TGIFr!day

Week of Friday, August 17, 2018 | Vol. 6, No. 33

Check da Scene

Grinds & Da Kines For Your Weekend

FAMILY AFFAIR Kupaoa heads west for free performance

Come See the

Serving Farmers & Ranchers for 50 Years Four Days of Fun, Food, Farming & Great Entertainment for the Family

2018 2017 Fruit & Vegetable Show

See you at the Kauai County Farm Bureau Fair

August 16-19, 2018 s Vidinha Stadium For Full Schedule, Event, and Contest Details visit www.kauaifarmfair.org

2 | TGIFR!DAY | Friday, August 17, 2018

TOP PICKS FOR THE WEEK FRIDAY

“INTO THE WOODS” 7 p.m. Puhi Theatrical Warehouse Hawaii Children’s Theatre musical.

Tickets: bit.ly/2NWLc2t KAUAI COUNTY FARM BUREAU FAIR 6 p.m. to midnight Vidinha Stadium.

SATURDAY

“INTO THE WOODS” 7 p.m. Puhi Theatrical Warehouse Hawaii Children’s Theatre musical.

Tickets: bit.ly/2NWLc2t PHILIPPINE CONSULATE OUTREACH 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Lihue Civic Center Moikeha Building conference room Representatives from the Philippine Consulate on Oahu will be on island for passport renewal, oath administration for those eligible for dual citizenship, and answer questions related to consular services.

Appointments and documents necessary for certain services.

Info, scheduling of appointments: https://bit.ly/2OzFS5t KAUAI COUNTY FARM BUREAU FAIR Noon to midnight Vidinha Stadium.

WALK WITH A DOCTOR 7 a.m. Wilcox Medical Center Walk the campus with a doctor,

then have a healthy breakfast and listen to a talk about a health topic.

Registration required. Info, registration: 245-1198 SUNDAY

“INTO THE WOODS” 7 p.m. Puhi Theatrical Warehouse Hawaii Children’s Theatre musical.

Tickets: bit.ly/2NWLc2t PHILIPPINE CONSULATE OUTREACH 8 a.m. to noon, Lihue Civic Center Moikeha Building conference room Representatives from the Philippine Consulate on Oahu will be on island for passport renewal, oath administration for those eligible for dual citizenship, and answer questions related to consular services.

Appointments and documents necessary for certain services.

Info, scheduling of appointments: https://bit.ly/2OzFS5t KAUAI COUNTY FARM BUREAU FAIR Noon to 11 p.m. Vidinha Stadium WEDNESDAY FAMILY MOVIE NIGHT 6 p.m. Koloa Public/School Library In celebration of the PBS’ “Great American Read,” the library presents “The Little Prince,” the animated version of the classic tale of innocence and discovery by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Rated PG for mild thematic elements. Free.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Bill Buley | bbuley@thegardenisland.com | 245-0457 ADVERTISING: displayads@thegardenisland.com | 245-0425 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: tgiclassified@thegardenisland.com | 246-0325

Photo by Cat Frazier

Lihau Paik and Kellen Paik have been playing together for 14 years.

KUPAOA’S MUSIC MAGIC Husband-wife duo performs at Waimea Public Library CAT FRAZIER SPECIAL TO TGIFR!DAY

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t’s Wednesday evening at the Waimea Public Library and the quiet space practically hums with felicitous anticipation. The internationally-recognized musical duo, Kupaoa, is preparing to present a 45-minute set in honor of the Waimea branch’s summer reading

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program, Libraries Rock.

Chairs have been arranged in neat pews leading up to a niche serving as the stage. Nestled beneath streams of brightly colored paper cranes, the scene looks more like a makeshift wedding ceremony than town concert. The analogy is apt. Husband and wife team, Kellen Paik and Lihau Paik, have been performing together for 14 years and their songs are often an homage to stories — their own and the island’s.

Beginning the program with the soothing plucks of

SEE KUPAOA, PAGE 3

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TGIFR!DAY | Friday, August 17, 2018 | 3

Photo by Cat Frazier

A young audience member stands to get a better view of Kupaoa at the Waimea Public Library.

to research and life. Each memoir is a union; personal anecdotes suffused in heritage, dispelled by love of place.

Indeed, romance seems to color most of their interactions throughout the set and the couple’s ease is remarkably buoyant.

“People sometimes ask if our banter is scripted,” Lihau says. “It’s not.”

The pair met while attending classes at the University of Hawaii in Manoa and after friends asked Kellen to perform at their wedding, he began teaching Lihau how to play the bass. She, in turn, taught him how to sing.

“I think one reason we blend so well is because we learned together and taught each other,” she says.

Kupaoa Continued from Page 2

his tuning guitar, Kellen says a warm aloha and sheepishly apologizes for the delay due to technical difficulty.

“Who would have guessed batteries erode?” he jokes.

Michelle Young, branch manager, takes the stage and thanks the pair for driving all the way from Kilauea, a testament met with much applause. After the brief presentation of a gift supported

by Friends of Waimea Public Library and leis made by the organization’s VP, Cinthy Kagawa, we are underway.

Their first song, “Kananaka,” opens with soaring harmonies and a gentle duet that encapsulates the imagery of fragrant trade winds and sunlight strummed through flickering palm fronds. Children mingle, huddled within the crook of familiars and sway, their arms mimicking

I think one reason we blend so well is because we learned together and taught each other.”

Lihau Paik One half of Kupaoa, on why she and husband Kellen Paik’s music flows in a seemingly effortless way

——

the intonations of hula dancers.

Entranced by some ancient rhythm, the Paik’s adoration for their craft, home, and each other is apparent.

“Of course, Hawaii is very beautiful,” Kellen says. “But it’s the stories and history that add that depth to the islands.”

In between songs they impart some of these sagas, learned through dedication

They were booked for another gig at the ceremony and it snowballed from there leading to careers as full-time musicians; four albums filled with original and traditional compositions; international performances and collaborations in Japan; and multiple Na Hoku Hanohano awards (Hawaii’s equivalent to the Grammys).

In what is surely a story for the history books, Kellen and

wedding anniversary,” she confides with a smile.

To learn more about events like this one at your local public library and participate in National Library

Lihau fell in love over music, which in turn brought them even closer as a couple.

They’ve been such for 13 years.

“Tomorrow is our eighth

Card Signup Month in September, visit librarieshawaii. org. Additional information about Kupaoa’s upcoming events and online store can be found at kupaoa.com.

Shops, Restaurants & Services at Ching Young Village: Activity Shack

Hanalei River Healing

Na Pali Properties

Aloha from Hanalei

Hanalei Surf Backdoor

Northside Grill

Aloha Juice Bar

Hanalei Strings

Ohana Shop

Alo La‘a Yoga & Dance

Honua Engineering

On the Road to Hanalei

Banandi Creperie

Hot Rocket

Pat’s Taqueria

Big Save

Hula Moon Gifts of Hanalei

Pedal and Paddle

Billabong

Infinite Arts

Reside Kauai LLC

Blue Tiki Tattoo

Jo-Jo Shave Ice

Spinning Dolphin

Chocolat Hanalei

Kalypso Restaurant

Styles Studio Hanalei

DeCamp Construction

Kauai Vacation Rentals

Sunrise Emporium

Divine Planet

Kokonut Kids

Three Brothers Gourmet Market

Chicken in a Barrel BBQ

L&L Hawaiian BBQ

Timeshare Resales

Hanalei Bay Pizzeria

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Na Pali Catamaran

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4 | TGIFR!DAY | Friday, August 17, 2018

MATCHA AND WHIMSY

Traditional Japanese tea meets color-changing drinks in modern Kapaa teahouse

Kela Jewelers and across from Kapaa Beach Park.

On its own, the butterfly pea flower tea has an earthy flavor, like green tea — with similar levels of antioxidants and other health benefits.

Ishii sweetens it with a homemade simple syrup Photos by Dennis Fujimoto / TGIFR!DAY and then adds lemon to ABOVE: Mimi Ishii works on a customer’s matcha order at Matcha-ya in Kapaa. ABOVE RIGHT: The color-changing lemonade make the drink sing. begins its color transformation from blue to pink.

“I created the color changing drink because I make JESSICA ELSE two locations! the color changing glass TGIFR!DAY earrings,” she said, showing Enjoy a complimentary basket of fresh hot chips and a cup of salsa per table. off a pair of glass earrings imi Ishii has a from Kela’s Glass Gallery, magical twist Happy Hour Daily which she and her husband on lemonade at 2 - 5 p.m.

Ken own.

Kapaa’s newest teahouse.

Ishii has a studio at her The drink comes across house where she makes the the counter an iridescent blue and changes to a bright jewelry from a special kind In addition to Authentic Mexican Cuisine our menu also features Omelettes, Pancakes, of glass that changes color pink right before your eyes. and French Toasts as well as Club and Santa with different lighting.

“It’s an organic butterfl y Fe Sandwiches, Vegetarian Burger and Mahi • Lunch • Dinner Breakfast www.mariachishawaii.com But that’s not the only pea fl ower tea and you put Mahi Sandwich. lemon juice on the top,” Ishii thing the artist crafts in her said while making the drink studio. Ishii also has a kiln Kapaa Lihue Open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Daily 4-1387 Kuhio Hwy. Harbor Mall, 3501 Rice St. at Matcha-Ya, a Japanese tea for firing the handmade clay (Friday and Saturday til 10 p.m. and dessert shop just behind matcha bowls she uses for 808-822-1612 808-246-1570 at Harbor Mall location)

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matcha tea in the shop.

“You can buy them online or whatever, but it’s a very specific shape that you need for the tea ceremony,” Ishii said. “They’re never quite right, so I make my own.”

While the lemonade is flashy, high-quality and traditional matcha is the foundation of Matcha-Ya, which is meant to have the traditions and feel of a Japanese teahouse with a modern twist.

“You can come here to taste real matcha,” Ken Ishii said as he took orders from customers at the counter.

“We order it from Japan.”

A sign on the wall in the restaurant lists the health benefits of matcha tea and touts things like an increased metabolism, reduced cholesterol and germ killing powers.

SEE MATCHA, PAGE 5

TGIFR!DAY | Friday, August 17, 2018 | 5

Photos by Dennis Fujimoto / TGIFR!DAY

ABOVE: Mimi and Ken Ishii offer up a matcha color-changing lemonade at Matcha-ya in Kapaa. BELOW LEFT: Cafe mocha frappe strawberry is cool and colorful. BELOW RIGHT: Matcha azuki butter mochi means there is more than drinks at Matcha-ya in Kapaa.

Matcha

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Continued from Page 4

Mimi Ishii is a certified tea ceremony instructor who spent 10 years learning the traditional tea ritual from Urasenke, one of Japan’s main schools for the art.

She has been practicing the tradition for more than 30 years.

“It’s a hobby,” Mimi Ishii said. “I have hobbies like ceramic and glass art and tea ceremonies and doing the matcha tea with the handmade ceramic bowls.

So that’s what this is. Everything’s like I would make it at home.”

On the menu is a traditional matcha shot, like you would get at a tea ceremony and a handmade matcha jelly that’s added to drinks like the lemonade or a soy milk matcha latte.

“The matcha jelly, it’s a bit

like boba,” Ken Ishii said.

Also on the menu are matcha frappes in flavors like mocha, blueberry or strawberry; and shave ice, made on machines imported from Japan, with flavors like mocha caramel or blueberry.

Prices are in the $6 to $10 range and there are some dessert options like handmade dorayaki, or a dessert made of two red-bean pancakes with fruit or chocolate inside, and mochi.

With the doors opening at the new teahouse on

July 27, Ken Ishii said they’re still getting settled in the space and are looking for a few employees.

“Here, our focus is on matcha and we’ve got the modern twists like the frappes,” Mimi Ishii said.

“And the matcha, it’s good for you. The caffeine is different than coffee. It keeps you calm and focused.”

