Student of the Month October 2013 Featuring: Andrea Gordon Hiroko Matsubara Zachary Eto
University of Hawai‘i at MÄ noa
A Note on the Series:
We at Hawai‘i Review are super excited to launch our Student of the Month series, which features on our website stellar student writing and visual art from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, the institution where our roots dig deep. In print for more than 40 years, our journal has been an established voice in the Pacific and beyond for decades, featuring work from emerging writers alongside literary heavyweights. The Student of the Month series is our latest effort to expand our reach in local and far-reaching literary communities. For the first installment this series, we are thrilled to feature the following poets from UHM Professor Kathy Phillips’ ENG 273 course from spring 2013: Andrea Gordon, Hiroko Matsubara, and Zachary Eto. During summer 2013, Professor Phillips reported to the Hawai‘i Review staff on how amazed she was by her student poets, who she also described as talented linguists, many of whom are bi- or even trilingual. Other than English, languages featured in their work include Hawaiian, Hawai‘i Creole English, Tagalog, Bisaya, Samoan, Japanese, Khmer, Russian, and a NW Canadian dialect. Professor Phillips urged us to feature her students, and we are so grateful that she did. The poems herein respond to “Lament” by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, an immigrant from Malaysia who speaks a Chinese dialect, Malay, and English. Gordon, Matsubara, and Eto were tasked with crafting their poems by addressing any or all of their languages (as if those languages were people), or by writing about the language itself. They could complain of or praise these languages. The students were reminded that while Lim only uses standard English in her poem, they could mix in any of their languages to their poems. “That is a lot of knowledge sitting in one room,” explained Professor Phillips. “The set of poems show real talent in poetry, and they show our university as a real crossroads of the Pacific.” We are equally taken with their work, and we hope you are too. Enjoy! —The Editors
Copyright © 2013 by the Board of Publications, University of Hawai ‘i at Mānoa If you are a student and would like to feature your work in Student of the Month or an instructor for a creative writing course and would like to submit exemplary University of Hawai‘i student work to Hawai‘i Review’s Student of the Month, please send submissions to our Submittable account at bit.ly/submit2HR or contact us at hawaiireview@gmail.com.
Languages Andrea Gordon
The Great White North beckons back, saying come back from these Hosers remember your roots. I do remember. I remember the cold winters, cold summers, and being down south in Seattle. I wear my touke, it covers my ears. It’s warm and it matches my gloves. We drink coco-moo from Tim Horton’s and we eat our biscuits. I remember. I walk oot and aboot. People in the South think it’s funny, and they laugh. I say “Soorry,” they laugh harder. I mention the puck drop, they stop. I remember. Andrea Gordon wrote this piece to get in touch with her roots and use Canadian slang in a poem.
Culture Shock Hiroko Matsubara
In my junior year of college, I decided to study abroad for a year in Japan. I had heard lots of stories of culture shock, and was bracing myself. But nothing happened. Six months passed and I was settled into my life in Kyoto. I was excited because my friend from Hawai‘i was coming to visit/ We were meeting up at Narita Airport. I navigated through the crowds at Tokyo Train Station and it was smooth smailing up until the point when I confused myself with which train I should catch. I decided to ask a train station attendant for help. I managed to spy two male attendants talking inside their office. I knocked and slid the sliding door open. The older of the two did not look please to have their conversation interrupted. Hesitating, I asked in Japanese, “Excuse me, could you tell me if this train stops at Narita Airport?” The older attendant curtly replied, “No, it doesn’t.” He turned to his friend and said, “Baka janee no (Is she stupid or what).” The men continued where their conversation left off. I was dismissed. I thanked their backs and quietly slid the door shut. I found a bench to sit and wait at. I cried.
I am Japanese. My family is Japanese. I speak Japanese, I read and write Japanese, and I love eating Japanese food and watching Japanese television. But at that moment, I realized how not Japanese I was. I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t know certain obvious things that a true Japanese person knew. My face was Japanese and the Japanese I spoke was unaccented, but I was an imposter. The train attendant was a douche bag and he was a big part of the reason why I was crying. But it was also because I felt a sudden distance from my own cultural heritage. I wasn’t Japanese. I was something else. I sat there wishing that I had cussed that balding attendant our in English. I wish I could have seen his shocked face when realized I wasn’t really Japanese. That he had made a big mistake to assume I was. He would have had to deal with an angry, mystery girl with a loud, dirty English-speaking mouth. But I didn’t do any of that. I went to Narita Airport a different person. Hiroko Matsubara was born and raised in Hawai‘i. She is a recent graduate of UH-Mānoa and is currently figuring out what she wants to do with her degree. Her proud Japanese parents raised her to be a reasonably intelligent, hardworking adult. She still manages to keep up this appearance but whenever she has spare time, she likes to cuddle on her couch with her goofy yellow Lab and watch countless episodes of her favorite crime television series.
Language of Hawai‘i Zachary Eto
Pidgin The language of my mother and my father and the language of their mothers and their fathers. Often times, it is not a language that I use. But I hold it near to my heart. For my mother it is the language of her family, the language she spoke when she grew up on Kaua‘i, the language she spoke with her siblings and cousins, the language of her close-knit relatives, the language that was automatic. “He was one handsome buggah, ah?” “Shaunte, da dog stay yappin’ again, go shut ‘em up.” For my father, it is the language of his friends, the language they speak when they’re together drinking beers, playing poker, and laughing about all the “good times.” The language he speaks when he’s around his buddies. “Ho, you wen see da fish I wen catch da adda day? Da fuckah was huge!” “Ho, guaranz goin’ be one good game, Baldwin goin’ lick Lahainaluna’s ass.”
Both my mother and my father spoke this special language. Pidgin was part of my childhood. Always around me. This unique language (that is only spoken by Hawai‘i locals, that is so different and strange, that separates beautiful Hawai‘i from the rest) was the language that had been taught to my parents. Pidgin shaped part of who I am today and made me unique from the rest of the world. And for that I am forever grateful.
Zachary Eto is 20 years old and is currently a junior majoring in psychology. He was born and raised on the island of Maui and enjoys outdoor activities like hiking and going to the beach. As a high school student, he did not enjoy poetry very much, bu after coming to UH and taking ENG 273, he has developed a newfound appreciation for poetry. Dr. Kathy Phillips’ class showed him how much he enjoyed writing poetry.
www.hawaiireview.org Hawai‘i Review Staff, 2013-2014 Anjoli Roy, Editor in Chief Kelsey Amos, Managing Editor Donovan Kūhiō Colleps, Design Editor No‘ukahau‘oli Revilla, Poetry Editor David Scrivner, Fiction Editor
bit.ly/submit2HR