July 10, 2026 • 41 mins
Who knew there was so much to know about our 50th state? From ice caves hidden under a volcano, to the wonderful reason you should never bring pork to the windward side, to the kinda disgusting way parrotfish have shaped the islands’ landscape, Will and Mango are taking a dip into Hawaii’s history.
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This episode originally aired on April 11, 2018.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what mango?
Speaker 2 (00:00):
What's that will?
Speaker 1 (00:01):
So you, of course remember back in our Mental Floss days,
and actually this was our very early Mental Floss days,
we did this issue called the Most Important Questions in
the History of the Universe.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I mean, how can I forget Like, we answered some
of the biggest, most important, most life changing questions in
the history of the universe, like can a pregnant women
drive in a carpool lane? Or is there a most
effective move in Rock Paper scissors? It was really important.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, I honestly, I don't know how the world lived
without knowing these answers. But one of the other reader
questions that we answered was why does Hawaii have interstate highways?
Because you know, as cool as it may sound to
be able to drive across the ocean to one of
the Hawaiian islands, that's not possible obviously. As it turns out,
this goes back to the Eisenhower days and specifically the
(00:46):
Dwight D. Eisenhower system of interstate and National Defense highways,
and this is when the funding came to build Hawaii's
interstates H one, H two, and H three, and they
were largely built as a way to move supplies between
military bases more easily, so the interstate designation was really
just a way to recognize that the roads had been
built from federal funding.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean, Hawaii is such an interesting history, and I've
had so many other questions. I've really been looking forward
to this episode.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, it definitely is, and it's one of those places
we think we know more about than we actually do.
So in today's episode, we're going to talk about some
of Hawaii's fascinating history. We'll talk about some of the
origins of several things we associate with Hawaiian, share some
facts about the islands beyond just the beautiful beaches.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hut Ticketter and on the other side of
the sound proof blast how it is actually kind of
hard to look at rocking the loudest Hawaiian shirt I
think I have ever seen. That's our friend and producer
(02:07):
Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It is truly a stunning amount of parrots for a
single shirt. And for everybody listening, I do want to
point out that Will did use air quotes just now
when he said Hawaiian shirt, just so you know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Trust me, I'm well aware that most people in Hawaii
tend to wear way fewer parrot shirts than Tristan does.
But this actually goes back to something I noticed while
doing research for today's show, and that's how so many
of the things people associate with Hawaii, you know, the
tropical shirts, ukulele music, pineapples. I mean, these really have
more to do with the foreign influence of the colonialists
(02:40):
and other outsiders than they do with native Hawaiian culture.
And that's what got me thinking it'd be fun to
take a closer look at some of the most iconic
aspects of Hawaiian really try to get a sense of
where they came from, you know. That way we can
get past the tourist the conceptions of Hawaii as this
dream vacation spot or real life Garden of Eden and
learn more about what life on these islands is really like.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Definitely, so to start, I think we should give a
quick look on terms for how we'll be talking about
the people who live in Hawaii, because it's actually a
little trickier than it is for other states. Like I'm
a Georgian and you're an Alabamian, and that's just because
of where we live. But in Hawaii, the term Hawaiian
is generally reserved for people of native Hawaiian ancestry. In
(03:24):
other words, it's those people who descended from the indigenous
people who migrated to the islands from Polynesia over a
thousand years ago. And today people in Hawaii who don't
share that ancestry they go by a different name. So
even if they were born and raised in the state,
they're known as Hawaii residents or else simply as locals.
And that's something we'll try to keep in mind today.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Right, and that distinction will actually come in handy for
this next part because I do want to circle back
to these Hawaiian shirts for just a minute. You know,
despite Tristan's best effort, there's no denying that colorful Hawaiian
shirts or Aloha shirts as they're sometimes called there widely
viewed by many as taki and I mean, they've even
kind of become this visual shorthand for the stereotype of,
(04:07):
you know, the crass, clueless tourists. But I was looking
into the history of these wearable postcards as one marketer
call them, and it turns out the shirts do have
some connections to the long standing cultural traditions. It's just
not quite hawaiis.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, I was gonna say, didn't most Polynesian voyagers skip
the whole shirt thing entirely? Like it'd be hard to
imagine them wearing long flowing shirts while hopping from island
to island. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So the real story is that back in the eighteen eighties,
American plantation owners had already settled into the still sovereign
Kingdom of Hawaii, and as their grip on the local
economy extended, these plantation owners started recruiting low wage labors,
mostly from Asian countries. Now, the majority of this influx
was made up of Japanese immigrants, and the brightly colored
(04:52):
kimonos that they brought with them actually served as the
foundation for what would later become the Hawaiian shirt. But
actually the Japanese culture wasn't the only influence. You've got
the Chinese immigrants that were bringing these colorful silks. You
had the Filipino families that were adding a more relaxed
look to the mix by introducing to the islands these
kind of these long tunics that are traditionally worn untucked.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So do the shirts actually have any Native Hawaiian influence
at all? Like, what about those patterns?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
So, as the islands became more and more dominated by
sugar and pineapple plantation, native fashion really had to adapt
to life in the fields. So while most Hawaiians had
still worn clothes made from lightweight tapa cloth prior to
the eighteen hundreds, now they needed something more durable, and
so the solution was a new kind of fabric that
had been introduced by the British and American soldiers. And
(05:41):
it was this kind of this blue and white checker
denim that the natives took to calling palaca, and that's
the Hawaiian word for frock. The natives put their own
spin on it as well. I mean they cut off
the shirt tails and gave the pilaka a straight hymn
so it could be worn outside the pants.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Okay, So now I guess we have most the characteristics
in place, right, Like we've brought these loose fitting shirts,
they're worn untucked, and they're also made out of bright, silky,
colorful fabrics.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I guess yeah, that's right. So the only thing left
to do was shorten the sleeves and liven up the patterns.
And that's exactly what a University of Hawaii student named
Gordon Young did back in the nineteen twenties, or at
least that's what his mother's dressmaker did. Apparently she worked
with Gordon to develop specially tailored shirts from out of
cotton yukata cloth, and that's the fabric typically used to
(06:30):
make kimonos. Now. These custom shirts were mostly white with
black or blue patterns depicting bamboo stalks or geometric patterns.
So you know, think of these as the forerunner of
the prototype for the gaudier Hawaiian shirts that we know today.
And so from there, Hawaii resident Taylor's picked up on
the new fashion in the thirties and really began to
popularize these Hawaiian shirts or aloha sports wear. And they
(06:53):
were using the same kimono material that Gordon had used.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But you're skipping the important parts, like what about pineapple prints.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Well, you know, for those brighter colors and tropical prints,
we have to look to artists like Elsi Das And
in nineteen thirty six, she was commissioned by a local
store to create these fifteen original Hawaiian prints to be
used on a new batch of Aloha shirts. And then
you had other artists that followed her lead and also
started drawing inspiration from the islands where they lived, and
(07:23):
so pretty soon Hawaiian shirts started to look a lot
more tropical. Actually, I found this great article on the
subject by an author named Dale Hope, and as he explained,
Elsie and others started to create their own designs, substituting
what had traditionally been Japanese style motifs and prints on
the imported fabrics. Diamond head was substituted for Mount Fuji,
(07:44):
Japanese pine trees changed to coconut trees, and thatched huts
with ocean scenes and surfers, fish and flowers replaced bamboo.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, I mean that description definitely makes the whole wearable
postcards thing ring true, right, and since tourists are the
one buying postcards, it does make sense that the shirts
would play best to that crowd. I am curious, though,
what do natives and locals think about them, because I
imagine there are some mixed feelings over something that, on
the one hand, has very little to do with Hawaiian culture,
(08:13):
but on the other still brings in tons of revenue
for the islands.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, it definitely does. And for the most part, I
think you're right about those mixed feelings. I mean, the
kind of you know, making lemons and lemonade mindset is
really something that pops up throughout Hawaiian history, and part
of that's the nature of colonization in general, but it's
also just being an island civilization. You know, the visitors
are constantly coming and going and kind of shaping and
(08:37):
reshaping bits of culture along the way. So when it
comes to the Hawaiian shirt, there was some pushback eventually. Actually,
at one point the shirts were completely banned for employees
of Hawaii City, state, and federal offices, and even from
banks and a lot of corporate offices. And the thing
was that the laid back shirts would promote sloppiness at work.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So I'm guessing casual fridays on a thing in hawai.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's funny that you mentioned that, because I actually read
about this big push in the sixties from Honolulu's fashion industry,
and it was called Operation Liberation, and it was basically
a campaign to overturn the ban and get office workers
in Hawaii to start wearing lighter, more comfortable clothing, especially
when you think about that humid climate that they have there.