••• Jessica Else, environment reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or jelse@thegardenisland. com.-

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(808) 826-6277 5-5134 Kuhio Hwy, Hanalei tHenui.com

6 | TGIFR!DAY | Friday, August 17, 2018

RIDING THE WAVES OF LIFE BILL BULEY TGIFR!DAY

major motion picture, “Soul Surfer.”

Not as well known, but with a story just as compelling as Bethany’s, t’s probably not an exaggeration to is her mother, Cheri Hamilton. In her 2011 book, (written with Kauai’s Rick say most people in America, and Bundschuh) “Raising a Soul Surfer,” many beyond, know the story of she reveals insight into her life, her Bethany Hamilton.

Born and raised on Kauai, she was marriage to Tom Hamilton, and how they raised a daughter and two sons, surfing at Tunnels Beach in 2003 when she lost her left arm in a shark Noah and Timothy, on Kauai, with attack at age 13. It wasn’t long before surfing never far away.

I had the pleasure a few years back she courageously returned to surfing to meet Cheri Hamilton at Bethany’s and went on to become a profesand Alana Blanchard’s surfing toursional surfer and today, remains ney on the North Shore. We chatted among the world’s top surfers. Her for just a few minutes, but she was comeback and her faith have been friendly, open and talkative. She chronicled in several books and a

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didn’t treat me like the stranger I was, but like an old friend. It was a relaxing encounter.

Her book, at 202 pages and with plenty of pictures, is much the same way. It’s a nice, easy, engaging read that flows smoothly and takes the reader along with her for a lifetime of adventures.

Cheri Hamilton, as she writes, has a strong faith in Jesus Christ, which is a message she clearly shares as the most important one of her life.

She does not beat readers over the head with her beliefs, but she leaves no doubt her faith guides her and she writes of God’s power, grace and

blessings.

She recounts plenty of struggles and doubts, just as she shares the family’s love and strength that bonded them together through Bethany’s shark attack and help her overcome such an injury.

She also loved surfing. In her younger days, she would spent six hours a day in the water and not tire.

There were lessons to be learned and she shares them.

In the closing chapter, she writes: “Like storms and wipeouts, adversity comes in big waves and small.

Learning to take each wave at a time will exercise your inner being to

strengthen and develop your resolve to survive — both spiritually and physically.”

“Raising a Soul Surfer” is just as it’s billed, “one family’s epic tale.”

••• Bill Buley, editor-in-chief, can be reached at 245-0457 or bbuley@ thegardenisland.com.

‘CRAZY RICH ASIANS’ A DELIGHTFUL NEW FAIRY TALE JAKE COYLE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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here are two glittering parades running in tandem through Jon M. Chu’s “Crazy Rich Asians,” a glitzy and delightful adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s 2013 bestseller. One is the blingedout, designer-label, crazy-rich opulence often characteristic of rom-coms yet extreme enough here to make even Carrie Bradshaw or Christian Grey blush. The other, and far more arresting pageant, is of the film’s Asian cast of various nationalities who, one after another, shame Hollywood’s regular disinterest in them by being so effortlessly dazzling.

The result is a totally

winning confection: a frothy fairy tale, trivial and weighty at once, that simultaneously uses tried-and-true romantic comedy convention while riotously bursting free of movie-business formula. “Crazy Rich Asians” has much of the same DNA as a host of princess tales like “Cinderella,” but it is a radical departure, too.

Chu’s film is the first contemporary-set studio film centered on an all-Asian and Asian-American cast in 25 years, following Wayne Wang’s 1993 adaptation of Amy Tan’s “The Joy Luck Club.”

Further, studies have shown that less than 5 percent of the most popular movies in North America last year even featured a speaking character

of Asian descent. Movies like this, to everyone’s loss, almost never come along.

“Crazy Rich Asians” would still be an important film even if it understandably sagged with such history on its shoulders. And it’s not perfect. Like rom-coms before it, it has a blatantly superficial side, so drowning in the accoutrements of high-society Singapore that it conflates materialism with matrimony.

