A Maui kind of mix

By Wanda A. Adams
Assistant Features Editor

Genny Chang of Hana, whose family has sold flowers at the Maui Swap Meet for 20 years, prepares tropical bouquets that are sold for $5. Photos by Christie Wilson • The Honolulu Advertiser

Clothes: New clothes with Hawai'i motifs are popular with tourists. Second-hand or "garage-sale" clothes also pepper the swap meet.

Crafts: Colorful slices of made-on Maui glycerin soaps with loofa sponge are sold by Melody Crosby.

Produce: Nancy Shishido sells sweet Kula corn, as well as radishes, lettuce and green beans.

Maui Swap Meet On sale: produce, crafts, fund-raising products, services (psychic readings, massages), used books, fishing equipment (sometimes) and more 7 a.m. to noon Saturdays Pu'unene Avenue between Kamehameha and Wakea streets in Kahalui, next to Kahului Post Office (808) 877-3100

"They tell me you couldn't create this mix if you tried," said founder Wil Wong. Even he can't define it, though vendors and customers each have their own take.

Tropical fruit grower Woody Goble of Kula calls it "the Saturday party."

Artist Suzanne Stark describes it as "so Maui."

Herb gardener Robert Angelo of Sacred Gardens in Waikapu considers it "my social day."

For 26-year-old newlywed A'ala Tompkins, it's "like going back in time. My grandma told me about how the farmers used to come up Vineyard Street (in Wailuku) with their fruits and vegetables in a cart or a basket and you bought everything fresh. This is like that. You can talk to the person who grew the lettuce or whatever."

Talking does seem to be a common thread. Yes, the swap meet is about commerce. But sometimes, said Wong, "sales just isn't the point." Goble, who has maintained a booth at the swap meet pretty much every Saturday morning of its existence — not quite 20 years — said he sees regulars every week who walk the makeshift aisles and never seem to buy a thing.

"They just come for the talk-story, I guess."

Some years ago, when the meet was in hiatus for a short period after losing its former home at the Maui County Fairgrounds, Goble recalls people stopping to see him selling flowers out of his van alongside Beach Road in Kahului. "They'd be asking, 'Where is it? Is it coming back? We have nothing to do!' "

Re-established on an empty lot on Pu'unene Avenue, with a gravel parking lot and a grassy fenced selling area that meanders around and under a grove of ironwood trees, today's swap meet is its own creation.

"It's what people want it to be," said Wong.

The Saturday-only marketplace has nearly equal numbers of vendors in three categories: farmers, crafters and everything else, from benefit cookie sales to knives and fishing equipment, massage and psychic services to used books and beaded purses — not to mention a fair amount of trash that might be someone else's treasure.

It means a mix of locals and tourists who co-exist happily: visitors ordering protea to be sent home, locals picking up tuberose for an auntie's grave; visitors buying up the Hawaiian Christmas ornaments, locals wiping out the displays of banana lumpia and macapuno (coconut sport) tarts.

And it means keeping prices low: The entrance fee is 50 cents; the 300 booth spaces (tents and tables provided by the vendor) cost $25, with the exception of a few prime corner spots; $5 more allows you to reserve in advance. Parking is free in front of the meet or a short way down the road in another empty lot.

Wong has tried to steer the market, without much luck — later hours, a Sunday opening, no entry before 7 a.m. But "I just can't get people out of their habits," he said. Vendors start setting up as early as 4:30 a.m., and customers show up as early as 6, though the gates don't open officially until an hour later.

Sometimes, 30-something baker Anacel Hidalgo of OhGoodies! pastries has customers thrusting money at her before she begins to empty her vehicle of nondairy pumpkin bars and blackberry Danish. Serious shoppers are in and out by 9 a.m., making room in the parking lot for neighbors who sleep in and tourists who increasingly find the swap meet listed in guidebooks as a "must visit."

At this market, a tropical-fruit grower has time to explain what a mangosteen is, or offer a free sample of a new fruit variety. For many residents, it is an alternative to Mainland imports and grocery store prices.

Valerie Duz, 51, who rises at 5:30 a.m. every Saturday to get to the swap meet from her home in Lahaina, has studied the landscape as carefully as a car buyer checking out the Consumer Reports. She knows which farmers harvest for the event and which are produce they purchased. She favors a flower seller who comes each week from Hana, and gets in early to buy Robert Angelo's sought-after homemade pesto made with toasted pine nuts and sheep's milk romano cheese.

The prices are great, she says. But even better is the chance to see, or make, friends. "I work two jobs, and this is my getting-out time."

For crafters and farmers, the swap meet is a test market. At one booth, farmer Ed Sato of Sato Farm, known for his Kula-grown sweet corn and fresh strawberries, is offering samples of a golden lilikoi that's incredibly sweet. "Too sweet for me, but we'll see what the people think," he said.

Elsewhere, a woman who makes ornaments and gift items said the swap meet is known as a place to try out new designs before marketing them to regular wholesale customers. Sometimes, too, crafters sell seconds or slightly irregular pieces at discount prices.

Nancy Shishido's grandchildren have grown up at the swap meet. Asked how long she'd been harvesting vegetables from her son Jamie's oma'opio farm to sell, Shishido turns to her husband. "How old is Cory?" she asks of her grandson. "We used to bring the playpen and the stroller. Now he's going to college in September."

There's no secret to her apple-size radishes and bouquet-size lettuce. "It's just hard work," said Nancy.

Christina Adams, 26 a regular customer of Shishido's, said she shops the market because it's the next best thing to organically grown, even if it isn't advertised as such. "And it's so much more friendly than the supermarket."

Artist Suzanne Stark usually sells her pots and paintings under the banyan tree in Lahaina, but she loves the convenience of the swap meet.

In the rear section of the swap meet, old uncles sit on the tailgates of their trucks and play guitar or fiddle with woodworking projects, paying scant attention to the miscellaneous items they've brought for sale, much of it the kind of guy-junk that clutters up many a garage. Buyers finger engine parts, military memorabilia and used tools, but mostly they just walk on.

"Ne' mind sell stuff," says Kawika Adams, 55, who is talking with a friend with a spread of well-used items before him. "He jus' comes fo' see people like me, passin' by, talk story. You stay long enough, you see everybody you know from dis side of da island."