And so part of this centered on the Aloha shirts,
(09:22):
and in fact, some manufacturers even promoted the movement by
giving out two free shirts to every member of the
state Senate and House of Representatives.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I like that. So did this bribe actually work?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It kind of did. Yeah, So by nineteen sixty six,
the government had relaxed its stance and even began encouraging
employees to wear the colorful shirts on the last day
of the work week, and these were dubbed Aloha Fridays. Then,
once word of the practice spread to the rest of
the States, it was given a more continental name and
casual Fridays were born.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Oh that's really amazing. So today's episode of Part Time
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episode description. So if you don't mind, I actually want
to switch gears now and talk about a product of
the islands whose Hawaiian roots are a lot more clearcut,
(12:45):
and that's surfing. So the sport went mainstream thanks largely
to early twentieth century athletes like Do Kahanomuku. And he
was a five time Olympic swimming medalist who later became
a surfing ambassador, and that's when he started giving surfing
demonstrations along the Southern coast in the nineteen tenths. But
while Duke is widely known as the father of surfing today,
(13:05):
his ancient ancestors in the Polynesian Islands actually practiced the
sport long before him, and to them it was much
more than just a sport. In the Hawaiian Islands, riding
waves came to carry this social and even religious importance.
For example, when Hawaiians found a tree that they thought
would make for good surfboards, they would leave offerings at
it's based before carving it up, and surfers also sought
(13:27):
the help of special priests called kahunas, who would help
them pray for choice waves and even give thanks after
surviving an especially nasty wipeout. That's pretty interesting, but it
was still a sport then, too, right, Definitely, so ancient
Wavesliders would compete against each other over stuff like who
could ride the fastest or farthest, or who could catch
the biggest wave, and everybody got in on it, like
(13:48):
all Hawaiians were free to surf, regardless of age, ender,
or even social class. But to be fair, there was
a little classism when it came to the kind of
board you could ride. So most people rode these aliabs,
which were pretty thin, they weren't too big, and somewhat
comparable to modern shortboards. But then there were also these
ones called oloboards, and they were these like humongous planks
(14:10):
that only chieftains were allowed to use. And honestly, I
have no idea how they rode these things because oloboards
were about twice as long as today's longboards, which means,
you know, they were like eighteen to twenty feet on average.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It's crazy. Oh my gosh, just trying to imagine standing
on something that's eighteen feet long in the ocean. It's
a I don't know, I can't imagine doing that. But
all right, So did you get any sense for how
old surfing is, because it sounds like several centuries at least, right, so.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Nobody knows for sure when this wave sledding got its start,
but the first written account of it goes back to
the seventeen seventies. Then it was clear even then that
the practice had already been around for a very long time.
In fact, I read about this discovery a couple of
years back, where archaeologists uncovered a series of petroglyphs that
supposedly depict people surfing, and the figures were carved into
(14:59):
sandstone a the coasts of the island of Oahu, and
experts believe the markings are about four hundred years old
or so. We're just about two hundred years before Europeans
first made contact with Hawaii, all.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Right, so there's no doubt about it then. I mean,
surfing is a true part of native Hawaiian culture. And
just to bring this full circle, I actually learned while
reading up on these Aloha shirts that they share the
same point of origin with board shorts, which is that
palaca cotton stuff I mentioned earlier. And in the early
days of surf culture in the twentieth century, the serious
surfers would go to these specialty Japanese tailor shops in
(15:32):
Hawaii and they'd order these custom fitted shorts made from
pallaca cotton. So just like with the field workers of
old Hawaii, these surfers needed something comfortable yet durable, and
once again pallaka fit the bill.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
That's pretty cool, And I know that a native Hawaiian
would have their own thoughts about this, but as an outsider,
I do really love how aspects of these different times
in Hawaii's history tend to overlap and blurn places. It's
kind of a testament to the people of Hawaii, both
to their endurance and to their just sort of roll
with the punches in order to preserve what matters to them.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Oh absolutely, And I think another interesting example of that
overlap is in the folklore surrounding the islands themselves. Like
take Pele for instance, as the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes.
Pele is this subject of all sorts of legends, some
of them connect with native Hawaiian mythology, and some of
them are completely made up just for the tourists.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, I definitely want to spend a few minutes dissecting
which is wish, but.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Before we do, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, and we're talking about
the colorful but complicated history of Hawaii. So will I
know you've got a bizarre modern legend about Pele that
you're itching to talk about, But first I did want
to share some of the real traditional folklore she's connected with.
For instance, did you know Pele can't dan pork products?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I can't say that. I knew she had feelings for
them one way or other. But what's the story here?
Why does she not like pork?
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Well, this comes from an old myth where Pele had
a falling out with one of her one time boyfriends.
This guy coma Poua, And you know, coma pua right,
like he's the Hawaiian demigod who's half man half pig.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Oh oh, that coma Poua? So sure of course I.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Know, Okay. So apparently, when the pair of split, Pele
chased her old bow with a lava flow until he's
cornered on the windward side of Honolulu. And then as
the lava creeps closer, Comapua lied down on the ground
and began to chant, and this causes the earth and
the trees to rise up and hold back the lava
until suddenly it rains and cools everything down. So then
(17:44):
Peli's like, all right, I guess I can't kill you,
So how about we just agree to stay on separate
sides of the island. And this sounds great to come
a Pua. So he settles into the lush, green windward
side and Plea takes the dry, arid leeward side.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Oh fair enough. So so you're saying Pele's still holding
a grudge against swine because of this.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Mm hm. So to this day, like, visitors are warned
not to bring pork over the poly highway that connects
to the leeward side to the windward side, And since
Kamapua was part pig, hauling pork is a symbolic way
of bringing him back to Pele's turf, And if you
try to do that, Pele will do her best to
stop you, Like you might be called away on some emergency,
or your car could break down along the way, or
(18:26):
if an old woman with a dog sho'd appear during
your journey. That's actually Pele offering you an easy way
to dispose of your forbidden pork. You can just feed
it to the hungry pop and be on your way.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I mean, I do kind of like that with all
her fiery wrath. Peley still can't stand the thought of
people wasting pork. I mean, to be honest, she's a
pretty considerate, wrathful deity in a way.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. So if you're looking to get
on her good side, Pele apparently loves gin or any
quality whiskey, or at least that's what one longtime Hawaii
resident said, because for nearly forty years, this woman named
Leetrus tried to keep the Mount a Loa volcano from
erupting by routinely tossing bottles of gin into it while
flying in a small charter plane. So this is what
(19:08):
Leeitris told reporter in the eighties. She said, quote, I've
come to respect Madam Pele. I have a feeling that
she wants to drink.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I can't say my blame are given some of the
rumors people have spread about her. And actually, for instance
one of these, have you heard of Pelee's curse? It's
this idea that the goddess will inflict bad luck on
any visitor who takes rocks, sand, or other natural artifacts
from the Hawaiian islands. But while your pale pork legend
got it started as a native Hawaiian tall tale. Pelee's
curse is actually just this modern myth that was likely
(19:39):
started by a resentful park ranger.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So now that you explained that, I actually do remember
reading something about this for our park Ranger episode, like
it was a warning they gave tourists to try and
keep them from taking home all these volcanic rocks as keepsakes.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Right, Yeah, that's the theory, although some people maintain it
was actually something that tour guides told visitors so they
wouldn't drag a bunch of rocks and sand to their
buses and places like that. But regardless, the curse has
been propagated by guidebooks and travel websites, and this has
gone on for decades now, so much so that hundreds
of visitors now send thousands of pounds of rocks back
(20:13):
to Hawaii every single year, just in an attempt to
ease their guilty consciences and reverse their bad fortune.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I like that once again, there's like an easy way
to break the curse. I feel like Pele is just
a big softy.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Maybe so, but you know, when the legend first started
circulating in the mid nineteen forties, there was no mention
of returning what you stole as a way to change
your fortune. And all that bit of wishful thinking was
actually added later by tourists who were just desperate for
a way to explain and maybe fix the problems in
their lives. So now all these packages are frantically sent
(20:47):
to Hawaiian post offices and town halls, even directly to
the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and a lot of the
time the bits of rock or sand they're accompanied by
these heartfelt letters and they describe I have the bad
luck that the senders hope to undo. And some of
this stuff is really heavy, like you find people writing
about bounts with cancer or divorce or jail time. And
(21:09):
then you get these other letters which are just hard
not to laugh at, Like I came across this one
that reads, we won the six hundred thousand dollars lottery.
