 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Aloha. Welcome again to another edition of Think Tech, where we are here today, obviously, to go into another episode of our Tourism 101. Today, I'm very, very happy to bring to you a presentation, I should say, part of a presentation that we at the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association heard at our annual meeting, and that is the importance of our native Hawaiian culture and how it relates to our hospitality industry. That's what Hawaii has been known for through the years, but it's also something that we cannot afford to take for granted. And here with me today are two of our three guests that we had there. One, of course, was Robert Casamaro, and then two kumahula, outstanding kumahula in our community have done a wonderful job through the years, and they have an exciting project too that we'll talk about in the second part of our show. We have here Vicky Ho Takamine and Michael Pillipay. Aloha. Now, both of you are noted throughout the community. Everybody talks about the importance of hula halau, the importance of our native Hawaiian culture. Whenever that subject comes up, inevitably, your name's always come up here. So, Vicky, tell us a little bit about your passion for the native Hawaiian culture. You've been very active, not just in being a kumahula, but you've also taken up several causes, and it really brought that out so that many of us can appreciate the importance of our culture. Well, my passion for hula started with my mother, Kalei Holt. She danced for many years with the alama sisters, and I used to watch her. For those of you old people, you know, the Lucky Luck TV show. We sit around the black and white color, black and white TV, television, watching my mother on TV, performing with the alama sisters. And I always wanted to dance hula, and she just said, no, you're too young. You're going to quit after one year. I was like, no, but I really would. So, when I was 12, and my sister was 10, my sister Charlene, she sent us to Maiki Aiu Lake. And she was my first kumu, my only kumu. I studied with her for many, many years until I was unique as a kumahula. But it was Auntie Maiki that got me started in the tourism business. She gave me my first job at the old Queen's Surf Luao show with the MC was Kaupen Awong, the performers were Lena Aala Haile. Mo Kalei was a musician. So I got my feet wet there in the Queen's Surf Luao show. And she also sent me, when I was still in high school, to dance for Uncle Bill Ali Iloa Lincoln, greeting all the boats that arrived, the Mattsin, the Lerlene, and then greeting all the airplanes with Auntie Loyal Garner. Talk about your hula hula. Not Auntie, her mother, Loyal Garner's mother, Auntie Alice Keavikani Garner. Talk about your hula hulao because you've certainly taken your hula all around the world, and certainly are very busy here at home. I note lots of festivals, lots of events where you're involved with. Yeah. So I studied with Auntie Maiki until 1975, when I was fortunate to uniki, graduate through the rituals of hula, as a kumu hula, and I opened my halau in 1977, two years later. And so we're celebrating 41 years of teaching hula. This is started when you were two then. Yeah, no, you know, this is getting up there in those years. Yeah, all of us are. But it's been a really good life for me. You know, I was able to work in Waikiki with people like Zulu. I have a Kinimaka, Melvin lead. And then I was running my halau, so teaching them the skills of hula, and teaching them as much as I could about it. And we just had our couple of uniki. I had two uniki, and I uniki my first two kumu hula in 2007. And in 2017, after 40 years of hula, I had another graduation. So the perpetuation of the halau, we performed in many different places in Japan. Naturally, there's a lot of interest in Japan. Absolutely. And I ran a Luau show. I ran Paradise Cove Luau show. In fact, started Paradise Cove Luau show and ran it. But then also started another Luau type show in Ibusuki, ran that for about four years. And performed in Lamama Theater in New York City with my friends, Michael and Robert Casimo. Speaking of Michael Pili, I've heard you speak many times very fondly of Auntie Maikeayu Lake. Why don't you talk about how you developed your passion? I started hula when I was in grade school. I went to Merino grade school. And there was a hula person that came in. She was a student of Auntie Maikeay. She was one of Auntie Maikey's gracious ladies. And she was also one of the women from Auntie Maikey's first uniki class. So Kealoha Wong was teaching classes. And I was in a middle school, seventh and eighth grade. After that, she said, you know, you should just go to Maikey. You know, she's down the street on Kawakawa Avenue from Merino school. So just go there. What I had transferred to St. Louis, and then eventually I ended up with Auntie Maikey. By the time I got to Auntie