t go out.

“They, in short, don’t deal with the local community and people like us who live in Maui or Upcountry Maui, where our television show is placed,” Stark says. “They overhear the local population” instead of mingling with it.

Almost at the end of Kalihi Street, past where it turns into a one-lane road and the rainforest encroaches on the asphalt, is a Zen temple and martial arts dojo called Chozen-ji. The dojo is only 20 minutes from Bishop Street and the state Capitol, but its rustic, Japanese-style buildings, carefully maintained grounds and old-school training methods can make it feel a world apart.

Since the temple’s establishment in Kalihi Valley in 1976, a diverse cross-section of the community has come with regularity and dedication, including former Gov. John Waihe‘e and former House Speaker Calvin Say, and business leaders such as Colbert Matsumoto, Lionel Tokioka and Richard Lim.

Above CEO Ann Teranishi’s desk at American Savings Bank sit two pieces of Zen calligraphy from Chozen-ji, where she has trained in meditation. One is an enso, or circle, evocative of a simultaneous sense of totality and emptiness, everything and nothing. The other is the kanji shin, meaning mindheart or spirit.

When Teranishi first came to Chozen-ji, she had just been asked to lead ASB; she found the strict kind of zazen, or seated meditation, taught there to be useful in preparing her for the new role. Like other students at the dojo, she learned to sit for 45 minutes at a time with her eyes open and without moving. If a mosquito landed on her nose or her legs began to hurt, she was told to resist the temptation to move.

“There are so many parts of being in an executive leadership role where there’s always a lot going on, a lot demanded of your time, energy and thoughts,” Teranishi says. “Sitting quietly in zazen was one of the most difficult things I’ve done from a discipline standpoint. Just sitting and trying … to settle my thoughts and then pulling on certain threads that I didn’t realize were important until I’d quieted my mind.”

Building Courage

Chozen-ji, founded by Tanouye Tenshin, a local band teacher and accomplished martial artist, employs various martial arts and fine arts to aid students’ self-development. Gaining courage, or fearlessness, is an important outcome of the training.

After training for three years in zazen, calligraphy and kendo at Chozen-ji, Seth Colby, head economist at the state Department of Taxation, says he’s developed the ability to stay more aware and calm in tough situations. He says this proved useful when Gov. Josh Green asked him, unexpectedly, to answer questions about the state’s historic income tax cuts at a bill signing this year.

“I’ve trained at the dojo getting rattled so many times, I know how to stay calm and collected, able to perceive opportunities in ways that, when other people are overwhelmed, I’m flowing through it.”

One Chozen-ji teacher, Michael Kangen, says the training inoculates people against certain kinds of chaos and stress, and that a big part of the reason it works is the physicality of it all.

“It’s not conceptual,” HPM Building Supply Chairman and CEO Jason Fujimoto says. “You can’t just talk about it over and over, as if it’s an academic lecture.”

Like Teranishi, Fujimoto began practicing zazen while transitioning into his company’s top role.

“The other thing that was happening at that time at HPM was an evolution that had actually begun 10 years prior with the company’s change to being 100% employee-owned.” Fujimoto felt strongly that what had begun as organizational change had to extend into cultural change.

“How can we step into everyone being an owner-employee-leader?” he remembers asking himself. “Regardless of title or position, everyone can lead. That really starts with being able to lead yourself.”

In 2018, Fujimoto brought his 19-person executive leadership team to Chozen-ji for a weekend of strategic discussions and Zen training – including zazen, karate, calligraphy, manual labor and kendo. Fujimoto says that what they learned has shaped the growth of the company, and he now teaches his own class on “conscious leadership,” open to all HPM employees.

Groups Often Meet There

Many Chozen-ji students are encouraged to use the temple grounds and their training to help shape the future of Hawai‘i. The O‘ahu Economic Development Board, Holomua Collective, Kupu and Eddie Kamae Songbook Project have all held gatherings and strategic planning at Chozen-ji.

Chozen-ji has frequently hosted other important discussions as well. On the wall of Chozen-ji’s kitchen hangs a framed fax of a Washington Post article sent from then-U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye’s office describing the passage of the Aloha Spirit Law in 1986. Kangen Roshi explains that Chozen-ji members led the campaign for the law. Nearby are several low tables where he also says founder Tanouye mediated negotiations between developers and the community around building the resorts at Ko Olina.

