Shoppers crave Shirokiya's cultural fix

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Staff Writer

From Loreto Mina broiling cuttlefish, to Hideto Akita steaming fishcake, to Alex Shu delighting customers with impassioned words about jade, it was business as usual at Ala Moana's Shirokiya yesterday — a day after the Island institution was saved from the threat of closure.

From left, Matthew Yasuoka, 8, his grandmother, Beatrice Yasuoka, her daughter Joni Fujii and Joniâs daughter Jazmyn check out the samurai dolls at the Ala Moana Shirokiya. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

"I feel very comfortable. I like the food, Oriental-type stuff. And the bakery. I love the bakery. Wheat germ bread I buy every two weeks."

For four decades, Shirokiya at Ala Moana has been a slice of Japan in the middle of Honolulu, a mecca for those pursuing kimonos and cuttlefish, kokeshi dolls and Sony TVs.

Japan-based Tokyu Department Store Co. announced late Thursday that it would close the Maui store at the end of May, but had sold the flagship Ala Moana Shirokiya to a group of former and present managers.

As the community heaved a collective sigh of relief that the Ala Moana cultural icon would not be lost to economic uncertainty, shoppers swarmed the place that has been a friend for 42 years.

Japanese-American daughters brought their elderly mothers to lunch, bending over a shared $7 bento with dual working chopsticks. Painters from across the way trekked through for plate a lunch. A tourist from New York delighted in the calligraphy brush and noren curtains she found, having been unable to locate them in the Big Apple. One little boy gazed longingly at the samurai dolls on extravagant display, inviting the wise to shop now for Boy's Day.

"I come in quite often, just to get in contact with my culture," said Beatrice Yasuoka, who found her new granddaughter Jazmyn's first Girl's Day doll there a few weeks ago. "My mother has passed on, and since she did there's no one to turn to, so we come here to get our Japanese inspiration. I've never visited Japan, so I come here. I'm glad they're going to stay."

Upstairs, a promotion for products from Hiroshima Prefecture was in full swing, with specialties set out on long colorful tables. Banners swung, people chattered, fish fried.

Rena Narita, a young interpreter who has been in Hawai'i a year, hurried past with a basket of citrus-seasoned soy sauce, amazake (a sweet rice sake), and takoyaki (baked octopus). "For snacks," she said with a broad smile. "Just put it in the microwave."

And asked about another package of large round things, Narita studies the kanji on the package.

"Baked big stuff," she translates.

Irene Chang nibbled crunchy green peas while searching out spicy nuts, and David Sagucio scored freshly cooked butterfish with miso for lunch. "My wife loves this store," sighed Sagucio. "For the albums and little-kine things from Japan." His best Christmas present was the year she bought him a video camera from Shirokiya. "Not bad if you catch one sale," he said.

Over at the fishcake counter, Patamas Limpisvasti is waiting for her package of orange fishcake. "I've never seen that," she said. "I come here every week, mostly for fish, because it's so healthy, and green tea, and sake. This has the best choices for sake.

"And dry persimmons. After Christmas, they send from Japan."

For many in Hawai'i, Shirokiya became familiar in childhood. Ruth Shiroma remembers taking the bus all the way from Wai'anae to Ala Moana to come to Shirokiya for the "Hello Kitty" delights she still loves. Nowadays, it's her parents who drive all the way from the Leeward Coast to meet her at Shirokiya for lunch. If it wasn't for those lunches, they might not see each other quite so often, she said.

"My mom's from Okinawa, and she likes the contact with Shirokiya," said Shiroma. "And she's a health food nut, and she likes the way they prepare things."

Past the bentos and the packages of mochi, past the rice sprinkled with furikaki, past the strawberry chocolates and the coconut jellies, 87-year-old Richard Kawanaka is moving slowly, but he's found some new rice cakes to try. "I come here a lot, but I don't know what to buy because I cannot see so good anymore," he said.

Since it opened in 1959, Kawanaka has been in Shirokiya almost every week. In his younger days, he liked the electronics. But always, always he has had lunch here, day after day eating his favorite butterfish. "Good for the health," he said.

George Kamapele isn't much different. A couple of times a week, the taxi company operator finds his way upstairs for lunch and then down to the Shu family's jewelry counter where he picks through the carved jade his girlfriend loves. "I check it out and give her the smoke signal and she comes running," he chuckled as Shu explained why the flecks in the amber are not the "rubbish" another shopper thinks.

"You WANT the rubbish," Shu said. "It's PREHISTORIC rubbish."

When Ala Moana was first built, Kamapele's father was on the crew that dredged the coral reef to make it possible. As a 4-year-old, he would come in with his mom to pick up his dad from work. Some of his earliest memories are of Shirokiya.

"I'm glad they're keeping it here," he said. "This is big but it's considered a mom-and-pop store. And it's part of Ala Moana. Liberty House. Shirokiya. Sears. Longs. Just to know it's here, it's a nice feeling."