We would have won the two million dollar lottery if
it wasn't for this, Please take the rocks back before
more bad luck.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I mean, it does sound a bit like a double
edged swords, right, Like, on on one hand, some letters
are probably going to be pretty entertaining or maybe even inspiring,
but on the other hand, like how frustrating must it
be to have to deal with this endless stream of
stolen rocks and apology letters from guilty tours just coming
your way?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Oh? Totally, But you know, I do want to mention
that even though Pele's curse is a modern invention it
it does have some roots in real Hawaiian mythology. I
read this great piece and Pacific Standard where they talk
to the director at the University of Hawaii at Manoa's
Center for Hawaiian Studies, and she helps trace some of
the connections. In this She says, rocks and Hawaii have
(22:02):
their own personalities, male and female. They don't like to
be disturbed. Rocks in the volcano are made by Pele,
and they are copu. That is, they have a kind
of sanctity, and it's definitely bad luck to take them
away from the volcano.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I mean, that's interesting. But in this case, if returning
the items doesn't break the curse, does that mean people
are just stuck with their bad luck of missing winning
the lottery by millions forever?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Well? I wanted about that too, and I actually found
some pretty sage advice on the subject. And this was
from a retired historian at the University of Hawaii, and
she says, if you took a stone, perhaps unknowingly or
without meaning disrespect, I would recommend a ceremony rather than
sending the rocks back, just say release me from this COPU,
just let it go.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
M Well, that's definitely a better option and a cheaper
one than mailing rocks to park rangers. But you know,
given the way Hawaii became a state in the first place,
there is something sort of ironic about sending back these
stolen pieces of Hawaii back to you know, this island
that was taken away from the people.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, I know what you mean. And without getting too dour,
I do think we should address the elephant in the
room and talk a little bit about Hawaii became part
of the US to begin with, because this year actually
marks the one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary of the
eighteen ninety three overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Now, prior
to that time, Hawaii was recognized internationally as a sovereign
nation and was under the rule of Queen Lily Okulani,
(23:25):
and she'd inherited the throne from her brother just two
years earlier. But Hawaii's fertile volcanic soil and close proximity
of the states had long made it this tempting target
for a coup. Still, the Hawaiian Kingdom might have been
able to maintain it sovereignty if not for interference from
Sanford Dole and his fellow American businessmen.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I know this is crazy to think about it because
for anyone wondering, yes, this is Sandford Dole, as in
the Dole Food Company, or you might know him as
the world famous pineapple producers. But he and other American
plantation owners were making a killing in Hawaii already, and
that was thanks to their enormous crops of sugar and
coffee and pineapples there. But as a way to exert
(24:03):
even more control over the kingdom, Dole partnered with these
other businessmen and lawyers to form what they called the
Hawaiian League, and in eighteen eighty seven, the group sent
this armed militia to David Kalakaua, the king of Hawaii
at the time, and this was at gunpoint. The king
was actually forced to sign the Bayonet Constitution, which transferred
most of the monarchy's power to the legislature, which is
(24:25):
a ruling body whose elections were already being rigged to
favor non Hawaiians, and a few years later, when Lili
Okulani took the throne, she actually refused to honor the
Bayonet agreement and instead tried to build support for a
new constitution, one that would return power to the monarchy.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Which you know, of course, is something Dole and the
other American businessmen were not happy about. And so that's
why in January of eighteen ninety three is so called
Committee of Safety I was led by Dole, and they
gathered in wait near the Queen's palace. Soon they were
joined by three hundred marines from the USS Boston, and
they'd been call to protect Dole's committee by the US
(25:02):
Minister of Hawaii. And it was just a really pivotal move.
So the action provided this taskit approval for the coup
from the US government, and it also left Queen Lilly
o'culahne with no choice but to surrender in order to
avoid outright war.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah, and the part that always gets me is that
she never gave up hope that the US government would
come to its senses and recognize her as Hawaii's constitutional monarch.
But of course that never happened. So the president at
the time was Benjamin Harrison, and he was all for
annexing the Hawaiian Islands after the coup, and although Grover
Cleveland objected to the whole affair, once he took office,
(25:37):
he actually failed to stop this takeover of Hawaii. He
did recommend the queen be restored to her throne, but
Congress ultimately rejected the proposal, and instead, Sanford Dole took
control of the illegal provisional government that he helped install
in Hawaii. He even declared himself the de facto president
of what he started to call the Republic of Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, the whole thing is really bizarre, and especially when
you consider the rest of the world was watching as
this unfolded, and you know, even our own president admitted
that the takeover had been illegal. I mean, listen to
these lines from an account President Cleveland later wrote of
this whole ordeal. He said, the provisional government owes its
existence to an armed invasion by the United States by
an act of war. A substantial wrong has been done.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
It is wild to hear that and to know that
nothing was ever done to fix it, and in fact,
just the opposite, because it was the administration right after
Cleveland that declared Hawaii a US territory, and of course,
about sixty years later it officially became the fiftieth state.
But before we get into any of that or the
amazing ways Hawaii and the US have influenced each other,
let's take a quick break. Okay, well, so give us
(26:55):
the bad news. Who else has colonized Hawaii besides the Americans?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
All right, Well, it's not so who else, says it
is what else? Because despite the fact that the islands
are over two thousand miles from the nearest continent, they've
actually been colonized over and over throughout history. It's just
that most of the time it's far flung plants and
animals doing the colonizing and not humans. And so the
net result of this is biodiversity beyond your wildest dreams,
(27:20):
but sometimes at the sad cost of the island's own
indigenous species.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah. I remember hearing some stats about how many endangered
species there are in Hawaiian The numbers were pretty insane,
Like when you added up all the plants and animals
and insects on the list, it was something like five
hundred different endangered species. Just in Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, I was looking at some of those numbers on
Hawaii dot gov, and according to the state's Forestry and
Wildlife Division, the islands contain roughly forty four percent of
our entire countries endangered and threatened plant species. And that's
despite the fact that Hawaii accounts for less than one
percent of the total land mass in the US. I mean,
it really points to just how frequently foreign species have
(28:00):
also their way into the Hawaiian ecosystem, not to mention
the domino effect damage that sometimes causes for other species.
It's really a pretty tricky problem.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
No kidding. Like, did you hear about this invasive species
of tiny frogs called the koki? Apparently the little guys
are wreaking havoc on Hawaii's Big Island. I guess they're
native to Puerto Rico, but scientists think a few found
their way over in the nineteen eighties, probably by hiding
out in some potted plants. Anyway, they've just exploded ever
since because there aren't any natural predators to help control
(28:30):
the population, and in fact, one study reported that the
koki population Hawaii is now three times greater than the
one in Puerto rico, which means there are now between
ten thousand and fifty thousand frogs per acre on the
Big Island.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Good lord, I mean that's like plague level amount of frauds,
all right. So, just to play Devil's advocate on this, like,
let's assume that I love the idea of having frogs
absolutely everywhere. So is there another downside to this?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Well, for one thing, the frogs and put a serious
damper on the island's once plentiful bug population, including a
few of those endangered species we've been talking about, and
some biologists are even worried that the lack of bugs
could cause native bird species to starve. And of course,
there's also the fact that the frogs are driving down
property values, which is always a nuisance for humans.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Boy, it sounds like these things are pretty much everywhere. Like,
are they decreasing property values all over the island? I mean,
because remember I love frogs everywhere, So condos on the
coast are going for super cheap prices. I actually might
need to look into this.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Well, before you sign add's, you should probably know one
other thing about cookie frogs, and that's that, despite the
fact that they're only about the size of a quarter.
They constantly emit this high pitched cry that can reach
up to ninety decibels, which is about the volume of
a lawnmower or a motorcycle that's a few yards away.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yeah, And it's actually where the frogs get their name cookie.
Like that annoying sound that they make sounds a lot
like cokey. So in areas that are overrun with frogs,
the property values are taking a big hit, and it's
because everybody knows that whoever winds up living there is
never going to get a good night's sleep.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Again, you did such a great impression of their noise.
It sounds just like Cokey.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Except higher pitch.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I think, right right, that does sound like a nightmare.
Like are the locals doing anything to combat the problem
or have they just kind of thrown the towel in.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah. I mean people used to hunt them back when
the problem first started to kind of try to control it,
and this is around the mid two thousands, but it
quickly became clear that that was never going to work,
and nowadays most people concentrate on containing the frogs to
certain areas and trying to prevent them from expanding deeper
into the rainforest, and apparently there's also a contingent of
(30:41):
folks who try to catch the koki and ship them
back to Puerto Rico. But again it's kind of a
losing battle.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, you might be right about that, because you know,
the frog troubles actually sound a lot like another case
I read about. This is over on the island of Kawhi.