More recently, those same low tables were the setting for another community discussion, this one about the future of Pu‘uhonua O Wai‘anae, an encampment of houseless people next to the Wai‘anae Boat Harbor. Those efforts, in which Kangen Roshi and other dojo members were involved, helped prevent a sweep of the village and later grew into a unique development led and managed by Pu‘uhonua residents.

Teranishi says Chozen-ji’s strict and traditional training in meditation, martial arts and fine arts can lead to extraordinary creativity.

“Just being there requires a certain amount of courage, to try something I’ve never done before and am not familiar with. Some people would say, ‘Oh, I can’t believe you’re doing that. There are so many rules.’ But that actually requires me to be more flexible than I’ve ever been.”

Students learn to feel comfortable even in unfamiliar terrain, whether it’s by firing the wood-fired ceramics kiln over several days, confronting personal habits through the unfamiliar action of swinging a sword, or getting scolded for simply leaving one’s slippers the wrong way.

“It trains you to be OK with taking risks,” Chozen-ji teacher Kangen explains, “and also to dig deeper than you normally ever would. It’s a high intensity but low stakes environment that prepares you for the high intensity, high stakes moments in life.”

Teranishi encourages those interested in exploring Zen training at Chozen-ji to give it a try. (Sign up for Chozen-ji’s beginners classes at www.chozen-ji.org.)

“I say you can do it, and you’ll find yourself … putting your ego aside and being willing to be a beginner. We don’t do that enough as adults,” she says.

“People may think of courage as a leader being the courage to lead, but it’s really the courage to do new things, even if they scare you. The stillness and presence will be the things to help guide you.”

My Job: At G70, Kaili Chun informs designers of cultural and artistic elements that can be incorporated into place-based projects. She is part of the design firm’s culture committee, Nā Makamaka o Kou, which includes architects, designers and planners who draw on cultural research as an integral part of the design process.

“My work takes into consideration where it is going to be produced, and who it is going to be produced for,” Chun says. “Is it a Hawaiian audience, a local, national or international audience? The work I do here is specifically based in Hawai‘i for Hawai‘i, but it’s also for Hawaiians, locals and malihini (newcomers and tourists). It hopefully brings awareness of the history and genealogy of the place.”

Her Approach: “I do large, monumental works because it’s a statement that we Hawaiians are still here and we have a voice. We can speak through various methods, and for me, that method is through art.”

Local Works: Chun collaborates with local artists and engineers to create her own installation art pieces and sculptures sprinkled throughout Hawai‘i. Her custom pieces can be spotted in the lobby of the Prince Waikiki hotel, the exterior of the Hawai‘i State Hospital and on the walls of the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center at Kewalo Basin.

“I take a more contemporary approach to the aesthetic of the work. It is definitely a Hawaiian understanding of the world through a Hawaiian experience, and I think it’s important for us to continue to insert that into the visual environment in which we live.”

‘Ohana: Chun credits her achievements and inspirations to her ‘ohana and mentors. Her parents and grandparents on both sides are Native Hawaiian, with her family well-represented in the performing arts and academia. Her father was the president of Kamehameha Schools and her maternal great-grandmother was renowned Hawaiian musician Bina Mossman. “I was raised with my grandparents, on my mom’s side, and it was a time when the Hawaiian language wasn’t as prevalent as it is now. But I feel like I live with a Hawaiian perspective and a Hawaiian worldview, and I hope to bring to the design process some of this insight, some of my reference points for creating art.”

Education: At Princeton and UH Mānoa, she studied under ceramicist Toshiko Takaezu and canoe builder ‘Elemakule Bowman Sr. She says the reciprocal relationships she shared with her mentors contrasts with the more transactional norms commonplace today.

“I hope that I can contribute to nurturing that reciprocity back in my own relationships with students who will not only find their own path, but also find value in serving others instead of serving themselves.”

International Works: In 2022, she collaborated with Indigenous artists on a project at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. The project involved the gathering of water at sites significant to the Indigenous peoples of Australia and the Torres Strait Islands; her relationships with the native communities remain essential to her artistic approach.

The installation, titled “Uwē ka lani, Ola ka honua,” featured 350 cables strung from the ceiling to the floor, emphasizing the link between sources of water and sources of life, and how Indigenous people share the Earth’s prosperity with their own.