Maikey, she was in Waikiki, the Waikiki shopping plaza on the fifth floor, where she had created this amazing cultural center. It had five rooms, a showroom that fit 300 people. People came in during the day. It was a living museum. It was a library, a kahiko room where we just learned kahiko. There was a monarchy room where we learned all the things about our alleys, a music room, and then an awana room where we learned awana, gift shops. And it was a learning center for me. It wasn't just that I learned everything about hula there. I learned everything about the tourism, where we had to bring people upstairs. We had to explain to them what all these cultures were all about. So Auntie Maikey's created just this wonderful whole scenario for us to learn. It wasn't just coming to hula to a class. It was a living, greeting place. We survived about a year and a half there before the cost was too much for her. And we had to move out of there. But it didn't just create a way of dance. It created a place of learning and sharing. We became family. Uncle Kay, her husband, became Maikey's father. We became this family that nurtured not just your hula, but who you are as an individual. Would you tell us about the fact that I know you have two hula halal, one basically here operates out of all, and then of course Hawaii Island. Talk about that. Well, I graduated as an Ola for 1979 from Auntie Maikey. I went away to college, came back home, and in 1985 I went again as a kumu hula. Auntie Maikey passed away in 1984. So May Kamamalu Clyde, who's Auntie Maikey's co-coal at that time, took me over and I finished as an Ola kumu hula. I moved to the big island thinking, well, I can start something new. I didn't have to work in a hotel. I didn't have to work in a restaurant, which my family did in Waikiki. And I thought I didn't have to do this. Well, by the time I got to the big island, I ended up doing that, working in hotels, which was fine. I started the halal, and I had met some wonderful people there in the halal. I was quite young. I was 22. I started the halal. It was not really heard of, but people trusted me, and that was the best part. They trusted me. It allowed me to grow. I met a woman named Virginia Pfaff, who was the manager of the Kahilu Theater, and she came up with the idea of, gave me an option, you want to do competitions, or do you want to do performances on the road. And we took the road trip. And we performed somewhere between six to eight weeks a year, traveling throughout the USA, Canada, east coast, west coast, at universities and colleges, creating a really strong opportunity to present hula, to present what we have in Hawaii. I was also very fortunate, like I said, I worked in the hotels, and every place I went, they supported my hula in my life. The Monolani, the hide was a big one that supported me. Okay, speaking of hotels, and let's talk about some of the themes that you first had to address at our general membership meeting. What do we in the hospitality industry need to do better, or do more of, in terms of making sure that we perpetuate and preserve the native Hawaiian culture, so that when people come here, they have an authentic experience? I think one of the major things that we need to do is, if you want an authentic experience, you need to hire Hawaiians, or people that are cultural practitioners. Having other people talk about our culture doesn't make it authentic, and actually participating in it. So, you know, some of my favorite locations, I think, are like what John Morgan is doing out at Kualoa Ranch. You know, he's got a cultural specialist that creates programs not just for the tourists, but for his employees. So, everybody takes language classes, so they learn how to pronounce the Hawaiian words correctly. So, when you say it's not kalakaua, you know, it's kalakaua. And you can share those experiences with them, or having a Hawaiian language introduction to a Hawaiian language class for your guests when they come in. Have a location where you have somebody that's actually teaching them how to pronounce the place names that they're going to, what are the street names that they're going to have to drive along, or what are the place names that they're going to see? Waimea, so they know how to correctly pronounce the words that they're going to be visiting. I think that's one way to really integrate the language into your hotel. And if you have rooms in your hotel, or locations in your hotel that are named Paoa Kalani, how do you say Paoa Kalani? So, those kinds of pronounce the pronunciation would be very helpful, and I think of interest to our visitors. Billy, you were the director of the mayor's office of culture, and I was under a certain mayor. Yes. So, I want you to talk about your perspective with respect to the community. What can we do, whether it's in our schools, whether it's in our everyday activities, to ensure that, you know, the Hawaiian culture