OUR HONOLULU

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

The annual Krauss review of the telephone book turns from the yellow pages back to the social foundation of Our Honolulu, Hawai'i's first families. They're shrinking. See for yourself when the new Verizon Hawai'i directory is delivered to your door sometime after July 1.

Would you believe that the Lees, the champion of this annual survey for uncounted years, are fading away? In 2001 the Lees took up 32 columns in the phone book. In 2002 only 30 columns of Lees appeared. The new book contains a mere 27 columns of Lees.

This is unprecedented. For decades, with minor interruptions, the Lees have steadily increased in numbers.

What's happening? Where have the Lees gone? Have they stopped getting married? Are they moving to the Mainland? Can't they afford a telephone listing anymore? Are they stuck up and refusing to be listed?

If it were just the Lees, we might consider this provocative development an insignificant aberration. But the Wongs are also thinning out. They bravely held steady at 23 1/2 columns last year, only to slide downhill by 1 1/2 columns this year. The Kims plunged by two, to 22 columns.

Among the hardest hit are the Youngs — some Chinese, some Korean, some Caucasian. They're down to 12 columns of listings this year, compared to a proud 15 in 2001. The Smiths also took a blow, from 12á columns down to 10¡ columns.

As we all know, the Lees are also multiethnic. At first, I assumed that the more mobile haole element of these families was moving to greener pastures. But look at the local-boy Chuns. They're down from 13 columns to 11fl in 2001. And the Laus, from 11 1/2 columns to 10.

Here's the lineup of the leading families in Our Honolulu for this year by how many columns they take up in the phone book: Lee, 27; Wong, 22; Kim, 15; Chang, 13-plus; Young, 12; Chun, 11fl; Smith, 10¡; Lau, 10; Ching, 9¥; Lum, nine; Johnson, nine; Nakamura, 8 1/2; Williams, 5 1/2.

The listings of names in the directory shrank 75 pages compared to last year.

In the yellow pages we find some retreat from previous levels of business activity, but it's less pronounced. Pages for restaurant listings dropped from last year's 70 to 64, and attorneys took 66 pages, compared to 69 pages last year.

But physicians held steady at 46 pages, while dentists added three pages, to 34. Automobiles increased from 41 to 43 pages. The rest of the list is virtually unchanged from last year; storage, 13; plumbers, 12; carpets and movies, 11 each; air conditioning, 10; computers and termite treatment, nine each; travel agencies, seven; roofing, six; and veterinarians, five.