(There is a wedding set in a church transformed into a lily pond and a bachelor party on a cargo ship anchored in international waters.) And some could reasonably quibble that Chu’s film has blind spots of its own, omitting South and Southeastern Asians for a tale

entirely focused on Chinese and Chinese-American characters.

And thanks largely to its energetic ensemble, led by Constance Wu and Henry Golding, Chu’s film is a charming romp, full of heart and heartening breakout stars.

Wu plays Rachel Chu, an economics professor at New York University whose Singapore-born businessman boyfriend Nick Young (Golding) suggests a trip to the Far East. “Like Queens?” she replies over dinner in Manhattan. But his proposal is that they fly back to Singapore for his best friend’s wedding and to meet his family. It’s only as they are boarding the airplane and are led to an entire bedroom suite

that Rachel realizes her longterm boyfriend is filthy, stinking rich. Once they arrive in Singapore, it gradually dawns on Rachel that she’s on the cusp of marrying into one of Asia’s wealthiest real-estate empires.

For Rachel, it’s like stepping into a fantasy and a nightmare.

She has unwittingly landed one of Asia’s most sought-after bachelors, drawing the jealous, ever-watchful eyes of all around her, along with the piercing glare of Nick’s mother, the fiercely Old-World matriarch Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh).

Eleanor sneers at her “American” aspirations of “happiness” and following her “passion,” a collision with her stout beliefs of spousal sacrifice.

That “Crazy Rich Asians” is a

rom-com where the mothers are its most vital co-stars is one of the movie’s best attributes.

What most makes “Crazy Rich Asians” such a pleasure is its spectacular ensemble of performers so often unseen on American movie screens. There is Wu, the “Fresh Off the Boat” star, who glides with grace and comic timing through the film; the British-Malaysian newcomer Golding, who already has the sheen of a leading man for years to come; the scene-stealing Awkwafina, as Rachel’s college pal; the wry Nico Santos, as Nick’s cousin; Jimmy O. Yang, of “Silicon Valley” as a loose cannon relative; and the reliably hysterical (and a little underused here) Ken Jeong as Awkwafina’s father.

CHECK DA SCENE Shar “Choo” Iseri, Kimmie Kau

TGIFR!DAY | Friday, August 17, 2018 | 7

DENNIS FUJIMOTO TGIFR!DAY

Ashley Quinn, Mya Boyer, Mia Checkly

Cece Dillard, Larry Harper, Mariko Harper, Mark Smyth, Jason Sessions, Dennis Peralta, Ryan Heraud, Reyrey Martinez, Kalili Pavao, Uluwehi Pavao, Courtney Peterson, Wesley Moribe

RELAY FOR THE NORTH SHORE P Carrie Hovland, Christina Donner, Mickey LaVarre

Janet Snyder, Kalea Snyder

Royden Kusaka, Fely Kusaka

Melanie, Leonora, Runa Mae, Ruemiline Rindon

Dixie Prichard, Frances Forde, Helene Sheehan, Rose Poppe, Gini Martin

Seated from left: Charlene Koizumi and Tina Brun; standing from left: Christy Koizumi, Dawn Vess, Penny Vess, Stephanie Saffery

auline Ibia needed to visit political candidates Saturday night, but delayed her visits until she got in a couple of laps in the Survivors’ Walk at the American Cancer Society Relay For Life North Shore, held at the Bryan J. Baptiste Sports Complex in Kapaa.

“I lost two brothers to cancer,” Ibia said. “I had to walk at least a couple of laps before going to visit candidates.”

Relay For Life is a grassroots, community-based team fundraising event that honors cancer survivors, their caregivers, and remembers those who lost their fight against cancer.

Patti Ragasa Ornellas, the Kauai American Cancer Society coordinator, said the event unfolded with 25 teams coming up with more than $24,000 toward the Relay’s goal of $50,000.

Chelsea Smith-Wishard, Larry DeFontorum, Leeani Mundon, Noelani Planas, Francine Corona, Robb Naumu, Kamalei Pihana, Danny Aki

8 | TGIFR!DAY | Friday, August 17, 2018