“That’s just one example of how I try to be respectful of going into another person’s own land. I would say that my work picks up on different threads of influence and motivation, based on the stories of that place.”

Mission: “I know we cannot ever bring back the Pi‘inaio Stream that used to flow through the site where Prince Waikiki now sits, and I know we’re never going to get rid of the Ala Wai Canal or Magic Island, which were man-made. But we can – through these artworks and various types of installations – bring back the memories and history of that place and educate people. We can at least give them a sampling of history and make them a little more aware of this place.”

This year’s Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture unfolded in Honolulu with the theme “Ho‘oulu Lāhui: Regenerating Oceania.” The site of the celebration was fitting: Hawai‘i is not only connected to these diverse Pacific Island cultures and people, it can also help bridge the gap between them and the Western world.

Nearly 2,200 artists, dancers and other delegates representing 27 Pacific Island nations came to FestPAC, drawing overflow crowds at many of the events during the 10-day gathering.

Hawaii Business Magazine interviewed local and Pacific Island leaders about FestPAC’s impact and how Hawai‘i’s location and culture can be leveraged to foster regional unity and cultural preservation.

FestPAC began in 1972 so people from various Pacific Island nations could gather, showcase their cultures and find ways to maintain traditional practices in a developing world. Suzanne Vares-Lum, president of the East-West Center in Honolulu, underscores the festival’s success in uniting nations while highlighting the diversity of Pacific peoples.

“We celebrate, we respect our elders and those who come before us. We can see the similarities, yet we can see the unique differences for each place, so that they don’t all disappear in one mesh of ‘Pacific.’ Every single country has its own unique flavor, yet we are connected with Indigenous knowledge,” she says.

Vares-Lum, a Native Hawaiian, praises Hawai‘i’s distinct soul, which blends a rich immigration history with an awareness of Kānaka Maoli culture. “Hawai‘i has a unique role, not just because of its geographic location. It’s the unique history and makeup of Hawai‘i, this multicultural nature, that connects.”

Keoni Williams, information and public service officer at the East-West Center’s Pacific Islands Development Program, called FestPAC a gathering of “cousins and distant relatives.”

“If you trace us back to our ancestors, we’re all connected in one way or another, and so I think that it’s really important for each host community to welcome other Pacific Island cultures, and it serves that role of cultural perpetuation.”

Alexander Gillespie, professor of law at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, says opportunities for regional cooperation like FestPAC enhance the chances of peace and cooperation.

“We come together, not just because of external concerns, but also the similarities and the cultures and economies that pull us together. Anything that involves talking with others – whether they’re your neighbors, or your wider community, or the countries right across the ocean – is a good thing. But your first step is always start talking to your neighbors.”

Hawai’i as a Hub

Hawai‘i is a melting pot of Hawaiian, Polynesian, Asian and Western influence, creating a multicultural history that makes it well situated to foster Pacific unity and cooperation. The East-West Center – a federally funded hub of regional dialogue, research and education located on the UH Mānoa campus – is a vital part of Hawai‘i’s leadership in the Pacific.

The Pacific Islands Development Program has revived the Pacific Island Report, an online roundup of Pacific news, along with “Vision and Voices,” a quarterly periodical launched in May that features contributing writers’ commentary on Pacific Islands matters. The EastWest Center also supports the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders, with regular meetings at the center and a permanent vice-chairmanship for Hawai‘i’s governor.

Former Gov. John Waihe‘e says the center helps Hawai‘i “talk to the Pacific.” He emphasizes Hawai‘i’s role in Pacific history, viewing it as an integral gathering place among Oceanic cultures.

“Hawai‘i is at the center of a magnificent ‘continent’ of its own. Hawai‘i has always been the bridge,” Waihe‘e says.

Gillespie says that along with Hawai‘i’s relationship with the broader Pacific, its status as the 50th state gives it “economic status and connections that others don’t have.”

Facing Pacific Issues

The Pacific Islands grapple with issues that have unique impacts in the region including climate change, threats to sovereignty, security and population drain. Vares-Lum says her 5½ years spent at the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command headquarters on O‘ahu added much to her perspective on Pacific security challenges. At the East-West Center, the retired U.S. Army major general leans on her entire background to promote conversation and provide solutions for Pacific Island problems.

“Security challenges are not just your traditional geopolitical security challenges,” Vares-Lum says. “Security is food security, economic security – that is national security.”

