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What is Lei Day in Hawaii? · Hawaii Travel Podcast by Hawaii’s Best: Plan a Better Hawaii Vacation

• 0:15
  Hawaii's Best: Welcome to Hawaii's Best podcast where we help you prepare for your next trip to Hawaii. Discover the experiences, businesses and stories that make Hawaii the Aloha state. And now your host Brian Murphy.
• 0:30
  Bryan Murphy: Hello everyone.
• 0:30
  Bryan Murphy: And thank you so much again for joining us on another episode of Hawaii's Best This is a special aloha Friday mini episode today we are joined with our cultural practitioner,
• 0:44
  Unknown: Kahanui Welcome back to the show. How are you doing? I'm good. The unofficial cultural practitioner for Hawaii's Best I'll take it I'll take it.
• 0:55
  Unknown: Today we are talking about May Day also known as Lei Day in Hawaii, which is happening tomorrow may 1 every single year. And we thought it'd be cool just to get on here real quick and talk a little bit about some of the history of Mayday but also what a typical meeting usually looks like in Hawaii and how you can participate a little bit tomorrow virtually Yeah, and Cotonou is going to talk a little bit about what that looks like. But let's start with a brief overview of Mayday.
• 1:25
  Unknown: Specifically in Hawaii. What is made a all about use of we look back, I know the first meeting was held may 1 1920. It was two writers or two poets, I think that started or had the idea, okay, who kind of celebrate not only Mayday, but also have lay involved into Mayday. I think her name was grace tower Warren.
• 1:49
  Unknown: But she first had the idea to celebrate lady on May Day. Yeah, I guess if we look, if this is a typical year, we would have lots of different celebrations around on each island. Yeah, that would celebrate the art of lovemaking.
• 2:08
  Unknown: And just ladies in general, Hawaii is synonymous with that beautiful thing that we call an A. But for me they is the gift, the act of giving away is very traditionally Hawaiian, you know, yeah, just making your own way from the flowers that you pick having good intentions, and then also gifting a person with a very likely thing. But many Polynesian cultures also have their own style of lay as well.
• 2:32
  Unknown: You know, what's a little bit about just the lay in general?
• 2:35
  Unknown: And that's probably a whole episode in itself, but just Yeah, the meaning of the lay and the purpose of Valais. Yeah, you know, knees can be made with all sorts of different flowers or foliage. But for me, I think when you make the lay, the best thing to keep in mind is the kind of material that you use, okay, make sure it's appropriate for the person that you're giving the lay to. And also the intention. So if you're making your own lay, or if you're even buying the May, that throughout the whole process, that you have a good thought and a good intention, you know, no negative thoughts, because that kind of goes into your gift that when you give it to that person, it can also be negative. And you can also fall in that person, which is you know, just a good thing to think about when you create anything. And you know, most people are familiar with the traditional flower lay which is on a kui that they just string different flowers together, but there are so many types of ways in Hawaiian culture, I guess a few ones that I can point out to you that maybe in recent years I've been become a little bit more popular is the Haku lei you interact with me how cool how cool so hopefully is when maybe you've seen it before you have a whole bunch of I guess you start with Rafi or whatever kind of material you want to weave together and then you just keep adding different flowers or leaves or foliage to your lady just keep wrapping it up. And then it becomes a whole colorful way that must be a lot of people were in their head she would call it a Les Paul. But that whole style of braiding things together would be the popular gotcha Yeah. So we have that wine overlay really which is more kind of a twisting lay or you twist different materials together so mostly we we use that with the T for the E which was the different moves together those are two of the other types of ways that rather than just the liquidity that we have, right the proper way to wear a lay not tie it against the neck yeah or it's kind of loose Yeah, probably just rested not even me but maybe rested pretty well on your shoulders where you still have some behind your back like a little bit more than just ran up against your now but I mean, again, you can wear it however you don't, you know just throw it away or don't you
• 5:00
  Bryan Murphy: You kind of mentioned it when we first started, what's it like? I guess, quote, normal year typically look like across the islands on May 1.
• 5:09
  Kahanuola Solatorio: Normally we would have different celebrations islandwide statewide, which is like, let's say for Oahu, we usually have a concert down at the colony park in Waikiki in the bandstand. So we have live music for the entire day, we have a lay contest where people bring their different layers and you know, they get judged on which was the most serious or which was the most traditional, that kind of stuff, cooler performances and different you know, crafts and all kinds of stuff. Also, usually in since it's around January, or February, they do on a court. This is when they choose the queen and also to lay princesses to, I would say like kind of like a, you know, like a beauty pageant. But this one's more specifically based on a couple categories. One is hula.