is alive and well here in Hawaii? You know, I think we're very lucky that we're living in a time today. You know, there was a time where the culture was, we're losing some of the culture. You know, we're almost like three generations, generations away from there, where young Hawaiians are learning the language, they're learning their culture. I think that we need to bridge between the community and some of the industry, hotel industry, the sense that it is a living culture. It is a daily living culture. We have poi pounders that are still making pa'i ai. We have kapa makers that are still making kapa. These are not prehistoric cultural activities. These are modern day activities and it's a living, breathing culture. And, you know, in the community, it's not just our Hawaii, our Hawaiians. We have many in our, in sitting in the city, city's office. I had to look at all the different ethnic cultures that we have here. And in Hawaii, we have a diverse community, but we have a community that comes together. You know, we borrow and we trade to create things better. You know, we have our lomi salmon. It was not Hawaiian, right? We have our But it's a staple in our luau. It's a staple now. And same thing with our long rice. They made us for that. So, you know, we have all these things that we've merged together. Hawaiians, Chinese people, they have their mana puan, right? Only in Hawaii you have mana puan. Chicken long rice. Chicken long rice. Okay. It's a staple at the luau. Right? But I wanted to go back because what you said is that we're demonstrating, it's not just demonstration, we're poipounding for eat. You know, it's like we're living, it's a living culture. So, we're not just poipounding for demonstration, we're poipounding for consumption. Vicki, you also mentioned that the Kanapali Beach Hotel over at Maui. I love that hotel. General Manager Mike White was also the former chair of the Maui County Council. Yes. Talk about what you admire, what they're doing. You know, so again, Mike White has hired a Hawaiian cultural specialist that greets all of their guests when they come into their hotel. They all get a kukui nutlay, and they get a brown kukui nutlay or a black one, and that's their first visit. When they come back again, their front desk will swap out that kukui nut for a white one. So, when you see guests that are walking around with four, five, six, eight kukui white kukui nutlays, they bring it back. This is a big thing for them. It builds loyalty, it builds pride, but they come back and they're very proud to wear their kukui nutlay. They have five or six that tells them that they've been there seven times because they have six. I said, oh, you've been here six times. They said, no, I've been here seven. The first one was a brown lay, so the number of times they visited, so those kinds of things. And they do a makahiki every year, an annual makahiki, where their entire board, all of the departments get together and create something for makahiki. We're having a lively discussion here with Vicky Ho Takamine and Michael Peely-Pang on the importance of our native Hawaiian culture. And coming up next, after we take a pause for the cause, is a wonderful festival that's coming to our shores here in the year 2020. It's the 13th annual Festival of Arts and Culture of the Pacific, and Vicky Ho Takamine is the driving force behind it. She's recruited folks like Michael Peely-Pang to assist in this effort, Robert Casemaro. She's going to tell us all about that. He'll also say how we can get involved as a community to make this what is considered the Olympics of culture and arts ahead of smashing success. We'll be right back. I'm Jay Fiedel, ThinkTech. ThinkTech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco, and me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator, and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangelsdorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon on Mondays every two weeks on ThinkTech. Aloha. Aloha again, everybody. Welcome to another edition here of our Tourism 101. And today, it's all about the native Hawaiian culture. And we're going to focus our attention now on a wonderful festival that's coming to Hawaii in 2020, largely based on Vicky Ho Takamine and Michael Pilley Pan's lobbying efforts to bring it here. Talk about what it took to bring a festival of this magnitude here to Hawaii. Michael and I have been working on this for many, many years. In fact, in 2004, for the Palau Festival, Michael and I drafted up a proposal to host the festival here in Hawaii. Michael participated in... 1980. 