Advertisement
Published: February 23rd 2007
Edit Blog Post
February turned out to be a month of Festivals, Foods, Friends, Folks and Fun. The smoke from the fireworks and Lion Dances of the 3 weekend Chinese New Year celebrations had barely cleared, and then again, the streets of Downtown Honolulu were being blocked off for another Block Party, this time for the 7th Annual Mardi Gras.
A Mardi Gras in Honolulu, you may ask? Well, probably many here, like I, may be asking the same thing. After all, as far as I know, we have no large Cajun or Louisiana ex-pats living here. Of course any event that makes people happy, broaden their cultural perspective, help the community economically is great, but isn’t this just an excuse for public drunkenness and debauchery?
I’ve never been to a Mardi Gras in New Orleans, let alone in Honolulu or in any other city, so I need to plead ignorance as far as what this grand occasion is all about. I’ve seen clips of the celebrations in New Orleans, with it’s parades, crowds, costumes, music, consummation of large quantities of food and beverages, throwing and catching of beads and of course seeing what people do to acquire these so-called “expensive”
trinkets. Of course these are just surface meaning of MG, so I needed to really dig deeper into the roots and significance of it.
Mardi Gras, in French, I learned means Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday, a day also celebrated by our sizeable Portuguese population who arrived in Hawaii about 130 years ago to work in the Plantations. At my work place, it meant that the Portuguese co-workers would all pool their money in order to purchase dozens of Malasadas, a deep fried pastry coated in sugar, to share with all their fellow employees. They would also make some Portuguese Bean Soup, a sort of minestrone like soup with spicy sausages and beans. From what I understand, it had something to do with using up all the lard, eggs, flour and dairy products before Lent, in which they had to abstain from rich foods. However, dressing in elaborate costumes and dancing in the streets did not seem to be part of their celebration.
Hawaii does have a small Brazilian population, of which I’m not sure how they started to immigrate here. I would imagine, many came as college students, as HPU (Hawaii Pacific College) have many Brazilian and
other foreign exchange students. Many may have opted to stay here, opening up Capoeira Schools, Jujitsu-schools, Bikini shops, Latin dancing, playing in Latin bands, etc. Of course, Carnival, is their way of celebrating Mardi Gras, so I expected many would have also be playing a part in this celebration.
So in order to do some up close investigating of this somewhat mysterious cultural event, I, with my trusty camera, proceeded to Downtown where this was to take place. Two blocks, of Nuuanu Ave. would serve as Bourbon St. At the end of each block, a stage was erected and in between were booths serving alcoholic beverages, Cajun and non-Cajun food and also accessories for Mardi Gras such as mask, feathers, beads, etc. On one stage a Brazilian Jazz Group seemed to be performing, with some people in costumes doing a Samba like dance. There were sprinkling of people wearing some form of costumes. Beads, feathers, but not many. The crowd was youngish with about 50-50 Locals and Mainlanders. Standing out was a Guy dressed like a King with a crown, accompanied with a lady with a sizeable feather headdress. What their capacity was, I do not know. Don’t know
if they were official greeters, bead salespeople (as people seemed to be looking at their bead display) or just people decked out for a good time. Later in the evening, they were tossing an inordinate amount of beads to the public and were part of a costume contest.
As mention some booths were selling Cajun foods like blackened Catfish or swordfish, gumbo and even Alligator Chili. I was not in an experimental mood, so opted for the more familiar Thai-Laotion Curry and fried chicken plate. I know later I may kick myself for not trying out the Alligator, which would maybe be a once in a life time opportunity to do so.
Later, what seems like a Rock Band occupied the other stage. Then the Brazilian Group was replaced by what seemed like Celtic Folk Rock Zydeco fusion group, who in my days, would be compared to the Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul and Mary. From what I heard, seem they are regulars who perform at Murphy’s a watering hole further down the street. They seemed to have gotten the crowd really rocking with their variety of music, so sometimes the crowd would be doing the jig, and
in another just jumping up and down, the two step and the Do-si-do. It was hard to pinpoint how to describe their type music, but whatever it was, it got the juices going.
Later, in between, there seemed to be an informal performance, mainly because it wasn’t on the stages, of a group of Brazilian Samba Dancers singing and beating the drums. The crowd around them was so thick, I really couldn’t see what was going on, except to see lots of feathers and turbans bouncing above the heads. The electricity emitted from that group was also overpowering.
So in my estimation, the Mardi Gras will be an intergeral part of Hawaii Multi-ethnic celebrations in years to come. I am not naïve to believe it’s remotely on par with Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnival in Rio or Trinidad, but if you’re in Hawaii anyway, take a taxi or bus there, it's a wonderful way to spend an evening.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.024s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb