Aloha Harvard

One of my most vivid memories of Freshman Week is very hungrily walking into Annenberg Hall with my parents and finding a poster for Aloha Harvard, the welcome back event of the year.  I’m not sure if the welcome back event is Hawaiian-themed every year, but I was nevertheless pleasantly surprised to see this reminder of home–I had left barely a week prior and I was already missing it.

I had doubts about how Harvard was going to go about making itself Hawaiian and they proved highly valid, as the most Hawaiian things about Aloha Harvard were the plastic leis people were given as prizes and, perhaps, the hula dancers, who taught the audience how to do the hookie lau.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the sad excuse of huli huli chicken or the “Kaula pork” the menu promised.  The “Hawaiian feast” also included saimin, fried plantains, vegetable kabobs, jello and fruit salad, and a desert of smores.  Clearly, excepting the first item, none of dishes were remotely Hawaiian, and the huli huli chicken and “Kaula pork” were entirely unrecognizable as the local kine grindz we all know and love.  The huli huli chicken was baked chicken with some sweetish sauce on it, and the “Kaula pork” didn’t even taste like meat.  To give Harvard credit, though, the saimin was tolerable.  It is, after all, very difficult to mess up.

Unfortunately, I was not able to sample the coconut curry, which sounded very interesting, if not very Hawaiian.

The Aloha Harvard activities were equally entertaining in their un-Hawaiian-ness.  There was an inflatable surf machine and a dunking station, both of which attracted boisterous crowds; a badminton game; a volleyball game; a smoothie stand (with a ridiculously intimidating line); a hula hoop area; and minuscule containers of brownish, gritty sand with which people could make sandcastles out of even smaller buckets.  Of all these choices, I enjoyed hula hooping the most, as my roommate impressed me with her talent of being able to do seven hoops at once.

While the welcome back event definitely wasn’t very Hawaiian, I definitely felt the spirit of aloha, as cheesy as that sounds.  Everyone I’ve met–at Aloha Harvard and otherwise–is not just astoundingly accomplished, but very personable.  I definitely was not expecting this level of openness and friendliness, not to mention fascination with Hawaii.  Whenever I introduce myself, the fact that I’m from Hawaii elicits an excitement akin to that the international students receive. (“You’re from Hawaii?  Oh wow.”)  I had never thought much about it before, but I am really beginning to realize how special Hawaii is and how lucky I am to be able to call it my home.

Why is Hawaii special to you?

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