HAWAIIAN STYLE
Childhood memories, pride in roots help revive Korean Mother's Day
Karen Sawai wants to see the day when the word Aumoni-nal joins the local lexicon of cultural holidays: Hanamatsuri, O-Bon, Ching Ming, Boys Day, Makahiki, St. Patrick's — even Malassada Day, Shrove Tuesday.
Aumoni-nal: Aumoni — mother; nal — day.
Mother's Day, Korean style.
Often celebrated in the modern sense as Parent's Day, during Sawai's childhood it was quite the big occasion in South Korea.
"Much bigger than it is here — the way we make a big deal of Valentine's Day," explained Aloha Airlines vice president and freelance writer Alvin Koo, 59.
Sawai remembers yearning for the traditional observance when she first arrived in Hawai'i from her homeland 31 years ago. It wasn't until her kids grew up — and, spurred on by last year's celebration of the 100th anniversary of arrival of the first Korean immigrants in America — that Sawai's creative juices and inspiration started to flow.
Wouldn't it be nice, she daydreamed, if an ever-increasing Korean population could be honored the way the mothers remembered.
The Korean Mother's Day, said Sawai, director of Myong Woo Dahn school of traditional Korean dance, is one of flowers, dance and song — and, Hawaiian style, of "giving back."
In Korea, carnations — not roses — are the traditional flower to honor mom, said Sawai. But nowadays, "any kind of flower" will do.
Mom is wined and dined and entertained. And recently, said Sawai, it's customary to go to nursing homes to perform for the elders — much as hula halau go visiting to provide Mother's Day programs.
In March, Sawai called for volunteers willing to entertain at care homes here.
It was a small start: joining her dance group was the Korean Senior Citizen College for pre-Mother's Day festivities this week at two facilities: Liliha Health Care Center and Korean Care Home.
There, in colorful Korean apparel such as hanbok, the Korean version of the kimono, the honored moms were treated to renditions of the traditional Korean song about the little willow tree by the stream, and the rhythmic cadence of the traditional Korean chang-go drum.
Keeping with tradition, Sawai had painstakingly fashioned more than 100 little carnation bouquets for the honored moms.
Next year, Sawai would like to see the traditional Korean Mother's Day observance branch out to more hospitals, nursing homes and healthcare centers.
Carolyn Ancheta, marketing director of Cold Stone Creamery, donated ice cream this year. The company saw support of this new cultural event fulfilling another Hawaiian tradition: that of kokua.
Wade Kilohana Shirkey is kumu of Na Hoaloha Roselani No'eau halau. He writes on Island life.