Apparently the whole place is just loaded with these feral chickens,
and scientists say it's probably because of nineteen ninety two's
hurricane and Nikki. The storm tore through Kawai, and in
the process, it also released a ton of chickens from
(31:08):
people's backyard coops, and these domestic birds fled to the
island's dense forest, and they reverted back to this wild
state and began mating with remnants of Kawai's Polynesian jungle
foul population. And again, due to the lack of natural predators,
the chickens thrive to the point that they were thousands
and thousands of them spread all over the island.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Well, I'm delighted by the idea of a chicken island,
But how do that residence feel about those Well, they.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Were more than a little bit annoyed at first, and
especially when they realized that the chickens seemed to lack
all sense of time and would just randomly crow at
all hours of the day, so not at the ninety decibels, thankfully,
But just like with the frogs, people eventually grew to
accept them as a fact of life. It's actually kind
of that same lemonade from Lemon's mentality that we talked
(31:56):
about earlier with the Hawaiian shirts and other things. But like,
having chickens all over the place isn't ideal. I mean,
they're loud and they're dirty, but on the bright side,
they keep harmful pest in line, and the tourists are
completely charmed by these wildfowl running around, so you know,
the locals will describe the chickens as everything from beautiful
birds to these god awful rats with wings, and everybody
(32:17):
can at least agree that they're great for moving merchandise.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Though, Can I just say that, while I totally get
how annoying it would be to have some island hopping
animal runne up your at ecosystem, like I do like
the idea that these different islands have different animals associated
with them.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, I mean annoyances aside. I think it is fun
that certain islands are just completely stocked with their own
signature animals, Like the Big Island is the Frog Kingdom,
Kauai is the Chicken Coast, and there's also Lanai, which
is this tiny Hawaiian island that boasts a population of
I think it's only about three thousand people, but it's
also home to four or five hundred feral cats. You know,
(32:53):
while being stranded on a tiny island teeming with feral
cats sounds like pretty much the worst thing imaginable to me,
I can still appreciate the fact that it exists, you know,
as long as I'm far far away from it.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
So, you know, we've talked a lot about colonizing species
that have made themselves at home on the islands, but
I do want to shift the focus back to the
native side of things and talk just a little bit
about the Hawaiian parrotfish.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
You mean, the these are the creepy fish with the beaks, right.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Mm hmm. So maybe it's not the best poster boy
for the islands, but you know, those islands wouldn't be
the same without the parrotfish, and more specifically, their prized
beaches would be little more than bare volcanic rock without parrotfish.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
So why is this the case?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Okay, so this probably won't win you over on parrotfish.
But you know those beak like teeth that you find
off putting, Well, those are actually used in gnawwegh at
algae that grow on coral, which happens to be the
parrotfish's favorite snack. And the problem is sometimes the fish
accidentally nibble off a piece of coral and wind up
ingesting its calcium carbonate by mistake, and because the parrotfish
(33:58):
can't digest the bulk of the subs since it eventually
excreases it as sand.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Wait, so you're saying that's the sand that winds up
on Hawaii's beaches like that? There's no way, I mean,
how much sand could a fish possibly poop out?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
So it's somewhere around eight hundred pounds per fish per
year according to this Oh yeah, this is according to
a marine biologist named Lingong and in an interview for
Why did she pointed out that quote. In places like Hawaii,
where we have very little terrestrial input of sand, almost
all of our sand is of biological origin. So I
(34:31):
like to tell people that sand you're standing on in
Hawaii has probably gone through the gut of something. It'll
have gone through the gut of a parrotfish, a sea urchin,
or some kind of worm.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Well, I mean, strangely enough, turning fish poop into beautiful
sandy beaches. It does seem like a pretty fitting metaphor
for the Hawaiian approach to all of its problems, really,
because while Native Hawaiians and residents of Hawaii have faced
their share of injustices and hardships over the years, they've
always managed to foster some of the most vibrant cultures
amidst some of the most stunning environments in the world.
(35:02):
And that alone makes me proud that Hawaii is part
of my country, even if you know I'm not always
thrilled about how it wound up that way.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And also, don't forget, Hawaii
is the state that gave the world POGs, so that
alone makes it worthy of praise.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So I'm not so sure about your love of stackable
cardboard circles, but who knows, maybe you can win me
over with some facts in the day's fact off. All right, Mengo,
So I remember you were a big fan of the
TV show Hawaii five oh, or at least I like
to tell people that you were a fan of Hawaii
(35:37):
five oh. And many of our listeners may know this
is where referring to police as five oh comes from.
But actually didn't realize that the show was called Hawaii
five oh simply because Hawaii was the fiftieth state to
join the country. I don't know how this never occurred
to me.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I know me either, So this is my fact. The
seventh largest island in Hawaii is owned by two guys,
and they're actually brothers. They I heerded it from their
grandmother who had purchased it from the Kingdom of Hawaii.
And this was way back in eighteen sixty four for
around ten thousand dollars in gold. Obviously that's a ton
of money. But these brothers still own it. And speaking
(36:12):
of a ton of money, the US has reportedly tried
to buy back the island from the brothers for about
a billion dollars and they've turned it down.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
God, that is a ton of money. I think I
would accept a billion dollars for that if I owned
an island. So I forget Are you a fan of
Hawaiian pizza. Yeah, I am me too. Well, we mentioned
this before, but it was invented in Canada by a
couple of Greek guys. But I feel like we need
to add a fact to that, and because you can
really never have enough good facts about Hawaiian pizza, and
(36:41):
that's the fact that it's the most popular style of
pizza in Australia that actually accounts for around fifteen percent
of all their pizza sales.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So have you heard about the time the US government
burned two hundred million dollars in Hawaiian cash. This was
way back in the nineteen forties, not long after the
attack on Pearl Harbor, and the US government started worrying
about what happened if Japan invaded Hawaii, and one of
the things they thought about was the money on the islands.
If Japan invaded the island and then took all the
cash there, how would the government know where the cash
(37:11):
had come from when they decided to use it. So
to protect against this, the US actually recalled all paper
money in Hawaii and asked everyone to trade their bills
in for others that had the word Hawaii stamped on it.
So then what to do with that two hundred million
dollars they'd managed to collect from the people. They actually
decided to burn it. And they who did this in
(37:31):
crematoriums and furnaces around the island, And only a tiny
number of the bills are still in circulation. But if
you managed to get your hands on a twenty dollars
Hawaii overprint bill from that time, it's actually worth about
four thousand dollars today.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Wow. I had never heard that story before. All right,
so quick one here. Hawaii is the only US state
to have two official languages. You've got English and Hawaii. Interestingly,
the language only has thirteen letters and every word ends
with one of five vowels.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
So despite consuming the most spam per capita, Hawaii has
the longest life expectancy of the fifty states at eighty
one point three years. And that edges Minnesota, which I
guess makes sense since they also invented spam.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Oh wow, yeah, it's good connection there. What's amazing to
me that the state known as maybe having the most
desirable weather is also the state where the Hawaii Space
Exploration Analog and Simulation Program decided to keep a crew
in a bubble for an entire year. Back in twenty sixteen,
a group of six crew members walked out of the
Mars simulator mission in Hawaii after a twelve month stay
(38:37):
on the slopes of Mount Ala, the famous volcano. The
habitat is supposedly pretty martian like, or at least as
martian like as you can find in the States, And
I don't know, though, I feel like after a couple
of weeks there, I'd be like, I don't know, guys,
I'm headed out to the beach too much.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Yeah, me too. But speaking of Hawaiian volcanoes, one of
the crazy geological features there that most people don't know
about is the ice see underworld inside some of the volcanoes.
So these lava tubes can actually be found on Mona Loa.
Because of their high elevation and the way the air circulates,
the perfect conditions for permanent ice are formed there. It's
just crazy to think about the hundreds of thousands of
(39:14):
people visiting each year to see the world's largest active
volcano and having zero idea that under all that rock
you'd find ice tunnels. Earth's pretty cool, you.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Know, I don't know, Mango, just you using the phrase
earth pretty cool? You know I feel like that. I
feel like that earns you the fact off no matter
what you said, even though that is a really cool fact,
I'm going to give you today's factof Trophy.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I knew that would seal the deal.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
But thank you, well, thank you guys so much for listening.
I'm sure there are some great facts about Hawaii that
we didn't get to include in today's episode. We'd love
to hear those from. You can always email us part
Time Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can always call
us on our twenty four to seven fact Hotline one
eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on
Facebook or Twitter. But thanks so much for listening. Thanks
(40:12):
again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant
people who do the important things we couldn't even begin
to understand.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Christan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown, and Lucas.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
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Good job, Eves.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe.
