Mr. Hawaii: meet Saichi, keeper of Hawaiian culture

Sunset, July, 2004 by Chiori Santiago

In 1958, 19-year-old Saichi Kawahara abandoned small-town Hawaii forever and headed for school on the Mainland's East Coast. "I said I'd never come back," he recalls.

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He was wrong. Now known as a virtuoso singer and old-school ukulele player, he regularly tours Hawaii with his own Hawaiian band. In the intervening years, the "Aloha spirit" has followed his footsteps, traveling 3,000 miles east to foggy Kapalakiko, as Hawaiians call San Francisco.

"San Francisco has a long history with overseas Hawaiians," Saichi explains. "From the time of the old whaling industry, Hawaiians came through, jumped ship, and made it home. Now you can find a melting pot of Hawaiians representing our hula, music, and food all over California."

To keep a network of 6,000 "Hawaiians at heart" up-to-date about local outrigger-canoe races, reunions, and Polynesian festivals like this month's Tahiti Fete of San Jose, Saichi and wife Evelyn publish the quarterly Kapalakiko Productions Calendar of Hawaiian Events ($10 for a lifetime subscription; www.kapalakiko.com).

Over a 50-year career, Saichi has perfected the Hawaiian style of falsetto, a combination of "men imitating women's voices, with cowboy yodeling influences from Spanish vaqueros thrown in." With 1,000 songs in his repertoire, he can fill requests for reggae, swing numbers, and such chestnuts as "My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua Hawaii." But the nostalgic old hulas are his favorites, binding him to a past he'll never quite escape.

"I tried to get as far away as I could, and what happened?" he asks, chuckling. "I ran into Hawaiians."

Polynesian festivals

Tahiti Fete of San Jose (Jul 2-5; www.tahitifete.com or 808/935-3002); San Francisco Aloha Festival (Aug 7-8; www.pica-org.org/AlohaFest or 415/281-0221).