The Mana Of Waikiki
Wes Kaiwi Nui Yoon, a self-described ‘lua guy,’ is using his traditional training to make the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center the most Hawaiian place in Waikiki
By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
E-mail this story | Print this page | Archive | RSS |
Del.icio.us
Exchanging ha, the breath of life: Wes Kaiwi Nui Yoon and
his lua teacher, Dr. Mitchell Eli, at the center
Sitting at an outdoor table next to a coffee vendor in the heart of Waikiki - the one-time home to ali’i and nakoa, who would flow into the area like the nearby Apuakehau Stream and there learn how to fight, lead and strategize together - is a modern-day warrior. He is Wes Kaiwi Nui Yoon, a one-time architect now director of cultural affairs at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center and practitioner of lua, the traditional Hawaiian discipline of martial arts and healing.
Yoon is young, proud and handsome.
He is also a picture in duality - a willing rider on the wave of pono intentions, but an equally willing fighter in any undercurrent of inaccurate cultural representations. Sure, his warm smile can put you at ease. But his fierce dark eyes and regal chin can just as quickly knock you back on your heels.
It’s 8:30 in the morning when he sits down with this writer for a chat. He talks a lot and motions just as much with his hands and arms, which are heavily tattooed. But it is his feet - which are bare - that seem to be speaking most loudly this day, simply because they tell you everything you need to know about the man commissioned to bring balance to the shopping center’s cultural programs. With one foot in the present and one in the past, Yoon is clearly ready to move Waikiki’s premier shopping destination forward by creating an environment suitable to both the ancient culture and the center’s modern guests.
“Let’s be honest here: We can go anywhere to buy a pair of shoes, but those shoes goin’ broke after a while,” says the 30-year-old Yoon, obviously referring to the temporality of material things and not the reason for his absence of footwear. “But if we can give our visitors a full experience of true Hawaiian culture here at the Royal Hawaiian through our programs, then that’s something they’ll never forget.
“I’d love for us to get to the point where if you were to ask a guest who native Hawaiians are, he would say that they were expert navigators; that they were orators, never having to write anything down while memorizing thousands of years of genealogy; that their kapa was one of the finest in Polynesia; and that they knew the stars so well that they could lay out buildings for their heiau,” he adds. “And how would he know this? Because he pounded poi with them at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, where it was explained to him how important it was to take care of the land.”
One of the first things Yoon did after his hiring earlier this year was to open lines of communication between his office and those who currently operate the free cultural programs offered at the center. He insisted upon face-to-face meetings with the kupuna in order to wala’ao (just like he was doing at the moment with this writer) - not to dictate how the programs should be run, but rather to encourage a steady stream of input from “our hui, or our council of experts.”
“From the 1920s to the 1950s, Waikiki was bombarded by the tourism industry and our kupuna never had a chance to really have a say in how things should have been done,“Yoon explains. “They had to sing ‘aloha’and smile just to make a living. They didn’t have time to sit like we are and talk like Hawaiians.
“So this is one of the first steps we’re doing at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, and that is for our vendors who do ukulele, hula, lei-making or whatever it is, to sit down - kanaka wale no - just Hawaiians, and they can tell me what they need. In other words, even though I’m the director, I’m not going to go out there and tell them I think hula should be this way, or ukulele should be taught like this, or only these songs should be sung. No, no, no. They tell me and I facilitate what they need because they are the most knowledgeable people in their craft.”
With the shopping center currently undergoing a major $84 million renovation,Yoon may appear to be under the gun to get cultural activities up and running before the makeover is completed by early next year. But he is in no rush, simply because he refuses to be.
“I told Royal Hawaiian when I was hired that we will have to wait for the mana’o of the native Hawaiian community first,” he says. “In other words, if the council feels the type of hula ain’t right, and it will take another two years before they get it right, then we’re going to wait.
“I’m not going to answer for them,” Yoon adds in referring to the kupuna. “That’s wrong. I would get killed in my community - not physically, but emotionally and mentally. You know how the Hawaiians are: ‘Who dat?’ and ‘Who you to answer?’
“So how do you circumvent that? Well, you have to be patient - ho’omau, with pono intentions. Everyone is trying to make a living here, but at what cost are you sacrificing the culture? After all, everything we sell here is our culture.”
According to Yoon, Kamehameha Schools - owner of the approximately six acres on which the center sits, as well as his alma mater - first approached him about the job some 18 months ago, but he held off on making a decision until late last year.
“As an architect and lua, I suppose the Kamehameha Schools and Festival Companies, the operating company, saw in me the balance between that which is trained in Western thought and that which is trained in Hawaiian thought,” explains Yoon, who received his B.A. in architecture from the University of Hawaii in 1998. “But it was scary for me in making this decision. I had been an architect for about 10 years and then to get into something like this ...
“I prayed for months. I needed to connect to ‘aumakua first, because they know way more than any of us humans know. There were (signs) along the way where they would come and speak. And then, of course, my mentors such as (lua teacher) ‘olohe Eli and (circuit court judge and managing trustee of Queen Liliuokalani Trust) Tom Kaulukukui Jr., whom I have much love and aloha for, helped me in coming to this decision.
“When I got the green light from all of them, I knew it was time to do this.”
Without a doubt, his introduction to lua and sworn allegiance to his teacher and school, Pa Ku’iaholo, has had a profound effect on how Yoon views himself both within and without the business community. Lua, it turns out, is much more than just a practice of bone-breaking or nerve-numbing strikes. It is a discipline that teaches its adherents about their ancestry that precedes the Kamehameha dynasty, infuses them with unmitigated confidence, and trains them to be as sharp in strategy as it does in diplomacy.
“In my life, I needed discipline and structure - as all Hawaiian men do,” states Yoon, whose ancestors, chiefly warriors, hail from Makawao and Kohala. “I think us Hawaiian men have suffered for so long. For 200 years now, our wahine have been answering for us. Us lua guys, we say very little because it’s nobody’s business.
“But unlike other schools of thought in Hawaiian culture, we’re actually trained to think in terms of all the moving pieces. No offense to these other schools, but they’re either very specific - like kapa making, poi pounding or tattooing - or they’re like hula or
Page 1 of 2 pages for this story 1 2 >
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
