Yesterday I tried out Segment 2 of Hawaii’s Skyline rail system to go to an Okinawan restaurant.
Substack told me my post about yesterday was “too long”.
So I couldn’t include this photo I took at the restaurant shortly before I left:
That will be the prettiest thing you’ll see here. Consider yourself warned.
Today I took Segment 2 again to check out three of its newly opened stations.
I took TheBus (capitalized without a space) to the closest Skyline station. This message was across from where I was sitting.
Seventeen of Hawaii’s 130+ languages are represented. Mandarin appears twice: once in traditional characters and once in simplified characters. The differences between the two messages are not limited to spelling: e.g., the traditional one has 巴士 for ‘bus’ while the simplified one has a different word (not just a differnet spelling) for ‘bus’: 公車. In fact, the first and third lines of the two Mandarin messsages differ, though they convdey the same message in different wording. It is as if a Mandarin message were rendered independently by a British English and an American English translator - but in reverse.
To the left of that message was this:
And above where I was sitting …
Fear of the dethplague is part of our ‘culture’ now. Perhaps forever - unlike Aloha Stadium, which should be demolished soon:
That stadium looks a lot better than it actually is. It’s been closed since 2020. It was the biggest CONvid casualty in Hawaii, though it would have been doomed even without the dethplague:
The stadium, built in 1975, was also plagued by maintenance issues in recent years. A 2019 story from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser noted that the stadium needed $30 million in repairs. KHON-TV reported that the stadium would be condemned and was deemed unsafe to hold any crowds at all.
Never noticed this mural before:
Makes me wonder how murals are made.
I just noticed the more modest mrual on the building on the bottom right.
Got off at Makalapa - the station serving Joint Base Hickam-Pearl Harbor. Passed this on my way down from the tracks:
There’s more to that abstract piece, but the only part I found attractive was the section with fish. The rest had nothing recognizable.
Walking down the stairs at Makalapa:
Nobody was using the bike racks.
Nobody was there except me (unless my memory fails me).
As I wrote in my last entry,
I believe most military personnel at Joint Base Hickam-Pearl Harbor live there, so they would only use Skyline for occasional trips off base rather than to commute.
I didn’t leave the station because as a civilian without a job on the base, I had no business in that area.
The next station was at the airport next to Aloha Alcatraz.
Aloha Alcratraz 2: Flown from Florida
Today in Honolulu there was a protest against Aloha Alcatraz and “attacks posed on our civil and human rights by the Trump administration”.
Nothing to do but enter the airport. Could have gone in for the first time since 2019, but nah. Saw an plane soar before taking the next train.
At the following station (Āhua), an employee kindly stepped aside so I could take a picture of a mural. I walked out of the station to check out the surrounding area. Nothing of note but a restaurant which might get some new business. (It’s one of the few restaurants that is near a station.) Came back five minutes later to take a better photo of the mural:
I usually take the stairs at the various stations, but I couldn’t help but enter this elevator with a leaky roof:
Can you see downtown Honolulu in the distance? Skyline won’t reach it until Segment 3 is complete in 2030, assuming construction is on time like the train.
Got off at the end of Segment 2 and found this message on the wall in six languages:
English
Mandarin
Chuukese (the most commonly spoken language in the Federated States of Micronesia)
Ilocano
Japanese
Tagalog
I just realized the languages are in alphabetical order with the exception of English. (Mandarin came first because it’s Chinese.)
Homeless camp outside the station. Note the cross someone erected in front of the campsite on the grass.
I landed on my left side jumping off the ledge across from Cosco (since 1961; not Costco which was founded in 1983!) on my way back to the station last night. My left shoulder and arm still hurt.
Segment 3 will continue from here:
Entered Marukai Wholesale Mart for the first time in decades. The Japanese says, “Please feel free to ask in Japanese.”
English-only tax forms aside1, it’s easy to live here without English if you only speak Japanese.
Although Marukai mostly sells Japanese items, it also has Pidgin-language cards.
“Kine” is from kind, so “Local Kine Cards’ means ‘local kind [of] cards’. A lot of final consonant clusters get whittled down here: e.g., -nd to [n] as in “Kine’.
Decorating the floor were photos of Gundam model parts.
Always wanted a kit with precolored parts like the one in the illustration because I can’t paint. Alas, I never found one in the eighties, though I’d have much better luck now that Gundam kits are so common and easy to get.
The free magazine Lighthouse is locally published in Japanese, despite its English title.
One rack says Lighthouse comes out once a month; the other says twice a month. The second rack must be older because the magazine’s website says Lighthouse is monthly.
In the third rack with a blank sign is Generations, a free English-language magazine.
