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There are several features of Hawaiian culture at New Years that are distinctly different from anywhere else in the country that I'm aware of.
One is a very strong tradition, especially among Hawaiians of Japanese descent, to eat ahi tuna at New Years. The markets order in huge quantities, from as far away as Tokyo, finding just the right piece of ahi for the big New Year's dinner is at least as big a deal as finding the right turkey for Thanksgiving is on the mainland.
The time-honored principle of supply and demand, coupled with the widespread desire for a premium piece of fish, resulted this year in very high prices for the best quality. As this article from the Star Advertiser points out, even at $36.95 a pound there was a crush of customers that led to at least 3 fish cutters winding up in the emergency room with hand injuries.
Quote:
Custom has fish flying out of stores
While Tuesday was New Year's Eve, for many fish markets across Oahu, the day was more like Christmas.
Neighborhood seafood stores around the island did their best to keep up with the relentless demand for new-year ahi — a Hawaii tradition — as customers poured through their doors.
At Tamashiro Market in Kalihi, it was an all-hands-on-deck operation for the store's busiest day of the year. Outside, about five employees were needed just to help drivers park safely after they turned off King Street. Inside, the checkout lines often stretched to the back of the store.
Lines at Tanioka's Seafood and Catering were out the door until about 2 p.m., with staff distributing cookies to customers while they waited, store management said...
Another is the Okinawan custom of serving mochi... the traditional rice cakes made by pounding rice into a smooth paste, then wrapping it around a filling. It's so much part of the culture that neighborhood groceries even carry mochi ice cream. And while electric kitchen machines have made the production of mochi simple, there's a strong tradition for families to gather just before New Years to pound rice into mochi in the old fashioned way, with big woden mallets and a large stone mortar.
Quote:
Mochi tradition builds family bonds
Members young and old of the Uejo family pound rice cakes for New Year's
The Uejo family of Nuu*anu makes mochi the old-fashioned way — pounding sweet rice smooth with wooden mallets in a huge stone mortar — as their ancestors did when they immigrated from Okinawa to Hawaii island in the early 1900s.
It's a New Year's tradition for local Japa*nese families to eat or make mochi, or Japa*nese rice cakes.
It's a way to acknowledge the life-giving sustenance of rice, considered a sacred offering to the gods. By pounding it, there's the spiritual metaphor of melding many thousands of grains of rice (each representing a separate soul) into a sticky, smooth mass — a communal effort that creates bonds between individuals and ties the present to the past.
Most families use mechanized grinders nowadays instead of pummelling the rice, a process that still requires the help of many hands and the know-how of the experienced.
A few days before every new year, all the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandchildren and other in-laws flock to the home of patriarch Masa*ichi Uejo, the eldest of seven children whose parents came from Okinawa. On Sunday they pounded and shaped some 50 pounds of rice into cakes to be shared with friends and neighbors...
What about fireworks? Although I think there's more of them during Chinese New Year's or Fourth of July, there's still a lot of fireworks on New Years. We had three huge fireworks displays in our neighborhood. Looked lovely from the hot tub and we were safer from falling cinders there, too. Totally illegal fireworks, I haven't a clue where they get them but they are the same sorts that the official fireworks displays use.
On Oahu we have far more on NYE then any other time of the year. A lot of people with permits, which aren't refundable, missed out as the island sold out.
Wow! I've never known Oahu to have a fireworks shortage before! That means, of course, that there will be a glut at the next holiday. Will fireworks start being like Christmas trees and Thanksgiving turkeys where there's a glut one year followed by a shortage the next?
Wow! I've never known Oahu to have a fireworks shortage before! That means, of course, that there will be a glut at the next holiday. Will fireworks start being like Christmas trees and Thanksgiving turkeys where there's a glut one year followed by a shortage the next?
What I find is interesting is when did oahu goto making people get permits to get fireworks? For generations it was never that way? Or is this another way to get money out of residents?
What I find is interesting is when did oahu goto making people get permits to get fireworks? For generations it was never that way? Or is this another way to get money out of residents?
It's an attempt to get the fireworks situation under control, when it has previously been out of control. There have been a lot of fires and a lot of injuries in previous years.
It's been a progressive process. First, they limited when fireworks could be sold. Then they severely limited the kinds of fireworks that could be sold, eliminating the big pieces and the types that were the biggest fire hazards. Then they added the need to obtain fireworks permits in order to purchase what was left... primarily the long strings of small firecrackers that are traditional for Chinese celebrations.
But the logistics broke down this year. People bought $25 non-refundable fireworks permits, but then couldn't find fireworks to buy.
Quote:
New Year's Eve firecrackers said to be quieter than usual
Fireworks vendor Archie Ahuna was the only retailer left with firecrackers for sale on New Year's Eve after an unanticipated surge of firecracker permits were issued by the city this season, catching sellers off guard.
Jared Que, who works for Ahuna, said he and other workers needed to close up firecracker sales at 2 p.m. sharp in front of Aloha Vapor Co. because they were to set up the fireworks celebration at Kaka*ako Park, which was expected to draw thousands. Que said it didn't matter if people were still in line for firecrackers because the Kaka*ako event was a higher priority for the company. He encouraged those left without firecrackers Tuesday to attend the event instead.
The operation had been working out of a tent in front of Farrington High School but was forced to close by state officials Tuesday morning. They received permission to relocate to the parking lot in front of the e-cigarette shop, which is in a strip mall behind the Kalihi Diner's Drive-In, a block away.
A steady stream of folks stood in line for up to a half-hour Tuesday morning. Among them was Clifford Cooper, who drove to town from Wai*anae to make sure his four permits went to good use after he struck out at several retailers over the weekend. "I didn't think it was going to run out so fast."
Pauoa resident Lisa Kim, who also used four permits to buy four bundles of firecrackers, said the city should change its fireworks law so that a person with a permit can use it beyond the specified time so $25 isn't wasted. City officials say no refunds are allowed under the ordinance allowing the permits. Que also said the city should rethink the idea of allowing only firecrackers on New Year's and should at least allow for the use of sparklers. "For the kids," she said.
And despite all the precautions, at least one person was seriously injured
Quote:
Man seriously injured in fireworks accident
A man in his mid-20s was taken by paramedics to a trauma center in serious condition after suffereing a fireworks-related injury to his hand overnight.
The man was injured at around 12:25 a.m. and drove himself to the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center where paramedics treated him before transporting him to the hospital, according to Emergency Medical Services.
And I think that Homeland Security probably has as much to do with these changes as anything. Don't forget that the Boston Marathon bombs were built using powerful legal fireworks, so there's a nationwide crackdown on the power of fireworks the public has access to.
There's still a thriving market out there in illegal fireworks. We had what looked like 2 -1/2" to 3" mortars going off on three sides of us along with smaller ones and an occasional bigger one. I'd guess the biggest was about a 3" to 4" mortar, didn't see any of the really huge 6" ones.
Note: as I'm typing this (New Year's Day approx. 6:40 pm) another big mortar went off from the folks several houses over. There's been intermittent light firecrackers all day, but not too many of the big ones.
I think the economy is improving, there were three times as many big fireworks this year as last year. Those big ones aren't cheap, I dunno how much they are, but $50 each wouldn't surprise me at all.
@OpenD The homeland security thing would make a better explanation then anything? If you wantted to cut down on injury and fires then wouldn't fireworks safety education work better then regulating it? Unless its an issue of what happened about 10years ago when a bunch of mainlanders moved to the islands and made so much stink about the chinese new year being noisy that they tried getting it banned?
The permits are also supposed to help pay fire/police costs for injuries, damage, and responding to complaints.
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