Paradise in Paradise

When you die are you planning to go to Paradise?  If you were Chinese and you lived in Hawaii, maybe you could guarantee that this would be true.  It would help greatly if your name were Wong or Lau and that you had many family members still living AND having pre-deceased you and maybe a fairly generous bank account to ease your way. When I expressed to my family that I would be very happy to be disposed of for eternity in this beautiful place, they told me, "Lots of LUCK!", "GET IN LINE!" and "GET YOUR CHECKBOOK OUT!"  This is apparently a very exclusive locale.

And why shouldn't it be?  It is minutes from downtown, but feels deliriously remote and peaceful, tucked under the Ko'olau Mountains at the far end of Manoa valley, one of the most beautiful and rainy residential neighborhoods on Oahu.  A missionary to the Hawaiian Islands once wrote about Manoa valley that on entering it she had been stopped in her tracks and astounded by the most charmingly romantic vistas she had ever seen in her life.  These mountains are often shrouded in layers of mist.  It rains here nearly every day, guaranteeing lush and varied greenery and rainbows rainbows rainbows.

This is a Chinese cemetery.  One of several on Oahu, but probably the nicest.  The Chinese have a knack for snapping up all the best real estate on the island.  Ask anyone and they will likely confirm this to you.  And no doubt the misty mountains reminded the Chinese who claimed this place of their other misty mountains across the sea.  Made legend by poets and painters.

It is not necessarily buddhist, but many of the older markers here reflect buddhist traditions, which many of the first immigrants, like my grandmother, practiced.  Hawaii still has many beautiful buddhist temples both Chinese and Japanese which were beautifully constructed and are well maintained.  Despite competition and pressure from numerous energetically proselytizing Christian sects.

We all must die.  We all must end up somewhere.  Some of us have elaborate plans for ourselves that involve ceremony, scripted tributes, special music, drink.  This is something I have thought NOTHING about.  For better or worse.  Until I came here in adulthood.  And thought:  Where better?  My previous choices are proving pretty much non-viable.  Kew Gardens is cluttered up with benches now, and besides they wouldn't have me.  I've moved from the house where my two other cats are buried, no chance of getting back in there.  Much less in the back garden.  I'd have to buy the house back.  And spend the rest of my death sucking in toxic clay and waiting for the Hudson River to reclaim me.

Cremation and scattered ashes always seems like such a good idea, but ask someone who's done the scattering.  It's always windy and the ashes blow in your face and get all over your clothes.  Besides which, how can you TELL that those little handfuls of gravel are actually YOUR LOVED ONE and NOT.......someone ELSE'S!  (Is there a DNA test available for this kind of thing?)  Would I - Would YOU?  Want to end up in Georgia or Wyoming or Timbuktu if your ashes got co-mingled with someone else's.  Despite your specific instructions and everyone else's best efforts?

No this place would suit me just fine.  I would lie peacefully listening for the gentle winds to sweep down the mountains.  People might bring picnics of noodles and beer (well sort of like in the old days) when they come bringing floral tributes to their ancestors.  And share them on top of me.

Someone could plant red ginger alongside my stone to ensure that my death is as colorful as my life has been.

After awhile noone would come at all but that would be fine too.  I would be happy just to lie and listen to the whispering ghosts of old Chinese people and Hawaiian warriors talk-storying  and scolding. And laughing lightly at their own jokes.  I might actually finally pick up some Chinese.

The Chinese have an expression for this (what they see as) eventuality:  "the falling leaves always return to their roots".

 With views like these, why forever NOT?  I just have to change my name to Lau.

Present Life Regression - Gratuitously Cute

Could this be you?

Mieke Willems and Surprises

Found via Deborah at KickCan and Conkers.  These can be purchased at Mieke Willems' website.  Mieke has a blog and a webshop and lives in Belgium.


The balls are made by "Gina" and inside them are little vintage goodies.  Each ball has different things inside.  Could you open one?  I couldn't.  I just couldn't.  I asked Mieke permission to post this picture and she generously said yes. She says that Gina is "very nice".  


I'm off to get my car fixed.  Would much rather be doing something else - like hanging out with you!

Kama'aina

Some of you may know that I was born under a rainbow.  I am half-Chinese and I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.  In the same hospital as Mr. Obama.  And so far my birth certificate is legit.  (Oh and maybe now you know a little why this blog is called what it is.)

It is my idea to do mostly posts about Hawaii this month.  I lived there for three years from 2005 to 2008 having spent most of my childhood and adult life NOT on those lovely islands.  Most of my life was spent in places that were cold and snowy and dark at this time of year and yes I will say without reservation and this may have been the first and truest thing I EVER realized about myself in life:  DARK AND COLD DO NOT SUIT ME!!!!!!!!!  Just looking at these pictures even from sunny L.A., my heart lifts with an unspeakable joy.  It is something very elemental and very intrinsic to being Hawaiian I think.  (Or maybe not so much all you touristas?)  Hawaiians are very attached to our bright archipelago in the middle of a vast blue sea and when we leave those islands we cannot help but wonder (among other things) "Who the hell turned off the lights?!!!!!"  And WHY???????  At this time of year, people like me need lots of sunshine and light.  And so a little cyber sunshine........