• 5:58
  Kahanuola Solatorio: The second one is their lay making ability, and also like the interview portion. So they choose the court in February, January. And then for me, they're pretty much the lady queen. They're the ambassador of aloha for that day. That kind of stuff. That's cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. It's, you know, just a thing that I've always grown up with. And I've always Yeah, you know, I just say, oh, man days later, you know, that's always been a thing, but not realizing that every way around the world didn't have the lay tradition that we do. So
• 6:30
  Bryan Murphy: gotcha. Obviously, tomorrow is going to look a little different. However, it'll look probably drastically different than last year, because last year at this time, we were a month into the pandemic. I can't remember what the festivities were last year virtually. But tomorrow, love to hear just kind of give us a teaser of what to expect because you're Ben is part of this and has been a part of this Mayday celebration, the last couple years. Yeah.
• 6:58
  Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah, for the past three years, we've been doing our own version of MIDI.
• 7:00
  Kahanuola Solatorio: And if you're familiar with the brothers, cousin, Meryl, they're very popular Hawaiian duel, two brothers, that were kind of pioneers for many people in Hawaiian music and in the Hawaiian music industry. But they started the main a tradition, every main First they have a huge concert, cooler, you know, all the the whole shebang as the Waikiki shell. So they started the tradition. And luckily, we were able to be gifted the Mayday concert from Robert cousin Merrill, who, my other job, I mean, Zach connect the dance for his Hello. So it was like, I want to pass this on to you folks, you know, do with it, how you please but just uphold the tradition of maintain. So the first year we had it, we did an actual live concert at the convention center. When he was singing enough alive, we had discovered a new way, you know, actual with an audience, then the year after we wanted to do the same kind of thing. But unfortunately, Coronavirus, appeared out of nowhere. So we had to think fast that we ended up doing virtually So, you know, a whole concert, including some of his top talent, as this year is going to be the same thing. So we have a few of our favorites, including Robert casimero. Again, we have Manu Boyd, we have the high high girls, of course, we'll have dancers as well. And we're going to be traveling around the island of wahoo. Our theme this year is called market eco market fit, which means to explore or like to visit. And that's what we've kind of want to promote is more of a culturally responsible way of looking at tourism. You know, we we've been having this deep talks about, you know, travel porno, and coming to the Hawaiian Islands and being responsible when you travel. So you know, this is kind of the thing, where we chose three different spots around the island of Oahu that, you know, you can go and visit and learn about the place. It's not just go there and take a picture and forget a moment The next day, you know, one of the places is being held Hawaiian Waikiki where we had lunch that one day, yeah, you know, there's so many history in that place. And we can learn so much just by walking around and reading the signs that are there. But also you can learn a lot from the melody and the songs that we have here in Hawaii. So I know that's kind of a long sneak peek. But yeah,
• 9:26
  Bryan Murphy: no, that's great.
• 9:26
  Bryan Murphy: I'm looking forward to tuning in. I know I've seen a few sneak peeks that you guys have been posting, how can people tune in and be a part of it?
• 9:37
  Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. So if you're in Hawaii, it's going to be on CHANNEL SEVEN ktmb. It's going to start at six o'clock on May 1. But if you're not, we're going to be showing it's online streaming. You can check out our Facebook kill band, but you can also go to Hawaii news now and they'll be there. Yeah,
• 9:54
  Bryan Murphy: how can people check out your band?
• 9:56
  Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah, so you can find us on Facebook and Instagram. Kill ban. Pretty simple. And then also our website is kill band, if you want to hear more of our music to where all the streaming platforms and all of the iTunes, all that good stuff so,
• 10:13
  Unknown: yeah, please support
• 10:16
  Kahanuola Solatorio: your struggling musician
• 10:20
  Bryan Murphy: will link all that below in the show notes.
• 10:25
  Kahanuola Solatorio: Awesome. If you're going to be joining us by watching the Virtual Media concert, don't forget to warily if you have old like Fukui Notley lying around or if you're able to make your own day, you know, that's part of the whole process is to make the lay warily and also give relate to someone that you that you love.
• 10:45
  Kahanuola Solatorio: And the triple jerking yourself.
• 10:48
  Kahanuola Solatorio: Don't forget to wear your late tomorrow, and sing along and dance along with us to our songs here and
• 10:54
  Bryan Murphy: appreciate that guy. Anyway, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks again for tuning in today and on this special aloha Friday episode with our cultural practitioner Conwy and just want to say thanks again for being a part of this community. And look forward to celebrating labor day tomorrow. And be sure to wear like giveaway Nicolay till next time be well, Aloha.
• 11:21
  Hawaii's Best: Thanks for listening to Hawaii's Best podcast. To stay up to date on future episodes. Be sure to subscribe. For more information to help you plan your next trip to Hawaii visit Hawaii's Best travel.com
• 11:50
  Unknown: are we