Under Generations is Truth of Life, a free magazine from the Japanese ‘new religion’ Seicho-No-Ie which is
a syncretic, monotheistic, New Thought Japanese new religion that has spread since the end of World War II in Asia. It emphasizes gratitude for nature, the family, ancestors and, above all, religious faith in one universal God. Seichō no Ie is the world’s largest New Thought group. By the end of 2010 it had over 1.6 million followers and 442 facilities, mostly located in Japan, Brazil, and the United States.
This 1971 Pontiac Grand Prix was parked just outside Marukai.
It looks stock. I thought the hubcaps might not be, but they seem to match what I see on Wikipedia.
I wish I had taken a photo of the rear, but I was afraid that the owner would suddenly show up and shout at me. Besides, there are photos of the rear of this model online: e.g., this one if you’re curious.
So much trash in paradise. Could this be the same mattress that was in Google Street View in December 2024?
New to me - an apartment building with a laundry area accessible on the sidewalk - as long as one has a key.
I did not expect to find a Chinese church in an industrial area.
“European Garage” … if you say so. No European cars in sight. Turns out the business closed permanently at some point after September 2023. So it survived CONvid.
Signs I’m in a rough neighborhood:
Wouldn’t dare to use the basketball net. Not that I could ever shoot a ball through a hoop.
I’m convinced this company is run by a Chinese or Korean family named 許 (pronounced Xu [also spelled Hsu] in Mandarin, Hui in Cantonese, Hŏ in Korean). I like how that character is fused with H in this logo:
The trouble with my theory is that the only name I can find associated with the company is VP Robert Phu who said his aunt and uncle founded the company. The only Phu I know of is the rare Vietnamese surname Phù traditionally spelled 符, not 許 which is Hứa in Vietnamese. Maybe his aunt and/or uncle are named 許. (Chinese and Korean women traditionally don’t take their husband’s surnames.)
A&N Fashion (filipinoformalwearhawaii.com, now defunct) relocated to what seems to be the owner’s house (“Appointment Only”). Note the flag of the Philippines behind the man in the logo.
Making money through multilingualism in the Random People Zone:
The Chinese name of Oahu Noodle Factory is a pun: 華富 ‘magnificent wealth’ in Cantonese (wa fu) sounds like Oahu.
My term project on Korea in high school changed my life by opening my eyes to Asia beyond Japan and China. What if I had gone to Korea the summer after that project?
24% of drivers did not stop for pedestrians here. This is why I am likely to die on a crosswalk despite having the right of way.
I was horrified to see this comment at Pravda tonight:
No. pedestrians need to stop looking at crosswalks as a RIGHT OF WAY. This was a flaw for traffic safety. It said pedestrians had the right of way in a crosswalk without looking to ensure a safe crossing.
Straw man? I’ve never heard anyone say people can just cross without looking. Though many do - even at random points in highways.
Wake up and start looking for drivers to acknowlege that pedestrians are trying to cross the road, it’s your life!
I think the writer means “stop” rather than “start”, judging from the next line:
Please stop expecting drivers to see you and take proactive actions to protect yourself.
Like what? I wave at all drivers at all crosswalks. I’ve never seen anyone else do that.
I just noticed that comment got three upvotes. It’s that mentality that nearly gets me killed when drivers go through red lights as I’m crossing.
I should have gone into Micronesia Mart to see what was Micronesian about it, but I would have looked out of place:
Their Facebook page shows they have … kimchi ramen inside!? WaKa is a Vietnamese brand (though the name isn’t Vietnamese - there is no W in Vietnamese, foreign names aside).
Did Micronesians eat noodles2 and/or kimchi during Japanese colonial rule? Koreans were among the colonists of Indonesia.
High school murals. I don’t know what the jumping girl is supposed to symbolize - or even what she’s jumping over.
“Welcome to Gov Nation”. “Aloha is not extinct” at Farrington High School, home of the Governors. Wallace Rider Farrington was governor of the Territory of Hawaii between 1921 and 1929 - and editor of the newspapers that became Honolulu Pravda.
What is that sculpture at the entrance supposed to be?
Murals on the Joseph Rider Farrington Community Auditorium, named after Governor Farrington’s son.
[Joseph Rider] Farrington began a part-time political career as secretary to the Hawai’i Legislative Commission in 1933. The following year he was elected to the Hawaii Territorial Senate, an office he served in through 1942. On January 3, 1943, Farrington was sworn in as a Republican delegate to Congress. Farrington was a supporter of Hawaiian statehood and help advise the early post-war efforts for admission.
This public housing complex across from the school looked surprisingly nice at a glance:
I think it was recently built.
McWhat?
Mural at the school with the Cthulhuish mural that I saw yesterday. Note the Cthulhuish creatures on the earrings of the woman on the right:
Modern ‘art’ on the right - hideous. Suicide prevention on the left - sad.
This store has an overhang supported on only one side. Doesn’t look safe. Wouldn’t want to jump up and down on the corner without anything under it.
Shrine in front of St. Anthony Church Kalihi.