1980. He was just a baby. Only 40 years in 2020 since the last festival. So for our viewers here, talk about what this festival is all about. I described it as the Olympics, the Festival of Pacific Culture and Arts in the Pacific. But talk a little bit more about the who comes, where these countries that are participating. The festival hosts 28 nations, including Taiwan, from all throughout the Pacific. They bring the best of their culture with them. It's not just performances. Today it is literary. It is poetry. It is film. It is fashion. It's everything that their living culture, which we just discussed in the last section, is all about. And they bring it here and they show off the very best. Some of them actually have competitions as to who will be coming and representing their island nation. And so it brings in people with them that follow them throughout the years. Like I said, I went in 1980 and I speak with some of the professors at university that say, oh, we have pictures of you in 1980 because we were there taking photos at that time. So we have a lot of people that follow this festival as academics. But now it's becoming bigger as a very cultural based opportunity for people to see. It's cultural tourism. It's a huge cultural tourism event. So Michael went in 80. It was supposed to be in 84 in New Caledonia because of they transferred it in 85 in French Polynesia. So I went to Tahiti in 85. And then we went back in 2004 to submit the bid to host. But 28 island nations bring their best culture. So that's Samoa, Donna, Fiji, Atearoa. Yes, every nation. So the three regions I'll rotate to host. New Caledonia, you've got Rapa Nui coming, you've got all of, you look at that map of Oceania and there's representation from all of the Pacific regions in Oceania. So Vicki, as the executive director, why don't you walk us through? Yeah, so we're going to start, you know, well I think the economic benefits, what do we want to say? You know, because this is a tourism event, we know that there will be many, many tourists that are going to come. I know that we can look at that first slide. Yes, let's bring up the slides. Yeah, so we'll host Hawaii. We'll host from June 10th through the 20th in 2020. We expect to host most of the delegates in the dorms at the University of Hawaii. And then, so to give room for the visitors, because we know in Guam. That's where the last festival was held. Yeah, and we can switch, I don't know if they can, yeah. So Guam invested $8.5 million into a FestPak 2016, but the economic benefits for that, there was a 19% increase in the visitor arrivals, 40,000 visitor nights, 125,590,710 dollars direct and indirect and induce impact to Guam's economy just on Guam and supported 1,500 jobs. So we know that we can, the community benefits for Guam, they created a Chamorro Village that the, the festival, one of the requirements is that we, we create a village. The festival village was turned into a Chamorro Village that is now sharing cultural arts for visitors to Guam. They renovated their Paseo Stadium where they had the opening and the closing ceremonies, and they built a museum for Guam, because they didn't have it. Where are we thinking of doing our opening ceremony? So our opening ceremonies, I would love to have it at Eolani Palace, and I think if we go to the next slide, we'll kind of talk about what are, and we'll just keep scrolling. Oh, I know what culture that is. Yeah, I thought this is such a wonderful sharing of Samoan culture. They bring, they bring their best. So, next slide. This is Rapa Nui. Then we'll go on. Next. So the festival theme is a Tu Ita Hoi Uli. It takes, it's from a chant that was shared with all of us. It says, take hold of the steering paddle and steer your own course. Nice. Next. First pack is organized to stem the erosion of traditional cultural practices and to establish deeper understanding and friendships between the countries. So we were finding that much of our traditional culture, because all of our countries had been, all of our island nations had been colonized by others in Western Europe, as well as the United States, we were losing our cultural practices. So this was an attempt to revive and to stem that erosion of traditional cultural practices. Next. And we can go, go, this was, the first festival was held in Suva, Fiji in 1972. So we'll open with the arrival of the canoes. You know, Hokulea has gone all over the world to share the Polynesian navigating. And we're inviting those that have created navigating kalooas to come. So the arrivals will be at Alamoana Magic Island on June 10th, 2020. And followed by a tribute at Ilani Palace. Thursday 11th, our opening ceremonies will be on the grounds of Ilani Palace. If our monarchy was still here, where would we be hosting them? Where would be would we welcome dignitaries? We would welcome them at our palace. So we felt that this is the most appropriate place to, to hold our opening ceremonies. Next. Laidraping at Kamehameha statue and the opening of the festival village. We're hoping that we can partner with the city to use Kakaako Makai Parks as a festival village area to create opportunities, you know, for us to share. Every nation that participates will have a hale, some kind of, whether it's, depending on how