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Jason who
Guess what mango?
Speaker 2 (00:00):
What's that will?
Speaker 1 (00:01):
So you, of course remember back in our Mental Floss days,
and actually this was our very early Mental Floss days,
we did this issue called the Most Important Questions in
the History of the Universe.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I mean, how can I forget Like, we answered some
of the biggest, most important, most life changing questions in
the history of the universe, like can a pregnant women
drive in a carpool lane? Or is there a most
effective move in Rock Paper scissors? It was really important.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, I honestly, I don't know how the world lived
without knowing these answers. But one of the other reader
questions that we answered was why does Hawaii have interstate highways?
Because you know, as cool as it may sound to
be able to drive across the ocean to one of
the Hawaiian islands, that's not possible obviously. As it turns out,
this goes back to the Eisenhower days and specifically the
(00:46):
Dwight D. Eisenhower system of interstate and National Defense highways,
and this is when the funding came to build Hawaii's
interstates H one, H two, and H three, and they
were largely built as a way to move supplies between
military bases more easily, so the interstate designation was really
just a way to recognize that the roads had been
built from federal funding.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean, Hawaii is such an interesting history, and I've
had so many other questions. I've really been looking forward
to this episode.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, it definitely is, and it's one of those places
we think we know more about than we actually do.
So in today's episode, we're going to talk about some
of Hawaii's fascinating history. We'll talk about some of the
origins of several things we associate with Hawaiian, share some
facts about the islands beyond just the beautiful beaches.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hut Ticketter and on the other side of
the sound proof blast how it is actually kind of
hard to look at rocking the loudest Hawaiian shirt I
think I have ever seen. That's our friend and producer
(02:07):
Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It is truly a stunning amount of parrots for a
single shirt. And for everybody listening, I do want to
point out that Will did use air quotes just now
when he said Hawaiian shirt, just so you know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Trust me, I'm well aware that most people in Hawaii
tend to wear way fewer parrot shirts than Tristan does.
But this actually goes back to something I noticed while
doing research for today's show, and that's how so many
of the things people associate with Hawaii, you know, the
tropical shirts, ukulele music, pineapples. I mean, these really have
more to do with the foreign influence of the colonialists
(02:40):
and other outsiders than they do with native Hawaiian culture.
And that's what got me thinking it'd be fun to
take a closer look at some of the most iconic
aspects of Hawaiian really try to get a sense of
where they came from, you know. That way we can
get past the tourist the conceptions of Hawaii as this
dream vacation spot or real life Garden of Eden and
learn more about what life on these islands is really like.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Definitely, so to start, I think we should give a
quick look on terms for how we'll be talking about
the people who live in Hawaii, because it's actually a
little trickier than it is for other states. Like I'm
a Georgian and you're an Alabamian, and that's just because
of where we live. But in Hawaii, the term Hawaiian
is generally reserved for people of native Hawaiian ancestry. In
(03:24):
other words, it's those people who descended from the indigenous
people who migrated to the islands from Polynesia over a
thousand years ago. And today people in Hawaii who don't
share that ancestry they go by a different name. So
even if they were born and raised in the state,
they're known as Hawaii residents or else simply as locals.
And that's something we'll try to keep in mind today.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Right, and that distinction will actually come in handy for
this next part because I do want to circle back
to these Hawaiian shirts for just a minute. You know,
despite Tristan's best effort, there's no denying that colorful Hawaiian
shirts or Aloha shirts as they're sometimes called there widely
viewed by many as taki and I mean, they've even
kind of become this visual shorthand for the stereotype of,
(04:07):
you know, the crass, clueless tourists. But I was looking
into the history of these wearable postcards as one marketer
call them, and it turns out the shirts do have
some connections to the long standing cultural traditions. It's just
not quite hawaiis.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, I was gonna say, didn't most Polynesian voyagers skip
the whole shirt thing entirely? Like it'd be hard to
imagine them wearing long flowing shirts while hopping from island
to island. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So the real story is that back in the eighteen eighties,
American plantation owners had already settled into the still sovereign
Kingdom of Hawaii, and as their grip on the local
economy extended, these plantation owners started recruiting low wage labors,
mostly from Asian countries. Now, the majority of this influx
was made up of Japanese immigrants, and the brightly colored
(04:52):
kimonos that they brought with them actually served as the
foundation for what would later become the Hawaiian shirt. But
actually the Japanese culture wasn't the only influence. You've got
the Chinese immigrants that were bringing these colorful silks. You
had the Filipino families that were adding a more relaxed
look to the mix by introducing to the islands these
kind of these long tunics that are traditionally worn untucked.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So do the shirts actually have any Native Hawaiian influence
at all? Like, what about those patterns?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
So, as the islands became more and more dominated by
sugar and pineapple plantation, native fashion really had to adapt
to life in the fields. So while most Hawaiians had
still worn clothes made from lightweight tapa cloth prior to
the eighteen hundreds, now they needed something more durable, and
so the solution was a new kind of fabric that
had been introduced by the British and American soldiers. And
(05:41):
it was this kind of this blue and white checker
denim that the natives took to calling palaca, and that's
the Hawaiian word for frock. The natives put their own
spin on it as well. I mean they cut off
the shirt tails and gave the pilaka a straight hymn
so it could be worn outside the pants.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Okay, So now I guess we have most the characteristics
in place, right, Like we've brought these loose fitting shirts,
they're worn untucked, and they're also made out of bright, silky,
colorful fabrics.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I guess yeah, that's right. So the only thing left
to do was shorten the sleeves and liven up the patterns.
And that's exactly what a University of Hawaii student named
Gordon Young did back in the nineteen twenties, or at
least that's what his mother's dressmaker did. Apparently she worked
with Gordon to develop specially tailored shirts from out of
cotton yukata cloth, and that's the fabric typically used to
(06:30):
make kimonos. Now. These custom shirts were mostly white with
black or blue patterns depicting bamboo stalks or geometric patterns.
So you know, think of these as the forerunner of
the prototype for the gaudier Hawaiian shirts that we know today.
And so from there, Hawaii resident Taylor's picked up on
the new fashion in the thirties and really began to
popularize these Hawaiian shirts or aloha sports wear. And they
(06:53):
were using the same kimono material that Gordon had used.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But you're skipping the important parts, like what about pineapple prints.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Well, you know, for those brighter colors and tropical prints,
we have to look to artists like Elsi Das And
in nineteen thirty six, she was commissioned by a local
store to create these fifteen original Hawaiian prints to be
used on a new batch of Aloha shirts. And then
you had other artists that followed her lead and also
started drawing inspiration from the islands where they lived, and
(07:23):
so pretty soon Hawaiian shirts started to look a lot
more tropical. Actually, I found this great article on the
subject by an author named Dale Hope, and as he explained,
Elsie and others started to create their own designs, substituting
what had traditionally been Japanese style motifs and prints on
the imported fabrics. Diamond head was substituted for Mount Fuji,
(07:44):
Japanese pine trees changed to coconut trees, and thatched huts
with ocean scenes and surfers, fish and flowers replaced bamboo.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, I mean that description definitely makes the whole wearable
postcards thing ring true, right, and since tourists are the
one buying postcards, it does make sense that the shirts
would play best to that crowd. I am curious, though,
what do natives and locals think about them, because I
imagine there are some mixed feelings over something that, on
the one hand, has very little to do with Hawaiian culture,
(08:13):
but on the other still brings in tons of revenue
for the islands.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, it definitely does. And for the most part, I
think you're right about those mixed feelings. I mean, the
kind of you know, making lemons and lemonade mindset is
really something that pops up throughout Hawaiian history, and part
of that's the nature of colonization in general, but it's
also just being an island civilization. You know, the visitors
are constantly coming and going and kind of shaping and
(08:37):
reshaping bits of culture along the way. So when it
comes to the Hawaiian shirt, there was some pushback eventually. Actually,
at one point the shirts were completely banned for employees
of Hawaii City, state, and federal offices, and even from
banks and a lot of corporate offices. And the thing
was that the laid back shirts would promote sloppiness at work.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So I'm guessing casual fridays on a thing in hawai.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's funny that you mentioned that, because I actually read
about this big push in the sixties from Honolulu's fashion industry,
and it was called Operation Liberation, and it was basically
a campaign to overturn the ban and get office workers
in Hawaii to start wearing lighter, more comfortable clothing, especially
when you think about that humid climate that they have there.