The church has services in four languages: Ilocano, Tagalog, “Visayan” (probably Cebuano), and English.
The shades (? - I don’t know the correct word) on St. Anthony Church Kalihi are in varying degrees of disintegration from zero to incipient to near-total:
Graffiti is globalist. It all looks the same to me.
I saw this sort of thing in Budapest.
I would be willing to have someone explain this aesthetic to me. I don’t get it.
The defunct market I found yesterday. I just noticed the satellite dishes. Out of service?
PD Gift Shop by the station hoped to benefit from the opening of Segment 2. I imagine a few more customers came in. I guess every dollar counts.
I’m sick of this depressing neighborhood. The incomplete rail suits it.
As does Rent-a-Center.
A number of consumer protection concerns have been raised about the rent-to-own industry, including accusations of predatory lending. Consumer advocates believe that rent-to-own transactions such as those offered by Rent-A-Center should be treated as credit sales, and point out that the final price of a product can be two or three times the retail price.
[…]
In 2006, Rent-A-Center settled for $7 million in restitution and $750,000 in civil penalties for deceptive business practices in California. The State of California claimed RAC, in violation of state law, engaged in unfair competition and illegally misrepresented the price of certain merchandise.
[…]
In 2010, seven months after the Washington Attorney General’s Office sued Rent-A-Center and accused the national lease-to-own chain of unfair and deceptive collection practices under Washington’s Consumer Protection Act, Rent-A-Center agreed to settle.
[…]
In 2020, Rent-A-Center settled a California class action suit for $13 million, with the suit involving a group of customers challenging improper add-on freight charges.
In November 2023, Rent-A-Center paid the state of Massachusetts $8.75 million to settle claims of unfair and deceptive business practices. RAC also agreed to stop filing criminal complaints against its customers for missed payments.
Seeing expensive cars in this … less than prosperous area, makes me imagine that people there were living large … through Rent-a-Center.
The map on the train is still out of date. It shows Segment 2 as “Under Construction”.
Got off the train and waited for a bus that never came. This was by the bench.
When I see messes like that, I wonder how such odd combinations came to be.
The bus I was waiting for never came. I probably misread my iPhone’s route instructions. I had about forty minutes to wait for the next bus, so I went to Pearlridge, the mall across the street.
There I saw a local woman hurl F-bombs at high volume in the parking lot. At first I thought she was mad at the White lady next to her, but then I noticed she was facing the street, not the other woman. She crossed the street and stormed into Macy’s. I entered Macy’s behind her at a safe distance. A young local male security guard was trying to keep her under control in the women’s shoe section. She was still swearing away - this time at another local woman. Someone she knew or a stranger? I’m guessing the latter. I didn’t stick around to see how the guard resolved the situation.
Got home and saw this comment at Pravda:
[name of a Skyline super supporter redacted], your TOY TRAIN IS A TOTAL FAILURE FOR 99% OF US.
Had to use it for the subtitle.
I was horrified to see YouTube recommend this video:
“Subway”!? Skyline never goes underground. Just look at its name!
Played the first few seconds. No, Hawaii isn’t in “North America”. The YouTuber meant the United States. Is Tahiti in Europe? It is part of France.
317k views in two years.
Another recommendation got 18k views in one day.
Didn’t click on it. The title makes it sound like happytalk.
I get almost no views, but at least I give you the real deal.
You’ll get more tomorrow.
I just found out that the State of Hawaii Department of Taxation offers interpreter services in
Español
Gagana Samoa [Samoan]
Ilokano [= Ilocano]
Kajin Majol [Marshallese; Majol is the Marshallese approximation of Marshall; I don’t know why they don’t have their own name for themselves]
Kapasen Chuuk [Chuukese]
ʻŌlelo [‘Language’; i.e., Hawaiian - this option must never be used, because there are no Hawaiians left who don’t know English]
Tagalog
Tiếng Việt [Vietnamese]
Visayan [a term for a group of over thirty languages in the Philippines; my guess is that this refers to the most commonly spoken Visayan language, Cebuano]
ภาษาไทย [Thai; do any Lao use the Thai option if their Thai is better than their English? I’ve long thought of Lao and Thai as being like Portuguese and Spanish]
中文 [Chinese]
한국어 [Korean]
日本語 [Japanese]
Which tells you how badly the state wants our money. They’ll spend money on interpreters to get more money.
It would probably be anachronistic to speak of “ramen” in colonial Micronesia, because the Japanese word rāmen was not popularized until Nissin released its first instant noodles (chikin rāmen ‘chicken ramen’) in 1958. During the colonial period, ramen was called 南京蕎麥 Nankin soba ‘Nanking soba’ or 支那蕎麥 Shina soba ‘China soba’. Shina is now considered a derogatory term and has become obsolete.
Hilarious post. The train mess always cracks me up.