HAWAIIAN STYLE
What says 'Hawai'i' to the world?

By Wade Kilohana Shirkey
Advertiser Staff Writer

Ahhhh, authentic Hawai'i! — A koi-filled bubbling brook, meandering through the impatiens and bougainvillaea of hotel landscaping, strains of "Wicky Wacky Woo Hula" enticing "lu'au" guests supping on chicken long rice, lobster claws and mai tais.

Question: when is something Hawaiian not Hawaiian?

The Hawai'i Visitors & Convention Center's annual "Keep It Hawai'i" recognition program has been trying to answer that question for 11 years — and, with some 70 diverse judges each year, it's a wonder anyone can come to a consensus about what says "authentic Hawai'i" to the world.

Still, a common denominator seems to emerge during the judging each year in the Keep It Hawai'i effort to perpetuate Island culture and its appreciation.

The judging has unexpectedly become a benchmark for those trying to answer the question. This year's judges gathered recently after the program to talk about the process.

The original intent of "Keep It Hawai'i" came from a simple precept, said program founder Martin Schiller, president of The Schiller Agency Ltd. "It is important for the hospitality industry" — the hotels, shows, eateries and tourist attractions — "to go back to the culture and perpetuate it. Let's not lose it. Let it help us." Like dye in water, he felt, this emphasis on authenticity would spread.

"You can show pictures of Diamond Head," said judge Phoebe Beach, an Outrigger Hotels executive, "and in any language, they know it's Hawai'i. Of that component comes: 'If we don't water and nurture (the culture), it will die.' "

"I went to Guam," said Beach, the widow of "Don the Beachcomber," "and wanted to bring something authentic back home."

But there was nothing there, she said, except for silly T-shirts, day-glow coral and tourist trinkets.

How each judge comes to what conveys the Hawai'i feeling is easy for judge Kanoa "Tootsie" Cazimero. The answer is written into the very culture, she believes. From Hawaiian scholar mary Kawena Pukui's 'Olelo No'eau (Wise Sayings), she quotes: "Nana I Ke Kumu, Look to the Source."

"We look at Hawai'i not only as Hawaiians, but as a wonderfully diverse group of people. We need to call on those who are knowledgeable," Cazimero said, not ruling out people other than Native Hawaiian or kama'aina.

Without such programs, "our history" cannot be recovered and preserved," Cazimero said, and thus "we're putting it all out there, so people can learn."

Deciding which of the visitor industry programs and projects convey the feeling of Hawai'i isn't always a no-brainer. Program judge Arna Johnson, a photographer, appreciates the intricacy of the task.

She recalls one year's entry — the glitzy, $10 million high-tech Maui cultural production of "'Ulalena." The judging panel comprised three Hawaiian and three haole — "split right down the middle," racially and ideologically, said Johnson.

Perhaps surprisingly, she said, it was the "non-Hawaiians" who dismissed the avant-garde "Las Vegas-type" production for its "ritz and glitz," strobe lights, Spandex and unconventionality.

The Hawaiian judges saw right past all that. The show was a good way of getting the cultural message across, she said.

Cazimero agreed: "They were caught up in the form, not content. I cried when I saw ' 'Ulalena.' "

Cazimero said there is one delightful result of judging each year's entries. of any outside influence that threatens to leave its mark on authentic Hawaiian culture — as has been the case with everything from 'ukulele to paniolo to slack key — "Hawaiians can take anything from the outside, and make it (distinctively) their own," she said.

The end has become the means: The contest is, for many, now the standard by which "cultural authenticity" is judged, said Schiller.

"I think there's a message here," said a representative of a large popular local attraction who failed to win an award one year. "We have to reassess."

They used "Keep It Hawai'i" contest criteria as their guide.

So while the concept of what says Hawai'i is as wide and individual as the community at large, "Keep It Hawai'i" has become its watchful vanguard — and therefore, said event organizer Lynn Cook, "in and of itself a source."