Timeless tales will rise from Red Dirt

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

California storyteller Patrick Ball says storytelling is a way of socializing in some cultures.

Local storyteller Nyla Ching Fujii says Hawai'i folks don't always find humor in ghost stories.

Etiquette for listening to a storyteller "At a national storytelling festival in Jonesborough, Tenn., there were 20 tellers, and each had a different audience response," visiting expert Patrick Ball said. "Some (audience members) hoot and holler; others listen quietly. I think people should act as naturally as possible — wired to sit and listen to some stories ... or laugh and cheer, depending on the way things are going." "Storytelling is an art form that teaches our children how to listen — really listen," said Nyla Ching Fujii, resident expert. "You listen and create pictures in your mind from words. And you can laugh (and show approval, with applause), just like in theater, or be passive — but often, a storyteller wants you to participate." Go with the flow, in other words.

So say two storytelling veterans, one visiting, one local.

"I would say a good story has suspense — and surprise," said Patrick Ball, a native Californian with Irish roots. "It doesn't have to be particularly dramatic, but people have to wonder what will happen in the end. And a good tale can be found in different cultures."

"Stories that tie us together and show how we are united — our similarities and not our differences — are really good," said Nyla Ching Fujii, of Hawai'i. "But stories have a lifespan of their own. Those that are meant to live, live; those that are meant to die, die. But it's interesting how they resurrect, because of the human condition.

"I once told my mother's story about my grandmother being a picture bride, coming to Hawai'i, being deloused by the port authority, then marrying a man 20 years older," said Fujii. "Syd Lieberman, a European Jewish man and a big-time storyteller, talked to me after a Mainland appearance, and told me about his grandmother, who was deloused at Ellis Island, and married his grandfather, who was 20 years older. People and places were different, but the human condition was the same."

Ball and Fujii are among those who'll share stories — family memoirs, small-kid-time remembrances, even obake, or ghost, tales — in the Hawaii United Okinawa Association's first Red Dirt Storytelling Festival, tonight and Saturday in the heart of red dirt territory: the Hawaii Okinawa Center in Waipio Gentry, an area that once was home to sugar cane fields.

"We want to bring back a sense of community, a sense of sharing, a sense of elders who have a longtime history of all our ethnic stories," said Fujii, a retired librarian and storyteller for about four decades. Think, she said, of back-porch tales or over-the-dinner-table patter that once were terrific community-building sessions tapping young and old alike.

"Today, we all eat while watching TV," she said. "In the old days, we used meal time to talk story."

Ball, who was born and raised in California but found his Celtic roots in Ireland after living and working amid the denizens of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, said he was captivated by residents of the Appalachians who shared tales and music of the region.

"People used words in a poetic, visual way to communicate. I was so taken, I had to go to Ireland, because that's where my heritage is. That's where I also encountered the Celtic harp and my passion for storytelling."

Both experts said anyone can become a storyteller.

"Sometimes it's not even so much as a matter of personal skill as much it is the culture from where the teller is from," said Ball. "I just came back from Alabama, where people are a lot more natural storytellers than from California, where I live; it's ingrained in their families, and in a greater sense, their heritage. So stories become an extension of their social lives — the way I imagine it is in the Islands."

Place, indeed, colors and affects a story and its teller. "Because of our heavily multi-ethnic composition here, as the late Glen Grant (the ghost-story teller) has said, our belief in the supernatural is thinner than on the Mainland," said Fujii. "We love our obake stories; we don't necessarily find laughs or humor in our ghosts; there are superstitions — and we believe."

Ball has been in the Islands for more than two weeks; he gave solo shows last week on the Neighbor Islands and Sacred Hearts Academy. In the touring appearances, his tales were longer, with more intricate plot developments and details, to keep the listener glued for an hour.

At the Red Dirt festival, he'll do shorter bits from his repertoire of about 50 tales, using his antique Celtic harp, composed of brass strings, to augment his spoken words.

Fujii, who knows at least 300 stories ("but don't ask me to tell all at the same time"), said she is excited that Goro Arakawa, part of a famous Waipahu family (of Arakawa's, the now-gone family department store), has been nudged to become a tale-teller during this festival, though a key Arakawa story will be performed by actor Dann Seki.

"That's the beauty of storytelling — a giving process, sometimes celebrating the folklore, but often bringing back a sense of community," said Fujii. "Underneath all the cultural differences, we find that we are all the same."

Reach Wayne Harada at 525-8067, wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com or fax 525-8055.

RED DIRT STORYTELLING FESTIVAL

A showcase of oral histories and other stories, presented by the Hawaii United Okinawa Association

TODAY:

• 6:30-7:30 p.m. — "Tales Under a Tent," with Janice Terukina and Eric Mita, and Walter Cravalho (on Hawaiian slack-key guitar). Free.
• 8-10 p.m. — "Obake Tales," with Patrick Ball, Karen Yamamoto Hackler, Woody Fern, Dann Seki, Nyla Ching Fujii and James McCarthy.

SATURDAY:

• 10:30-11:30 a.m. — "Tales for the Entire Family," with Nyla Ching Fujii, James McCarthy, Karen Yamamoto Hackler and Jeff Babb.
• 7-9 p.m. — "Tales From Island Cultures," with Patrick Ball and others; plus Goro Arakawa, longtime Waipahu resident (of the Arakawa's plantation-store family), sharing tales of growing up in a sugar plantation community.

Hawaii Okinawa Center, Waipio Gentry

$5 general, $3 children 12 and under for single performances; $13 general and $6 children for weekend pass; on sale at Hawaii Okinawa Center

676-5400