much money we all raise together, okay, whether it's a hale pili, which is my first preference, or a tent. But we're trying to get the community to come in and help us build hale pili. We'll teach you how. You can help us gather. Thanks. And then the, one of our most favorite events, the Kamehameha Day celebration happens on Saturday, June 13th. Combining both. Combining. So this is a tradition that was started in the kingdom by Kamehameha the Fifth Prince Lot, who we celebrate every year in June. And so we tailored our festival events to come and celebrate with, around those activities. We don't have to create that, but I thought being part of the FESPEC Parade of Nations, being part of Kamehameha Day really brings back that celebration of the Kingdom Times, of the times during Kamehameha the Fifth. Ecumenical services. Can you imagine every country singing a hymn in their own language? What a wonderful choral festival that would be and part of the ecumenical services. Our venues will be all around Oahu, Ala Moana, Bishop Museum, the Kakaako Parks, the State Art Museum, the Convention Center, the Honolulu Museum of Art, Waikiki Shell. Next. The Kapiolani Park Bandstand, Woodward Community College. And we're so hoping that we can get some of our neighbor islanders involved. So getting some of our delegation over to the neighbor islands. You want to share about our special events? We have some great events scheduled. And these are unique to just Hawaii, which is, we do our wearable art show. Our mama art show has been a tradition for the last 10 years here, and we're going to put this as part of this FESPEC. We came up with an idea of what can we do with all the different nations and children and participating with community. We thought traditional kite flying, we'll get people to learn how to do kites, and then we're going to go to Kakaako Park and let everybody go fly a kite. Literally. Yeah, literally. And again, that choral singing in Kauai Hau Church would be wonderful. Our Youth Ambassador Program is something that's unique also for this particular festival. We want our kids to be our hosts. We want them to be with every delegate group, working with them, speaking with them, sharing what Hawaii is all about. So we'll be training those kids on that. Our Pacific Island queen pageant is an idea that Vicky came up with that many times we have people who are that travel with the group. They are the hairdressers. They are the makeup artists. They are the people who make everything so beautiful, but they never get a chance to be on stage. This is their opportunity to be a part of it. And of course, the culinary, I mean, all Pacific islands is all about food. Let's do a cook off with the umu, the imu. Let's see how other cousins cook. And let's just have a great time with this one. So if someone is listening and they want to get involved, give us some information on that. Yeah. So we, you can contact us through our website, festpack-hawaii2020.org. Volunteer for helping. We need lots of volunteers. You can figure out how many people and we are hosting 3,000 delegates from 28 countries. We expect 100,000 people, visitors will be coming. We will have events and activities throughout the island of Oahu and hopefully we can get some of them to the neighbor islands. So we're going to need a lot of volunteers every single day. We want to teach people how to be responsible and sustainable. So one of our key projects is how to take care of the trash that 100,000 people are going to give, you know, bring. Recycle. I'm going to need people to help and teach people how to recycle. And uh, especially not to Kisan Joe, the head of the Prince hotels who heard your presentation and then he hosted a welcoming reception. Yes. Many of our leaders are there. I attended. Nainoa Thompson was there. Many of our legislators who support you're going to need for funding for this. Right. So Mufi, thank you so much for allowing us to present to the whole Elaging Tourism gathering a few weeks ago. And we presented about FestPak. Before he left, before I left, Kisan Joe walked up to me and said, how can I help? I want to host a delegation. I was like, yes, that's what we need. Somebody that's going to be a partner with us. So we hosted our FestPak launch party at the Prince Waikiki. It was a wonderful party. It was. Thank you so much to Kisan Joe and the Prince Waikiki staff. Well, I want to thank both of you for being here and to sharing with us this wonderful festival. You're going to hear more about it as we delve into 2019. It's coming in 2020. It's just around the corner. And once again, this is a great event. I participated as what the other part is, the every game they call the South Pacific Games. And I went as a member of American Samoa. So I saw it from an athletic standpoint, but here's an opportunity to see it from a culture in arts. Thank you again for joining us. This is Movie Adam and say, mele klikimaka.