And so part of this centered on the Aloha shirts,
(09:22):
and in fact, some manufacturers even promoted the movement by
giving out two free shirts to every member of the
state Senate and House of Representatives.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I like that. So did this bribe actually work?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It kind of did. Yeah, So by nineteen sixty six,
the government had relaxed its stance and even began encouraging
employees to wear the colorful shirts on the last day
of the work week, and these were dubbed Aloha Fridays. Then,
once word of the practice spread to the rest of
the States, it was given a more continental name and
casual Fridays were born.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Oh that's really amazing. So today's episode of Part Time
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(10:54):
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That's Sale dot com slash PTG. Details are in the
episode description. So if you don't mind, I actually want
to switch gears now and talk about a product of
the islands whose Hawaiian roots are a lot more clearcut,
(12:45):
and that's surfing. So the sport went mainstream thanks largely
to early twentieth century athletes like Do Kahanomuku. And he
was a five time Olympic swimming medalist who later became
a surfing ambassador, and that's when he started giving surfing
demonstrations along the Southern coast in the nineteen tenths. But
while Duke is widely known as the father of surfing today,
(13:05):
his ancient ancestors in the Polynesian Islands actually practiced the
sport long before him, and to them it was much
more than just a sport. In the Hawaiian Islands, riding
waves came to carry this social and even religious importance.
For example, when Hawaiians found a tree that they thought
would make for good surfboards, they would leave offerings at
it's based before carving it up, and surfers also sought
(13:27):
the help of special priests called kahunas, who would help
them pray for choice waves and even give thanks after
surviving an especially nasty wipeout. That's pretty interesting, but it
was still a sport then, too, right, Definitely, so ancient
Wavesliders would compete against each other over stuff like who
could ride the fastest or farthest, or who could catch
the biggest wave, and everybody got in on it, like
(13:48):
all Hawaiians were free to surf, regardless of age, ender,
or even social class. But to be fair, there was
a little classism when it came to the kind of
board you could ride. So most people rode these aliabs,
which were pretty thin, they weren't too big, and somewhat
comparable to modern shortboards. But then there were also these
ones called oloboards, and they were these like humongous planks
(14:10):
that only chieftains were allowed to use. And honestly, I
have no idea how they rode these things because oloboards
were about twice as long as today's longboards, which means,
you know, they were like eighteen to twenty feet on average.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It's crazy. Oh my gosh, just trying to imagine standing
on something that's eighteen feet long in the ocean. It's
a I don't know, I can't imagine doing that. But
all right, So did you get any sense for how
old surfing is, because it sounds like several centuries at least, right, so.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Nobody knows for sure when this wave sledding got its start,
but the first written account of it goes back to
the seventeen seventies. Then it was clear even then that
the practice had already been around for a very long time.
In fact, I read about this discovery a couple of
years back, where archaeologists uncovered a series of petroglyphs that
supposedly depict people surfing, and the figures were carved into
(14:59):
sandstone a the coasts of the island of Oahu, and
experts believe the markings are about four hundred years old
or so. We're just about two hundred years before Europeans
first made contact with Hawaii, all.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Right, so there's no doubt about it then. I mean,
surfing is a true part of native Hawaiian culture. And
just to bring this full circle, I actually learned while
reading up on these Aloha shirts that they share the
same point of origin with board shorts, which is that
palaca cotton stuff I mentioned earlier. And in the early
days of surf culture in the twentieth century, the serious
surfers would go to these specialty Japanese tailor shops in
(15:32):
Hawaii and they'd order these custom fitted shorts made from
pallaca cotton. So just like with the field workers of
old Hawaii, these surfers needed something comfortable yet durable, and
once again pallaka fit the bill.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
That's pretty cool, And I know that a native Hawaiian
would have their own thoughts about this, but as an outsider,
I do really love how aspects of these different times
in Hawaii's history tend to overlap and blurn places. It's
kind of a testament to the people of Hawaii, both
to their endurance and to their just sort of roll
with the punches in order to preserve what matters to them.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Oh absolutely, And I think another interesting example of that
overlap is in the folklore surrounding the islands themselves. Like
take Pele for instance, as the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes.
Pele is this subject of all sorts of legends, some
of them connect with native Hawaiian mythology, and some of
them are completely made up just for the tourists.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, I definitely want to spend a few minutes dissecting
which is wish, but.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Before we do, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, and we're talking about
the colorful but complicated history of Hawaii. So will I
know you've got a bizarre modern legend about Pele that
you're itching to talk about, But first I did want
to share some of the real traditional folklore she's connected with.
For instance, did you know Pele can't dan pork products?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I can't say that. I knew she had feelings for
them one way or other. But what's the story here?
Why does she not like pork?
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Well, this comes from an old myth where Pele had
a falling out with one of her one time boyfriends.
This guy coma Poua, And you know, coma pua right,
like he's the Hawaiian demigod who's half man half pig.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Oh oh, that coma Poua? So sure of course I.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Know, Okay. So apparently, when the pair of split, Pele
chased her old bow with a lava flow until he's
cornered on the windward side of Honolulu. And then as
the lava creeps closer, Comapua lied down on the ground
and began to chant, and this causes the earth and
the trees to rise up and hold back the lava
until suddenly it rains and cools everything down. So then
(17:44):
Peli's like, all right, I guess I can't kill you,
So how about we just agree to stay on separate
sides of the island. And this sounds great to come
a Pua. So he settles into the lush, green windward
side and Plea takes the dry, arid leeward side.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Oh fair enough. So so you're saying Pele's still holding
a grudge against swine because of this.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Mm hm. So to this day, like, visitors are warned
not to bring pork over the poly highway that connects
to the leeward side to the windward side, And since
Kamapua was part pig, hauling pork is a symbolic way
of bringing him back to Pele's turf, And if you
try to do that, Pele will do her best to
stop you, Like you might be called away on some emergency,
or your car could break down along the way, or
(18:26):
if an old woman with a dog sho'd appear during
your journey. That's actually Pele offering you an easy way
to dispose of your forbidden pork. You can just feed
it to the hungry pop and be on your way.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I mean, I do kind of like that with all
her fiery wrath. Peley still can't stand the thought of
people wasting pork. I mean, to be honest, she's a
pretty considerate, wrathful deity in a way.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. So if you're looking to get
on her good side, Pele apparently loves gin or any
quality whiskey, or at least that's what one longtime Hawaii
resident said, because for nearly forty years, this woman named
Leetrus tried to keep the Mount a Loa volcano from
erupting by routinely tossing bottles of gin into it while
flying in a small charter plane. So this is what
(19:08):
Leeitris told reporter in the eighties. She said, quote, I've
come to respect Madam Pele. I have a feeling that
she wants to drink.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I can't say my blame are given some of the
rumors people have spread about her. And actually, for instance
one of these, have you heard of Pelee's curse? It's
this idea that the goddess will inflict bad luck on
any visitor who takes rocks, sand, or other natural artifacts
from the Hawaiian islands. But while your pale pork legend
got it started as a native Hawaiian tall tale. Pelee's
curse is actually just this modern myth that was likely
(19:39):
started by a resentful park ranger.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So now that you explained that, I actually do remember
reading something about this for our park Ranger episode, like
it was a warning they gave tourists to try and
keep them from taking home all these volcanic rocks as keepsakes.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Right, Yeah, that's the theory, although some people maintain it
was actually something that tour guides told visitors so they
wouldn't drag a bunch of rocks and sand to their
buses and places like that. But regardless, the curse has
been propagated by guidebooks and travel websites, and this has
gone on for decades now, so much so that hundreds
of visitors now send thousands of pounds of rocks back
(20:13):
to Hawaii every single year, just in an attempt to
ease their guilty consciences and reverse their bad fortune.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I like that once again, there's like an easy way
to break the curse. I feel like Pele is just
a big softy.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Maybe so, but you know, when the legend first started
circulating in the mid nineteen forties, there was no mention
of returning what you stole as a way to change
your fortune. And all that bit of wishful thinking was
actually added later by tourists who were just desperate for
a way to explain and maybe fix the problems in
their lives. So now all these packages are frantically sent
(20:47):
to Hawaiian post offices and town halls, even directly to
the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and a lot of the
time the bits of rock or sand they're accompanied by
these heartfelt letters and they describe I have the bad
luck that the senders hope to undo. And some of
this stuff is really heavy, like you find people writing
about bounts with cancer or divorce or jail time. And
(21:09):
then you get these other letters which are just hard
not to laugh at, Like I came across this one
that reads, we won the six hundred thousand dollars lottery.
