HOTEI YA at Ala Moana

This is a birthday gift; an odd birthday gift that will only mean something to one person. This was one of the favorite shops of two little girls back in the early 1960s. The other was Shirokiya. Both stores were in the Ala Moana Shopping Center.

Shirokiya still exists, though it's nothing like the original store. Alas, Hotei Ya is long gone.

Good times! Good Times! Happy Birthday my friend.


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HAWAII in the early 1960s

These images are from a 1963 California textbook entitled Hawaii: The Aloha State by Helen Bauer. I found it in a thrift store many years ago along with a second Hawaii textbook also published by California. I wish I had the books I used in the 4th grade in Hawaii when we studied state history.

This first shot shows a Matson liner at the Aloha Tower.


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This second shot is the Waikiki I remember from childhood. The domed building in the foreground was the Kaiser Dome, part of the Hawaiian Village resort. Heading towards Diamond Head you see an open expanse of beach with rafts out in the water. This is Fort DeRussy. At the time it was a private military beach where we went for picnics and a day of swimming without all the tourists.

The Ala Wai can be seen on the left. I used to walk along the canal on my way to and from school at Thomas Jefferson Elementary. Though I have bad memories of my class and horrific teachers, the grounds of the school were beautiful. I keep hoping to find some photos of the school as it was in the 1950s, but have never found anything.


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The image below is from Kamaaina56's Flickr site. He has posted hundreds of old images of the Hawaii we both remember as kids. I do believe there is a hint of the Thomas Jefferson Elementary in this shot on the right behind the trees.



Click on image to see it larger. (SOURCE: Kamaaina56)

LET'S GO FIRST CLASS across America: Part 10...THE END

Well folks, this is it for the first class travel. We've now crossed to new territory, which this was sitting on when this card was made. Hawaii was a territory of the United States, a serious offense if there ever was one fueled by greed.

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The Royal Hawaiian Hotel opened to guests on February 1, 1927. The hotel was built by Captain William Matson of Matson Liner fame. It was built specifically to house and entertain those who sailed to Hawaii for vacations on his ships.

With the success of the early efforts by Matson Navigation Company to provide steamer travel to America's wealthiest families en route to Hawaii, Captain William Matson proposed the development of a hotel in Honolulu for his passengers. This was in hope of profiting from what Matson believed could be the most lucrative endeavor his company could enter into. Matson purchased the Moana mansion, fronting the Ainahau royal estate. Christening it the Moana Hotel, it opened in 1901 as the first hotel in Waikiki. With its overwhelming success, Matson planned and built the Royal Hawaiian Hotel which opened in 1927.

During World War II, the Royal was closed to tourists and instead served as a place of rest and relaxation for U.S. submariners. While the Royal Hawaiian's lush tropical garden was (and still is) tranquil and poetic, on the beaches fronting the Pink Palace (sometimes referred to as the Pink Lady) one saw reminders of the war with rolls and rolls of barbed wire planted in the sand. The hotel was sold, along with the rest of Matson's hotels in Hawaii, to the Sheraton Corporation in 1959.

During the 1960's, the Pink Palace was home to "Concert by the Sea" which broadcast daily through Armed Forces Radio Network (AFN). Soldiers would listen to sounds of home all across Vietnam, and then on R&R would come to Waikiki to visit the Pink Palace in person. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

This card was sent by my mother to her folks when we stopped over on Oahu on our way to live on Midway Island for a year in 1953. Somewhere I have a slide of my wee self standing on a step at the Royal Hawaiian.

If you've read my blogs for a few years you'll know that I met my best friend on a Matson Liner, the Matsonia, when our families were both transferred from the East Coast to Hawaii in 1959. Click here to read an old post about the Matson Liners.

For the first few months after arriving on Oahu in '59 we lived just a few blocks from the Royal in a hotel called the Islander until we got military housing. The Islander was a dump, but the military paid for it so you kept your mouth shut.

We used to walk to the International Marketplace in the evening for the shows and then walk along Kalākaua Avenue looking in shops and maybe stopping in to the Jolly Rogers for a piece of coconut cream pie and a root beer float.

The gardens at the Royal abutted the avenue and were beautiful, tropical, magical. There was a man who used to walk along the avenue with a parrot on his shoulder which impressed the heck out of me. If you were really lucky Duke Kahanamoku would walk by. A stunning man. If you don't know who Duke was I recommend you do a little side reading about him here.

When we moved to Oahu the Royal was one of the largest buildings in Waikiki. It was stunning and special. Then the jets started flying into the islands and things began to change. Developers moved in and by 1966 it looked like this in Waikiki. I've added a slight blush so you can find the Royal.

Photo: from Here's Hawaii by Tongg Publishing Company, Ltd.

Today...

Photo: Gerald Farinas

I hope you've enjoyed this odd little journey, first class and not so first class, around the United States of yore. There will be more travel adventures to come.

THE PINK PALACE with the white carp

The original is long since gone, but not in the memory of two little girls. It was a pink palace in Waikiki with a big fish pond inside. We were especially taken with a beautiful white carp that swam around the island in the center of the pond. We named "him" Whitey and our memories of that fish still remain. Our families dined on all sorts of tasty delights. I remember loving the bread that seemed nearly raw served with the duck. Poor duck. Poor carp.

Lau Yee Chai was torn down a year or so after we visited. I don't know what they put up in its place. I do see by doing an online search that there is another Lau Yee Chai in Waikiki, but it can never compare to the original. It can never have the magic. The original was like being in a palace. Pure fantasy for those two little girls.

This menu is actually from 1945, not from when we visited in 1959. My dad visited the restaurant during World War II. Somehow this thing has survived all these years in near mint condition.

The pidgin English is a bit bizarre. Okay, it's over-the-top. I'm guessing P.Y. Chong had to pretend to be something he wasn't in order to make a living, but then I remember my folks saying how expensive the food was so I imagine financially he was doing pretty well. He played the game and won.

There are 4 more pages of this that I haven't scanned.

Click on the images to see them larger.

Update: Turns out the Lau Yee Chai we went to was not the original. My father informed me that the one he went to in 1945 was located near the mouth of the Ala Wai where the Ilikai stands. It was in a swamp with the building up on stilts. I've never seen a photo of this. Hope to find one someday.

Update 11.21.10: Today I received the following comment from P. Y. Chong's grandson. The net can be such an amazing place. Thanks for contacting me.

The stories of PY Chong and his resturant are very interesting. The resturant was sold many years ago at auction. The menus are an excellent snapshot of that era in hawaii history. I am glad so many people got to eat there and experience it, since it was something I can only read about. Thank you for sharing your memories. I am PY Chong's grandson.