Sunday, January 1, 2012

Pacific Vortex: haoles and more

pg 48

"I think he could tolerate we mainland haoles if he knew that 80 percent of his kingdom was now populated by Orientals."
Haole in the Hawaiian language, is generally used to refer to an individual that fits one (or more) of the following: "White person, American, Englishman, Caucasian; American, English; formerly, any foreigner; foreign, introduced, of foreign origin, as plants, pigs, chickens". The origins of the word predate the 1778 arrival of Captain James Cook (which is the generally accepted date of first contact with westerners), as recorded in several chants stemming from antiquity. Its use historically has ranged from descriptive to racist invective.

"Someday it wouldn't surprise me to get up and see the rising sun waving in the trade winds over the Iolani Palace."
There are many names of Japan in the English, Japanese, and other languages. The word "Japan" (or "Japon") is an exonym, and is used (in one form or another) by a large number of languages. The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon and Nihon . They are both written in Japanese using the kanji 日本. The Japanese name Nippon is used for most official purposes, including on Japanese money, postage stamps, and for many international sporting events. Nihon is a more casual term and the most frequently used in contemporary speech.

Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean "the sun's origin", that is, where the sun originates, and are often translated as the Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes from Imperial correspondence with Chinese Sui Dynasty and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to China.

Iolani Palace
ʻIolani Palace, in the capitol district of downtown Honolulu in the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi, is the only royal palace in the United States used as an official residence by a reigning monarch and is a National Historic Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Two monarchs governed from ʻIolani Palace: King Kalākaua and Queen Liliʻuokalani. After the monarchy was overthrown in 1893, the building was used as the capitol building for the Provisional Government, Republic, Territory, and State of Hawaiʻi until 1969. The palace was restored and opened to the public as a museum in 1978.

Papaaloa stopped, gazing off vacantly out a small window at the Koolau Mountains.

Koʻolau Range is a name given to the fragmented remnant of the eastern or windward shield volcano of the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu. It is not a mountain range in the normal sense, because it was formed as a single mountain called Koʻolau Volcano (koʻolau means "windward" in Hawaiian, cognate of the toponym Tokelau). What remains of Koʻolau is the western half of the original volcano that was destroyed in prehistoric times when the entire eastern half—including much of the summit caldera—slid cataclysmically into the Pacific Ocean. Remains of this ancient volcano lie as massive fragments strewn nearly 100 miles (160 km) over the ocean floor to the northeast of Oʻahu. The modern Koʻolau mountain forms Oʻahu's windward coast and rises behind the leeward coast city of Honolulu — on its leeward slopes and valleys are located most of Honolulu's residential neighborhoods.

The volcano is thought to have first erupted on the ocean floor more than 2.5 million years ago. It eventually reached sea level and continued to grow in elevation until about 1.7 million years ago, when the volcano became dormant. The volcano remained dormant for hundreds of thousands of years, during which time erosion ate away at the initially smooth slopes of the shield-shaped mountain; and the entire mass subsided considerably. The highest elevation perhaps exceeded 3,000 metres (9,800 ft); today, the summit of the tallest peak, Puʻu Konahuanui is only 3,100 feet.

After hundreds of thousands of years of dormancy, Koʻolau volcano began to erupt again. Some thirty eruptions over the past 500,000 years or so have created many of the landmarks around eastern Oʻahu, such as Diamond Head, Hanauma Bay, Koko Head, Punchbowl Crater, Tantalus, and Āliapaʻakai. Geologists do not always agree on the dates of these more recent eruptions, some dating them to around 32,000 years ago, others to as recently as 10,000 years ago. Geologists believe that there is at least a remote possibility that Koʻolau volcano will erupt again.

There are three roads that tunnel through the southern part of the Koʻolau Range, connecting Honolulu to the Windward Coast. From south to north:

* Hawaii Route 61 (Pali Highway)
* Hawaii Route 63 (Likelike Highway)
* Interstate H-3

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