We would have won the two million dollar lottery if
it wasn't for this, Please take the rocks back before
more bad luck.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I mean, it does sound a bit like a double
edged swords, right, Like, on on one hand, some letters
are probably going to be pretty entertaining or maybe even inspiring,
but on the other hand, like how frustrating must it
be to have to deal with this endless stream of
stolen rocks and apology letters from guilty tours just coming
your way?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Oh? Totally, But you know, I do want to mention
that even though Pele's curse is a modern invention it
it does have some roots in real Hawaiian mythology. I
read this great piece and Pacific Standard where they talk
to the director at the University of Hawaii at Manoa's
Center for Hawaiian Studies, and she helps trace some of
the connections. In this She says, rocks and Hawaii have
(22:02):
their own personalities, male and female. They don't like to
be disturbed. Rocks in the volcano are made by Pele,
and they are copu. That is, they have a kind
of sanctity, and it's definitely bad luck to take them
away from the volcano.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I mean, that's interesting. But in this case, if returning
the items doesn't break the curse, does that mean people
are just stuck with their bad luck of missing winning
the lottery by millions forever?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Well? I wanted about that too, and I actually found
some pretty sage advice on the subject. And this was
from a retired historian at the University of Hawaii, and
she says, if you took a stone, perhaps unknowingly or
without meaning disrespect, I would recommend a ceremony rather than
sending the rocks back, just say release me from this COPU,
just let it go.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
M Well, that's definitely a better option and a cheaper
one than mailing rocks to park rangers. But you know,
given the way Hawaii became a state in the first place,
there is something sort of ironic about sending back these
stolen pieces of Hawaii back to you know, this island
that was taken away from the people.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, I know what you mean. And without getting too dour,
I do think we should address the elephant in the
room and talk a little bit about Hawaii became part
of the US to begin with, because this year actually
marks the one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary of the
eighteen ninety three overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Now, prior
to that time, Hawaii was recognized internationally as a sovereign
nation and was under the rule of Queen Lily Okulani,
(23:25):
and she'd inherited the throne from her brother just two
years earlier. But Hawaii's fertile volcanic soil and close proximity
of the states had long made it this tempting target
for a coup. Still, the Hawaiian Kingdom might have been
able to maintain it sovereignty if not for interference from
Sanford Dole and his fellow American businessmen.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I know this is crazy to think about it because
for anyone wondering, yes, this is Sandford Dole, as in
the Dole Food Company, or you might know him as
the world famous pineapple producers. But he and other American
plantation owners were making a killing in Hawaii already, and
that was thanks to their enormous crops of sugar and
coffee and pineapples there. But as a way to exert
(24:03):
even more control over the kingdom, Dole partnered with these
other businessmen and lawyers to form what they called the
Hawaiian League, and in eighteen eighty seven, the group sent
this armed militia to David Kalakaua, the king of Hawaii
at the time, and this was at gunpoint. The king
was actually forced to sign the Bayonet Constitution, which transferred
most of the monarchy's power to the legislature, which is
(24:25):
a ruling body whose elections were already being rigged to
favor non Hawaiians, and a few years later, when Lili
Okulani took the throne, she actually refused to honor the
Bayonet agreement and instead tried to build support for a
new constitution, one that would return power to the monarchy.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Which you know, of course, is something Dole and the
other American businessmen were not happy about. And so that's
why in January of eighteen ninety three is so called
Committee of Safety I was led by Dole, and they
gathered in wait near the Queen's palace. Soon they were
joined by three hundred marines from the USS Boston, and
they'd been call to protect Dole's committee by the US
(25:02):
Minister of Hawaii. And it was just a really pivotal move.
So the action provided this taskit approval for the coup
from the US government, and it also left Queen Lilly
o'culahne with no choice but to surrender in order to
avoid outright war.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah, and the part that always gets me is that
she never gave up hope that the US government would
come to its senses and recognize her as Hawaii's constitutional monarch.
But of course that never happened. So the president at
the time was Benjamin Harrison, and he was all for
annexing the Hawaiian Islands after the coup, and although Grover
Cleveland objected to the whole affair, once he took office,
(25:37):
he actually failed to stop this takeover of Hawaii. He
did recommend the queen be restored to her throne, but
Congress ultimately rejected the proposal, and instead, Sanford Dole took
control of the illegal provisional government that he helped install
in Hawaii. He even declared himself the de facto president
of what he started to call the Republic of Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, the whole thing is really bizarre, and especially when
you consider the rest of the world was watching as
this unfolded, and you know, even our own president admitted
that the takeover had been illegal. I mean, listen to
these lines from an account President Cleveland later wrote of
this whole ordeal. He said, the provisional government owes its
existence to an armed invasion by the United States by
an act of war. A substantial wrong has been done.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
It is wild to hear that and to know that
nothing was ever done to fix it, and in fact,
just the opposite, because it was the administration right after
Cleveland that declared Hawaii a US territory, and of course,
about sixty years later it officially became the fiftieth state.
But before we get into any of that or the
amazing ways Hawaii and the US have influenced each other,
let's take a quick break. Okay, well, so give us
(26:55):
the bad news. Who else has colonized Hawaii besides the Americans?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
All right, Well, it's not so who else, says it
is what else? Because despite the fact that the islands
are over two thousand miles from the nearest continent, they've
actually been colonized over and over throughout history. It's just
that most of the time it's far flung plants and
animals doing the colonizing and not humans. And so the
net result of this is biodiversity beyond your wildest dreams,
(27:20):
but sometimes at the sad cost of the island's own
indigenous species.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah. I remember hearing some stats about how many endangered
species there are in Hawaiian The numbers were pretty insane,
Like when you added up all the plants and animals
and insects on the list, it was something like five
hundred different endangered species. Just in Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, I was looking at some of those numbers on
Hawaii dot gov, and according to the state's Forestry and
Wildlife Division, the islands contain roughly forty four percent of
our entire countries endangered and threatened plant species. And that's
despite the fact that Hawaii accounts for less than one
percent of the total land mass in the US. I mean,
it really points to just how frequently foreign species have
(28:00):
also their way into the Hawaiian ecosystem, not to mention
the domino effect damage that sometimes causes for other species.
It's really a pretty tricky problem.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
No kidding. Like, did you hear about this invasive species
of tiny frogs called the koki? Apparently the little guys
are wreaking havoc on Hawaii's Big Island. I guess they're
native to Puerto Rico, but scientists think a few found
their way over in the nineteen eighties, probably by hiding
out in some potted plants. Anyway, they've just exploded ever
since because there aren't any natural predators to help control
(28:30):
the population, and in fact, one study reported that the
koki population Hawaii is now three times greater than the
one in Puerto rico, which means there are now between
ten thousand and fifty thousand frogs per acre on the
Big Island.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Good lord, I mean that's like plague level amount of frauds,
all right. So, just to play Devil's advocate on this, like,
let's assume that I love the idea of having frogs
absolutely everywhere. So is there another downside to this?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Well, for one thing, the frogs and put a serious
damper on the island's once plentiful bug population, including a
few of those endangered species we've been talking about, and
some biologists are even worried that the lack of bugs
could cause native bird species to starve. And of course,
there's also the fact that the frogs are driving down
property values, which is always a nuisance for humans.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Boy, it sounds like these things are pretty much everywhere. Like,
are they decreasing property values all over the island? I mean,
because remember I love frogs everywhere, So condos on the
coast are going for super cheap prices. I actually might
need to look into this.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Well, before you sign add's, you should probably know one
other thing about cookie frogs, and that's that, despite the
fact that they're only about the size of a quarter.
They constantly emit this high pitched cry that can reach
up to ninety decibels, which is about the volume of
a lawnmower or a motorcycle that's a few yards away.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yeah, And it's actually where the frogs get their name cookie.
Like that annoying sound that they make sounds a lot
like cokey. So in areas that are overrun with frogs,
the property values are taking a big hit, and it's
because everybody knows that whoever winds up living there is
never going to get a good night's sleep.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Again, you did such a great impression of their noise.
It sounds just like Cokey.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Except higher pitch.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I think, right right, that does sound like a nightmare.
Like are the locals doing anything to combat the problem
or have they just kind of thrown the towel in.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah. I mean people used to hunt them back when
the problem first started to kind of try to control it,
and this is around the mid two thousands, but it
quickly became clear that that was never going to work,
and nowadays most people concentrate on containing the frogs to
certain areas and trying to prevent them from expanding deeper
into the rainforest, and apparently there's also a contingent of
(30:41):
folks who try to catch the koki and ship them
back to Puerto Rico. But again it's kind of a
losing battle.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, you might be right about that, because you know,
the frog troubles actually sound a lot like another case
I read about. This is over on the island of Kawhi.