These houses are called kama'aina houses.  "Kama'aina" means "child of the land" in Hawaiian, or, someone who has lived in Hawaii a very long time.  It's commonly used as an equivalent of a "local".

These little houses are single walled construction and a blend of "asian vernacular" and California Craftsman.  They have clever little built ins and hidden closets and sliding doors that borrow from both traditions.

These are the houses that everyone lived in when I was born in Hawaii and when I visited growing up.

Most new construction is so different now and aspires to over-large west coast Spanish styles in stucco and beige with plastic windows and fences.  (YUCK!)

I think they look like characterless refuse scattered against the jewel-green landscape.  (Yes, LITTER!) I am so not FOR them.  Not THESE, I mean the beige NEW houses.

Why spoil a landscape celebrated for its beauty - its emerald mountains, its turquoise and lapis oceans, its moody purple clouds and full spectrum rainbows - with architecture that is utterly devoid of color and charm?

I love these houses for their character.  Their personality.  Their geometry.  Their play of pattern.  Homeyness.  Modesty.  Some even seem shy.

And then some are grievously neglected and look as if they, along with their inhabitants, had withdrawn entirely from the world.

Some are refreshed from time to time with new paint and new tenants.  Many remind me of Japanese folkloric personalities wrapped in layers of history and pattern.  Most are now occupied by very old people.

Nothing inside them changes.  Sometimes they just disappear and something awful replaces them.  But I won't go there again.

I was born into a house like this where my Mother grew up with her brothers and sisters.  Down the road from a japanese teahouse.  It was painted bright yellow inside and out, and hung with photos of all the beautiful family. It still is. It is overhung with mango and starfruit trees. The kitchen and closets are stuffed full of goodies for visiting little children to eat.  I have an auntie and cousins who still live there and on the stone steps Ralph the black lab stands guard and every kind of orchid blossoms.  Most of the old neighbors who knew me when I was a baby still live there.

Now you know what kama'aina means!

Thanks everyone for stopping by with such nice New Year's greetings!  Big hugs!

New Year, Old Year?

I have to admit, being back, I am SO much more about being warm - and the colors and sensations of my last greeney-bluey-gold post.  It is hard for me to contemplate the cold and dark of blighty again.  But I did bring back some pics which will take me a little while to organize. Some I will save for the next lead-up to Christmas because the pictures of the Christmas lights really do get me in the mood!

These WERE taken last Thursday but they are a little neither here, nor there.  A different time and place entirely.

You can visit these windows at The Angel in the Lake, a Sam Smith's pub where Marylebone Village begins.

And tell me you guys, I only have a laptop - are my pictures too big on your big screens?   Does it slow things down to have to look through such big pictures?  Let me know!  Cheers!

Happy New Year!

Hello to everyone and Happy New Year!  It's so delicious to be back.  We got off a plane on Friday from snowy cold wet dark-ish England where we spent most of our Christmas in many layers of sweaters and socks, fleece (even in bed since the English still resist indoor heat fairly emphatically!) and heavy boots.  Yesterday in L.A. was like eating one giant hot fudge sundae.  We could still feel the chill in our bones and brain freeze in our heads, but had a toasty sun warming our skin.  We had to peel off sweaters and our neighbors were LITERALLY sunbathing half naked on their decks.  (!!!!!!!!!!!! - Shivers of Pleasure.)

Hubby and I had a lovely time despite the cold in old Angleterre, funny visits with old friends and family and at least two full days of forgetting that we had jobs, cats, cars that need fixing, and computers - and we just slept and wandered and looked at and ate and drank tasty things.  Hope you all had at least a few such moments too.  As short and fleeting as they are, they do a world of good.

Thanks to everybody who stopped by with Christmas and New Year wishes.  It's been really wonderful getting to know you all in the marvelous universe of BLOG.  I'm not a person for New Year's resolutions but Passage Paradis has certainly been impetus for new and various sorts of commitments, and there is much happiness in the incentive you provide me to persist.  So thanks for your inspiration and openness, generosity and ingenuity.

Milles bisous and............PEACE OUT!

FOR THE HOLIDAYS........

This will probably be my last post before the holiday.  Hope your celebrations are as harmonious as this

Carol singing evening at the Albert Hall

As colorful and festive as Covent Garden

as cozy and welcoming as Sloane Square after a Christmas drink

AND as luminous and full of company

As full of goodies as the Kings Road

and as fun to unwrap.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND ALL THE BEST FOR THE NEW YEAR!!!