By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Staff Writer
Somebody oughta write a book. Or at least a pamphlet. Or show an educational video like at Hanauma Bay.
The rules of etiquette for local parties.
Because if you don’t know, the gaffes are almost unforgivable.
A few years back, I was invited to a co-worker’s house-warming party. She and her husband had been in Hawai‘i for about a month. Nobody told them. They didn’t know.
All she had was a small bowl of M&Ms plain, a smaller bowl of M&Ms peanut, one bag of chips and clam dip (from a can). It was even BYOB. The rest of us assumed local party rules were in place. One guy brought mac salad, I brought poke and someone else bought sheet cake. So that was it. No meat, no rice, no salad. Just M&Ms, chips, mac salad, poke and cake. Needless to say, the evening ended early (and we all met up at Zippy’s after we left her house.)
There should be a brochure. People should have access to this information.
Like the thing about saying goodbye. The rules of conduct at local parties dictate that the first round of goodbyes doesn’t mean anybody is leaving any time soon. It’s simply a warm-up goodbye, to be followed by 20 minutes of completely unrelated conversation. After that, there is a second "Well, we really should be going," followed by another 20 minutes of talk story. In family parties, this could go on three, four, even five times. You know it’s the final goodbye if the host tells you, "Make plate! Make plate!"
And of course, if you’re told to make plate, you have no choice but to make plate. You can try to fight it, try to sneak out the side with just your (freshly washed) Tupperware in your hands, but it never works. They catch you. They make a plate for you. They’ll follow you out to your car with that foil-covered Chinet loaded with all manner of food piled together, rice next to Jell-O, pineapple next to mac salad, a little bit of noodle hanging out the side.
On the other hand, there should also be a published guide for local people who have never been to Mainland-style parties. Like the thing about bringing food. In Hawai‘i, when your host tells you, "No need bring notting!" you bring stuff anyway. (This Thanksgiving, I had a friend who came late, left early, didn’t eat but brought a haupia cake and a lilikoi chiffon pie).
Mainland-style, if they tell you not to bring anything and you still bring something, it can be seen as an insult to the hosts, as if you didn’t trust them to have enough food to go around.
The other big difference: Mainland-style, sometimes a party doesn’t mean dinner. (Unreal, yeah?) I learned this the hard way. I tried to make plate at the wrong party and only had M&Ms plain and peanut and potato chips. Nobody told me. I didn’t know.
Lee Cataluna’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Her e-mail address is lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com
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