Apparently the whole place is just loaded with these feral chickens,
and scientists say it's probably because of nineteen ninety two's
hurricane and Nikki. The storm tore through Kawai, and in
the process, it also released a ton of chickens from
(31:08):
people's backyard coops, and these domestic birds fled to the
island's dense forest, and they reverted back to this wild
state and began mating with remnants of Kawai's Polynesian jungle
foul population. And again, due to the lack of natural predators,
the chickens thrive to the point that they were thousands
and thousands of them spread all over the island.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Well, I'm delighted by the idea of a chicken island,
But how do that residence feel about those Well, they.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Were more than a little bit annoyed at first, and
especially when they realized that the chickens seemed to lack
all sense of time and would just randomly crow at
all hours of the day, so not at the ninety decibels, thankfully,
But just like with the frogs, people eventually grew to
accept them as a fact of life. It's actually kind
of that same lemonade from Lemon's mentality that we talked
(31:56):
about earlier with the Hawaiian shirts and other things. But like,
having chickens all over the place isn't ideal. I mean,
they're loud and they're dirty, but on the bright side,
they keep harmful pest in line, and the tourists are
completely charmed by these wildfowl running around, so you know,
the locals will describe the chickens as everything from beautiful
birds to these god awful rats with wings, and everybody
(32:17):
can at least agree that they're great for moving merchandise.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Though, Can I just say that, while I totally get
how annoying it would be to have some island hopping
animal runne up your at ecosystem, like I do like
the idea that these different islands have different animals associated
with them.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, I mean annoyances aside. I think it is fun
that certain islands are just completely stocked with their own
signature animals, Like the Big Island is the Frog Kingdom,
Kauai is the Chicken Coast, and there's also Lanai, which
is this tiny Hawaiian island that boasts a population of
I think it's only about three thousand people, but it's
also home to four or five hundred feral cats. You know,
(32:53):
while being stranded on a tiny island teeming with feral
cats sounds like pretty much the worst thing imaginable to me,
I can still appreciate the fact that it exists, you know,
as long as I'm far far away from it.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
So, you know, we've talked a lot about colonizing species
that have made themselves at home on the islands, but
I do want to shift the focus back to the
native side of things and talk just a little bit
about the Hawaiian parrotfish.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
You mean, the these are the creepy fish with the beaks, right.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Mm hmm. So maybe it's not the best poster boy
for the islands, but you know, those islands wouldn't be
the same without the parrotfish, and more specifically, their prized
beaches would be little more than bare volcanic rock without parrotfish.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
So why is this the case?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Okay, so this probably won't win you over on parrotfish.
But you know those beak like teeth that you find
off putting, Well, those are actually used in gnawwegh at
algae that grow on coral, which happens to be the
parrotfish's favorite snack. And the problem is sometimes the fish
accidentally nibble off a piece of coral and wind up
ingesting its calcium carbonate by mistake, and because the parrotfish
(33:58):
can't digest the bulk of the subs since it eventually
excreases it as sand.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Wait, so you're saying that's the sand that winds up
on Hawaii's beaches like that? There's no way, I mean,
how much sand could a fish possibly poop out?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
So it's somewhere around eight hundred pounds per fish per
year according to this Oh yeah, this is according to
a marine biologist named Lingong and in an interview for
Why did she pointed out that quote. In places like Hawaii,
where we have very little terrestrial input of sand, almost
all of our sand is of biological origin. So I
(34:31):
like to tell people that sand you're standing on in
Hawaii has probably gone through the gut of something. It'll
have gone through the gut of a parrotfish, a sea urchin,
or some kind of worm.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Well, I mean, strangely enough, turning fish poop into beautiful
sandy beaches. It does seem like a pretty fitting metaphor
for the Hawaiian approach to all of its problems, really,
because while Native Hawaiians and residents of Hawaii have faced
their share of injustices and hardships over the years, they've
always managed to foster some of the most vibrant cultures
amidst some of the most stunning environments in the world.
(35:02):
And that alone makes me proud that Hawaii is part
of my country, even if you know I'm not always
thrilled about how it wound up that way.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And also, don't forget, Hawaii
is the state that gave the world POGs, so that
alone makes it worthy of praise.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So I'm not so sure about your love of stackable
cardboard circles, but who knows, maybe you can win me
over with some facts in the day's fact off. All right, Mengo,
So I remember you were a big fan of the
TV show Hawaii five oh, or at least I like
to tell people that you were a fan of Hawaii
(35:37):
five oh. And many of our listeners may know this
is where referring to police as five oh comes from.
But actually didn't realize that the show was called Hawaii
five oh simply because Hawaii was the fiftieth state to
join the country. I don't know how this never occurred
to me.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I know me either, So this is my fact. The
seventh largest island in Hawaii is owned by two guys,
and they're actually brothers. They I heerded it from their
grandmother who had purchased it from the Kingdom of Hawaii.
And this was way back in eighteen sixty four for
around ten thousand dollars in gold. Obviously that's a ton
of money. But these brothers still own it. And speaking
(36:12):
of a ton of money, the US has reportedly tried
to buy back the island from the brothers for about
a billion dollars and they've turned it down.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
God, that is a ton of money. I think I
would accept a billion dollars for that if I owned
an island. So I forget Are you a fan of
Hawaiian pizza. Yeah, I am me too. Well, we mentioned
this before, but it was invented in Canada by a
couple of Greek guys. But I feel like we need
to add a fact to that, and because you can
really never have enough good facts about Hawaiian pizza, and
(36:41):
that's the fact that it's the most popular style of
pizza in Australia that actually accounts for around fifteen percent
of all their pizza sales.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So have you heard about the time the US government
burned two hundred million dollars in Hawaiian cash. This was
way back in the nineteen forties, not long after the
attack on Pearl Harbor, and the US government started worrying
about what happened if Japan invaded Hawaii, and one of
the things they thought about was the money on the islands.
If Japan invaded the island and then took all the
cash there, how would the government know where the cash
(37:11):
had come from when they decided to use it. So
to protect against this, the US actually recalled all paper
money in Hawaii and asked everyone to trade their bills
in for others that had the word Hawaii stamped on it.
So then what to do with that two hundred million
dollars they'd managed to collect from the people. They actually
decided to burn it. And they who did this in
(37:31):
crematoriums and furnaces around the island, And only a tiny
number of the bills are still in circulation. But if
you managed to get your hands on a twenty dollars
Hawaii overprint bill from that time, it's actually worth about
four thousand dollars today.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Wow. I had never heard that story before. All right,
so quick one here. Hawaii is the only US state
to have two official languages. You've got English and Hawaii. Interestingly,
the language only has thirteen letters and every word ends
with one of five vowels.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
So despite consuming the most spam per capita, Hawaii has
the longest life expectancy of the fifty states at eighty
one point three years. And that edges Minnesota, which I
guess makes sense since they also invented spam.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Oh wow, yeah, it's good connection there. What's amazing to
me that the state known as maybe having the most
desirable weather is also the state where the Hawaii Space
Exploration Analog and Simulation Program decided to keep a crew
in a bubble for an entire year. Back in twenty sixteen,
a group of six crew members walked out of the
Mars simulator mission in Hawaii after a twelve month stay
(38:37):
on the slopes of Mount Ala, the famous volcano. The
habitat is supposedly pretty martian like, or at least as
martian like as you can find in the States, And
I don't know, though, I feel like after a couple
of weeks there, I'd be like, I don't know, guys,
I'm headed out to the beach too much.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Yeah, me too. But speaking of Hawaiian volcanoes, one of
the crazy geological features there that most people don't know
about is the ice see underworld inside some of the volcanoes.
So these lava tubes can actually be found on Mona Loa.
Because of their high elevation and the way the air circulates,
the perfect conditions for permanent ice are formed there. It's
just crazy to think about the hundreds of thousands of
(39:14):
people visiting each year to see the world's largest active
volcano and having zero idea that under all that rock
you'd find ice tunnels. Earth's pretty cool, you.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Know, I don't know, Mango, just you using the phrase
earth pretty cool? You know I feel like that. I
feel like that earns you the fact off no matter
what you said, even though that is a really cool fact,
I'm going to give you today's factof Trophy.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I knew that would seal the deal.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
But thank you, well, thank you guys so much for listening.
I'm sure there are some great facts about Hawaii that
we didn't get to include in today's episode. We'd love
to hear those from. You can always email us part
Time Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can always call
us on our twenty four to seven fact Hotline one
eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on
Facebook or Twitter. But thanks so much for listening. Thanks
(40:12):
again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant
people who do the important things we couldn't even begin
to understand.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Christan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown, and Lucas.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears.
Good job, Eves.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe.
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Jason who
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