Gillespie, who has served as a lawyer and expert for New Zealand’s international delegations, says the challenges that Pacific Islanders face are becoming increasingly difficult to manage for small island countries with limited resources.

“The world has a greater responsibility toward countries, often Pacific Island countries, which aren’t developing. They’re actually the least developed. They face challenges, whether it’s crime, security or climate change, and you’ve got to make sure the assistance and support is given to them – otherwise it’s going to be a very difficult decade ahead.”

Gillespie says the region should consider its collective identity – which he directly links to a shared history in wayfinding – to achieve common goals.

Wayfinding and wood-carving exhibits at FESTPAC, the Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture, held in Honolulu in June. | Photo: Aaron Yoshino

“It’s the Indigenous navigation of the Pacific, which I think is one of the most outstanding achievements of humanity, that should be brought to the fore. But that requires countries to start thinking beyond just, ‘What can we get,’ as opposed to ‘What can we do for the region?’ ”

He offers UNESCO World Heritage recognition as a potential next step to showcase the unified culture of the region and its long voyaging history.

Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson says the first voyage Polynesians took to Hawai‘i marks one of the last discoveries of land on Earth, which makes Hawaiian culture one of the youngest in the world. This youth, Thompson says, means Hawai‘i has much to learn from older nations and cultures.

“If you accept that the ocean separates us, but the canoe connects us … everybody in the South Pacific, you are elders to us, you are teachers to us,” he says.

A Planet That’s an Island

Waihe‘e says the knowledge of Pacific Islanders is more important than ever before because climate change and development have forced nations outside of the Pacific region to consider life with limited resources – as Pacific Islanders have always done.

“We used to have this clash between continental-thinking and island-thinking where we [islanders] depend on finite resources and the rest of the world didn’t see things that way,” Waihe‘e says. “But now we have a planet that’s an island, and the lessons that we learn on islands are becoming important to the rest of the planet. I believe the planet needs us.”

Williams, of the Pacific Islands Development Program, says it’s important to perpetuate the traditional knowledge of the Pacific as “therein lies a lot of the answers to how we’re going to be able to mitigate, adapt and move forward.”

In his FestPAC speech, Thompson spoke of the Hawaiian Renaissance and the history of shared struggle and collective liberation efforts among Pacific Islanders. He mentioned past demonstrations for Hōkūle‘a, Aotearoa and Kaho‘olawe, which had profound impacts in unifying Pacific peoples, and described FestPAC as another opportunity to make a difference.

“We can make change. That’s what the Festival of Pacific Arts is about – it’s about change.”

“I was selling my pottery for a while, and I had a lot of people ask if I teach classes. There’s a different kind of joy and fulfillment in sharing something that I’ve made with somebody, as opposed to teaching someone else how to create their own work,” says Shin.

She offers both a one-day class and a six-week course. After graduating from the six-week course, students can become members and continue making ceramics at the workshop during open-studio time.

Shin says ceramics is a wonderful way to practice mindfulness. “When you’re doing ceramics, it engages all of your senses and you have to be present. You can’t be off thinking about something else, or the clay just flies all over the place.”

The waiting stage sets ceramics apart from other art forms. After shaping the clay on the spinning wheel and glazing it, you must wait a month for your piece to completely dry before firing it in the kiln.

“Every time we unload the kiln, it’s like Christmas! And it’s nice that you have to wait because it builds that anticipation,” says Shin.

noraeceramics.com

Name: Kamaha‘o Haumea-Thronas
Job: Singer and Musician
Age: 15

Kamaha‘o Haumea-Thronas is a Hawaiian music prodigy who has already performed across the Islands. This summer marked his second year completing six weeks of shows at Keoki’s Paradise, a restaurant on his home island of Kaua‘i. Some of the teenager’s favorite numbers are the Hawaiian hula classics “Pāpālina Lahilahi” and “I Ali‘i Nō ‘Oe,” and his frequent hana hou song, “‘Ālika.”

“I always play a lot of the same songs that I first learned – to honor whoever I learned them from, whether it be my kumu hula, or my teachers from school, or even just listening to old records of Aunty Genoa Keawe or even newer albums by Nā Palapalai, who I got to play with.”

