Business blooming on Lei Day
By Wade Kilohana Shirkey
Advertiser Staff Writer
The lei shop near Maunakea and King streets will be bustling today, May Day, as Cindy Lau and daughter Karen Lee open Cindy's Lei and Flower Shoppe to a faithful clientele.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
One of the oldest lei shops in Honolulu, Cindy's has always been a family affair. The shop was started by her husband's parents, and Cindy has been behind the counter most days since 1958, seven years after arriving from China.
Cindy Lau, left, and daughter Karen Lee operate Cindy's Lei and Flower Shoppe in Chinatown. Lee, who worked at the shop as a kid, has been in the lei business permanently since 1983.
Cindy is not even her real name.
A beautician found her Chinese name, Sun Choy Chan, too hard to pronounce and and dubbed her Cindy, requesting that she go home to tell her husband, Raymond, about the name change. Raymond liked it, and Cindy's name has become something of a legend in Chinatown, where the shop is located.
"(Now) everyone knows the name," said Karen.
Karen joined in on the business as a kid, working at the lei shop with its familiar green awning. Following Punahou graduation and a venture to California for college and work, she came back to the lei stand business permanently in 1983.
The city's annual Lei Day celebration will be held today from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Kapi'olani Park. The festivities begin with the adult lei contest from 7:30 to 9 a.m., followed by the children's lei contest that begins at 3:30 p.m. Other events scheduled for the Kapi'olani Park Bandstand are: Ho'olaulea, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Royal Hawaiian Band concert, 10 to 10:45 a.m. Lei queen and court presentation, 11 a.m. to noon. Lei exhibit open for public viewing, 12:30 to 6 p.m. Campbell High School performance, noon to 1 p.m. Okinawa Minyo performance, 1 to 1:45 p.m. Paranku Club of Hawaii, 2 to 2:25 p.m. Heels 'n Harmony, 2:30 to 3 p.m. Miyazono Minyo Buyo Kai, 3 to 3:45 p.m. Halau Hula 'O Hokulani, 4 to 5 p.m.
Duties at the shop came before any outside life for the five Lau children. Today, all but the youngest, a pharmacist, pulls either full- or part-time stints at the shop.
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Lei Day events
"There was no 'after-school' for us," Karen remembers. "I was always working. I knew nothing else. There was no playing hooky — you didn't escape my dad. You helped mom, you did your share. It was 'no talk, just do the work.' And no cutting out on weekends."
Looking back, Karen said, the experience was good: "I am who I am because of my dad and mom, and I'm very proud of that."
Today, Cindy still joins Karen seven days a week in the Chinatown operation.
"This is her life," Karen said.
Over the years, one constant has been the fragrant repetition of lei-stringing. There has also been change: Business has increased, and the number of lei-giving occasions has multiplied.
People now buy lei for a variety of occasions, including retirement, wedding and baby showers, and yakudoshi, in addition to the generations-old tradition of providing lei for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, funerals and Lei Day.
The most unusual recipient of a Cindy's lei so far, Karen said, has been the fossilized Sue, a Tyrannosaurus rex reproduction on display at the Bishop Museum.
In recent years, Secretary's Day has beaten May Day for the buying and wearing of lei, Cindy said.
Lei themselves are somewhat different now, too, although the process of creating them is still very familiar.
Lei in the '50s were simple by today's standards, the pair said: mostly kui, or strung, lei of carnation, ginger, maile, orchid, pikake and plumeria.
Now, Karen said, "people have to put way more thought" into selecting a lei, with more "sophisticated" designs such as Micronesian ginger, the Christina, rope firecracker, 'ñla'a Beauty and kukunaokala available.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
"There's a sassiness to lei-giving now," said Karen, "but still that genuine gesture of giving."
Gov. Ben Cayetano last month signed a bill that made May 1 the official "Lei Day."
The pair oversees the artistic creation of most garlands, though some of the shop's elaborate lei are sewn or braided by others. For distinctive lei associated with their original designers, such as the Christina, they order from the source — refusing to steal the ideas of others.
"There's that integrity," said Karen. "Mom says each hand is different."
Neither woman wears lei regularly. Cindy makes an exception when traveling, when she relishes sharing her floral creations with admirers.
And, as usual, the pair expects to be lei-less on Lei Day.
"We're way too busy," Lee said.
