Da powah of pidgin

• Island-style short stories, written with a sure and knowing hand

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

Lee Tonouchi says it took more than a year to decide what stories to include in his new book, "Da Word,"which will be in Island book stores beginning April 19. Eugene TAnner • The Honolulu Advertiser

"Oh yeah, had plenty head- butting," Tonouchi said. "Writing is the easy part; what got into the book, that was hard."

Tonouchi's "Da Word," which appears in Island bookstores starting Thursday, is a collection of 13 stories written in local-style pidgin. The stories recount the comic-disaster adventures of young men growing up in Hawai'i while they try to navigate through a standard-English-speaking world.

"It took more than a year just to decide what to include," Tonouchi said. "Basically, I wanted more prose, poetry, drama all mixed up, but the editors were more conservative. I remember thinking, 'You guys old already.'"

"Maybe it was a little bit of the old futs versus the young fut," admits Bamboo Ridge Press editor Darrell Lum, whose own collection of pidgin stories appeared more than 10 years ago. "But it's also a case of us trying to be good editors, too."

Lum said short-story collections are particularly difficult to put together; editors try to pick and choose among an author's works and create a sense of unity. Tonouchi wanted some of his drama and poetry included in "Da Word"; Lum thought that would hurt the flow of the book, and he got the final word.

"It wasn't so much the form," Lum said. "I wanted the best work from Lee Tonouchi. Sometimes we just disagreed on what was the best stuff."

Now that the book is hitting the streets, the 28-year-old Tonouchi is just happy to have it out there.

"If everybody who goes around talking pidgin would just read it, that would be awesome," he said. "If they can read the stories and relate to them, that's cool."

Tonouchi, who teaches English at Kapi'olani Community College and edits Hybolics, a journal of pidgin literature, knows pidgin remains primarily an oral tradition. "Everybody who talks pidgin can't read it; my grandmother has a hard time with my stories, 'cause her eyes not used to reading it," he said.

But his stories wouldn't work except in what he considers his native tongue. "I can't separate pidgin and the story when I'm writing. I couldn't tell these stories without using pidgin," Tonouchi said.

Whether it's looking back at a stuck-up Mainland girl in sixth grade, the best friends gone sour in high school, the college sweethearts growing apart or the young married couple worried about the changes coming with their first baby, all of the stories have an underlying sense of nostalgia and loss.

But the serious nature of the stories is always transcended by the playfulness of Tonouchi's language. "Da Word" really is about da words more than anything. You can't help being excited by the language, even when the topic is down-to-earth serious:

"Usually me and my faddahs no talk nahting," the young narrator says in the "Mayor of Lahaina." "Not that we hate each oddahs. Jus we no mo' nahting fo' say. My maddah da one get da motor mout, talking on and on to da endless power kine. My faddah sez her mout only good fo' complain, complain about how everything so expensive nowadays."

A handful of Tonouchi's stories address the pidgin-versus-standard-English debate in Hawai'i directly. But the last one in the collection, "Pijin Wawrz," raises several issues that are controversial even among pidgin speakers.

The story, a science fiction-like look into the future where pidgin has been outlawed and the ban is policed by a law-enforcement machine called Big Ben, is written entirely in Odo orthography, a still widely unaccepted and hard-to-read academic attempt to standardize written pidgin. The story is as different from the others as can be.

"De tawt hi was wan a dem. Big ben da bichreya. Hi wen ple ap hiz Loko rutz, bat hi wen put dauz hiz kalchrol heritej," the story begins. Tonouchi wrote it first in standard pidgin style, then translated himself into the Odo orthography.

"Yes, it's difficult to get through," Lum said. "But it really makes you think about the language and how it's put together."

Lum thinks readers, even those who don't speak pidgin, will be able to enjoy most of the other stories, and the language, too.

"We just want people to have fun with it," he said. "The stories raise issues about the language, and Lee's using familiar language to talk about familiar situations. You should be able to play with the language."

Despite the humor in all the stories, Tonouchi is deadly serious about keeping pidgin alive. He insists that he doesn't fashion any new pidgin words of his own; he just listens and repeats what people all over the Islands are saying every day.

As with all his characters, Tonouchi grew up speaking pidgin, which his teachers at 'Aiea High School vigilantly tried to excise from his English compositions.

It was only when he got to the University of Hawai'i and took a course with poet and Bamboo Ridge founder Erick Chock that he realized his calling in life: to be a pidgin writer and advocate.

Now, Tonouchi fashions himself "Da Pidgin Guerrilla." The book's promotional material shows him shouting from behind a chicken wire fence and says "he's one guy dedicated to promoting da powah of pidgin as one legitimate language and as one literature."

He sees the publication of "Da Word" as one more small step in a nearly century-old battle to keep pidgin alive and vibrant.

"I really wonder how many of my students grew up speaking pidgin but have such negative attitudes about it when it comes to using it in school," Tonouchi said. "For every two blows the standard English forces have, we give one back. It's just a back-and-forth kind of thing. Right now, we're just happy the pendulum keeps swinging."

Events

Readings and other upcoming events with Lee Tonouchi, author of "Da Word":

• Thursday, 7:30 p.m.: Reception and book reading, University of Hawai'i Campus Center Ballroom
• Friday, Noon: Q&A session, noon UH-Manoa bookstore
• Friday, 7 p.m.: Reading, Borders Books, Ward Centre
• May 4, 8 p.m.: Reading, Barnes & Noble, Kahala Mall
• May 5, Noon: Writing workshop with Tonouchi, Lisa Kanae, Jason Minami, Michael Puleloa, Normie Salvador, Carrie Takahata and Catherine Toth, Borders, Waikele
• May 6, Noon: Writing workshop with Tonouchi, Native Books and Beautiful Things, Ward Warehouse
• May 9, 6:30 p.m.: "Pidgin Wars," performance and talk story with Tonouchi and James Grant Benton, Mo'ili'ili Blind Fish Tank
• May 18, 7 p.m.: Reading, Volcano Arts Center, Volcano, Hawai'i
• May 20, 2 p.m.: Reading, Borders Books, Hilo