Maintaining a Legacy: “I think Hawaiian music is super important because not a lot of our people do it anymore. A lot of musicians like to take to other genres that are more popular or might make them more money. But I feel that it’s super, super important that we continue Hawaiian music because that’s what our kūpuna did.

“They put so much work into writing and singing the songs so that they could continue to our generation. … I think everybody should just learn one or two songs that can help continue Hawaiian music.”

School: The sophomore at Kamehameha Schools Kapālama on O‘ahu balances his academic pursuits with membership in the school’s Concert Glee Club and Hawaiian Ensemble. His weekdays during the school year are focused on studies, but he regularly performs on weekends.

“Everything really goes hand in hand – I think it all blends together really, really nicely.”

Photo: Used with permission from Kamehameha Schools

Respect: “I don’t think there’s really been any problem with my age because I’ve been singing mele Hawai‘i for so long. I’ve gotten a lot of respect from singers and performers who have been doing this in the industry for so many years.”

Social Media: A viral 11-second TikTok video shows him singing about a plate of Zippy’s spaghetti to the tune of “Henehene Kou ‘Aka.” In thanks, Zippy’s delivered a cake with his face on his 15th birthday in May.

“Walking around all the time, I’ll hear, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s the Zippy’s kid.’ And that just brings so much laughter and happiness, to see that just something so small can make such a big impact.”

‘Ohana Support: Haumea-Thronas says he could not have achieved his success without the wholehearted support of his family, which includes everything from purchasing equipment to driving him to gigs and gathering last-minute lei.

“It’s just super, super awesome that they support me in what I do. And they put up with all the craziness in the music industry.”

Future: “I hope to continue Hawaiian music, continue partnering with companies like Zippy’s, and all of those awesome people and different musicians. I hope to get my music out really soon and share music, really share why mele Hawai‘i is so important – sharing it on any platform I can.”

I’m totally biased on this: I think Colin Mochrie is the best improv comic ever. Episodes of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” – in which he co-stars – make me laugh so hard that I wake up the cat.

Now he has teamed with hypnotist Asad Mecci for a show they call “HYPROV: Improv Under Hypnosis” that has already played in over a hundred cities and had residencies in Las Vegas, New York and Toronto. They open their latest tour with a show at Hawaii Theatre on Oct. 10.

I’ve learned that the basic rule of improv comedy is “Yes, and …” “Yes” means you accept whatever your improv partner has done; “and” means you build onto it. In an interview with both performers, I ask Mochrie: “I can see your hypnotized audience members accepting your lead, but can you count on them to add to it?”

“I thought that was going to be the problem,” Mochire replies. “I thought, ‘They’re just going to say yes to everything,’ but they add things that are sometimes so out there. It certainly keeps me and Asad on our toes.”

Mecci gives a hilarious example of an unexpected “and.”

In one show, a hypnotized woman from the audience was told that she was madly in love with Mochrie and should propose to him, Mecci says. “This woman gets down on one knee to propose and realizes Colin has a wedding ring on his hand, and she calls him some choice names because she did not realize that he was already married.”

The amateur improvisers do not think like the professionals, so the unexpected is to be expected. In one scene, Mochrie’s a superhero looking for a sidekick. So the audience member declares himself “The Gibraltar Kid.”

“What’s your superpower?” Mochrie asks. “Are you strong like a rock? Do you turn into a rock?”

“No, I have residency in Gibraltar,” he replies.

“Your superpower is you can work in the place where you live?” Mochrie answers back, adding to me: “A real improviser wouldn’t have come up with that.”

He says when he improvises with friends and regular partners, he generally knows where they’re going in a scene, even though they’re all improvising. “I don’t have that with these people. I really have to focus on them. And it makes it more exciting because I truly have no idea where the scene is going.”

Mecci finds their performance partners by asking for up to 12 adult volunteers from the audience. Then he selects the three to five people who appear the most susceptible to hypnosis.

“I’m looking for physiological indicators,” he says, like changes in breathing and skin color, plus riveted attention, like “they’re really focused on me.”

“The best subjects are the ones able to dissociate from their surroundings and become fully immersed in the moment. For example, two people watch a horror movie. One person looks at the blood and says, ‘It looks fake.’ The other person screams and jumps in their chair. I’ll take the person who screams and jumps in their chair.”

Onstage, “These people are fully committed to the scene. It’s amazing to watch some random volunteer from the audience keep up with Colin,” Mecci says.