Tales from the Crypt: Stories from a different time, a different culture

Here is where I explain yet another difference of growing up in a mostly-Asian country (translation: Hawaii). Yes, I do know that we are the 50th state, and not an independent nation.

But we are not American, in your "typical" sense. Unless you consider 5'2 average height, and spam a nationally loved food. Seriously. And before you think I am slamming Spam, let me just tell you that I LOVE it. Before I left for college, I had never eaten a fillet mignon, but I had digested spam on a weekly basis. And I wouldn't have traded it.

So. Take what you know about Japan and Gwen Stefani and the Harajuku girls. Got it? Okay. Make it more casual--less platform heels and more flip-flops. But keep the mid-riff, tight shirts. Oh, and add a tan. Now, set that image to any song in the Billboard Top 40. Bonus points, if the song you selected was a ballad.

Hawaiians love ballads. And before you think I am ripping on Hawaii's musical tastes, I might add that songs by Expose, the Covergirls and Atlantic Starr were among my FAVORITES in high school. When I hear them on the radio now, I still know every word. And this greatly amazes my husband who has never heard of ANY of these groups.

Okay. Then you take the English language, insert a few Japanese words, potentially some Chinese for good measure, and give it an odd, slang twist. "Mainlander" Americans won't be able to understand it. And neither will Asians from Asia. So, it's like a foreign language to the entire world. We call it Pidgeon. Yes, like the bird.

Aside from the whole spam debate (mainlanders think it's gross, Hawaiians think it's da bomb), another common, yet less discussed, difference is SAIMIN. Or what the upper 49 refer to as Ramen noodles. The cheap food of starving artists.

I grew up on this stuff! There are restaurants back home that have MULTIPLE versions of saimin on the menu! I ate it with the same frequency as spam. Most times spam comes in it--I probably just blew your mind with the cheapest, grossest food stereo-type.

And then, while grocery shopping on Monday, I came across the Ramen noodle section. I remembered it fondly, like airbrushed t-shirts, and then a little something caught my eye...

17 cents.

That would be the price tag. One of these packages, 17 cents. Which means, I fed three of my four children today for a combined total of 34 cents.

And then I was instantly sad that it's taken this long to give them a taste of their faux-Japanese roots. And I say faux, because while Hawaii aint typically American, it also isn't traditionally Asian. It's sort of it's own, bizarre hybrid. Potentially, it's what you get when you bake Asia at about 85 degrees for thousands of years?

I'm pretty sure that by the time I was Big J & L's age, I had mastered chopsticks. I don't ever remember NOT being able to use them, proficiently, I might add. What a disservice I have done to my children and their cultural identity. Not to mention their fine motor abilities.

I mean, really. Doesn't this child look like the poster child for chopsticks? How can a child seem so Asian and yet be so different?

The questions that boggle the mind, I tell you.

**Edit: If you have not heard of The Covergirls, Expose or Atlantic Starr, I am deeply sorry for you, but it is not too late. Search them on itunes. You won't be sorry. And you will understand me, just a little bit more.***