Fifteen Years in America Chapter Two - The Professor of Duke’s Lane (Part 1)

This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. If you have missed the previous posts they are here:
Fifteen Years in America — An Introduction
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (Part 1)
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (Part 2)
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (Part 3)
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (End)
Enjoy!

After we moved to Popo’s house, I sent my daughter to the nearby Queen Liliuokalani Elementary for school. I walked into a Chinese restaurant because I have often heard in China that Chinese students worked in restaurants. Even if my English were poor I could still wash dishes and earn a bit of money for tuition.

When I walked into the restaurant I met a Chinese host. I asked him if they needed people to help with the dishwashing. He sized me up from head to toe and knew that I was probably a student from mainland China. He said that they did not need anyone at the moment, and if I were a student I would need a work permit from the school. I was disappointed and wallowed a bit at home. I thought to myself even though our family is reunited, I did not have a job or money for school. In fact, it is hard for me to get any job at all. What should I do?

Helen has a friend who works as a saleswoman at the world renowned International Marketplace in Waikiki. She suggested that I try my luck there. So on the third day of arriving in Hawaii, I took the bus to Waikiki. Waikiki means “spouting water”, and indicates that the rivers and waterfalls flow into the ocean. It is an extremely popular white sand beach that is more than one mile long. Along the beach there are many expensive hotels such as Hilton,Sheraton, and Hyatt.

Waikiki is also surrounded by a forest of restaurants and shops. In the center of it all there is a massive attraction called the International Marketplace. This place has many small shops where tourists can buy souvenirs. Additionally there is a food court where people can taste foods from all around the world. In this marketplace there is a small lane that is approximately 150 meters, and it is known as “Duke’s Lane”. On both sides of the lane there are small shops that sold souvenirs. These souvenirs included gold and silver jewelry, crystal, wood carvings, and other random knick knacks associated with Hawaii. For example, there are little toy hula girls. Additionally there are shops that sell exclusively T-shirts or beach towels. Basically it is a market full of small time entrepreneurs.

Because Duke’s Lane is directly in the path from several large hotels to the beach, the business from tourists is usually red hot. In this lane most of the shop owners are Korean. Korean women are very diligent and outgoing and many of them spoke Japanese because Japan occupied them for a fairly long time. Besides Korean people, about 1/5 of the store owners were Chinese. Most of them were Vietnamese Chinese or Taiwanese with the exception of one mainland Chinese man who came to Hawaii in the early 80s as an international student.

I stepped off the bus and walked into this narrow lane. The Koreans on both sides thought that I was Japanese and started hollering in Japanese.

“Misetekudasai. Ima, 非常 yasui!” (Please take a look, right now it’s very cheap!) (Note: My dad wrote the Japanese part phonetically in Chinese. He took Japanese for a while in China so he understood these saleswomen. I only took Japanese for a year so I’m not sure if I transliterated it back correctly. Please correct us if you could. This is the original Chinese transliteration of the Japanese my dad wrote “米晒带,库达撒以. 以码,一持旁压始以!”)

“Umiyagi takusan arimasu” (There are a lot of souvenirs!)

These Korean girls would yell as they pulled you towards their stores. At that time I did not have the heart or money to buy any travel souvenirs. Even though I understood them I pretended that I didn’t, and kept on walking as I shook my head. A Korean girl still wanted me to go to her store, and I suddenly said in Chinese, “I don’t want to!” Now they knew that I was not a rich Japanese tourist, and stopped their yelling. That was in the early 90s, but now things have changed. Recently I heard from friends in Hawaii that now many Chinese people are spending fists full of money in Hawaii. Now I think perhaps these Korean women are learning Chinese.

To be continued!

Share This

Related Posts