TABLE
OF CONTENTS
|
Surfer
Boys
Waikiki, Hawaii
by
Lara Calloway

There
are six
young men positioned in a naturally-occurring frame between a rack of
rentable
surfboards and a small clutter of palm trees on the beach at Waikiki, Hawaii.
Their spatial chemistry is what initially draws me to watch them; while
one
Asian-looking boy leans lazily against a palm, two brown skinned boys
sit side
by side with their knees up, a black guy and a white guy stand behind
them, and
in the front, one with long light hair down his back straddles a surf
bard
facing the group. It’s approaching seven in the evening and they’re all
in
colorful swim trunks, apparent that they’re ending a long day of
(presumably)
surfing.
After
a few
moments of chitchat (not all of which I entirely understand, involving
a fair
amount off surfer and coastline jargon) the two boys standing leave
together
with a small wave to the group and semi-awkward “mahalo,” pronounced
“muh-hello.” It’s a give-away that they are visitors to Hawaii and its
idioms, and just recent
acquaintances to the remaining group of boys. The four pass around what
seems
like a common-shared inside joke about the surfing abilities of their
new
acquaintances and they all snigger, but not cruelly. It’s decidedly
appreciative. One of the boys sitting in the middle notices me, and
offers a
welcome wave which I return. The boy next to him could be his brother,
and they
bend their heads in a quiet discussion before shouting over, “What are
you
doing?”
I
smile and say,
“Watching.” They laugh.
“Us?”
they want
to know.
“Hawaii,” I answer. Two
people come in the frame to return rented boards, and the Asian guy
moves to
put them back on the rack. He must be the one working the stand, while
his
friends (or perhaps fellow employees) visit. Reluctant to answer
questions
regarding my surveillance of attractive young islanders, I take the
busy moment
to wave a shy goodbye and make my way down the beach, feeling very
caught. A
whole beach full of foreigners, travelers, locals (a mix of native
Hawaiians
and foreigners even in that), and I feel indistinctly singled out as
“other.”
Everyone around, I notice, is in some respect studying and absorbing
the
culture of Hawaii.
But here I feel very discomfited documenting it. Like Eric Haanstad
discusses
in his article The Other City of Angels:
Ethnography with the Bangkok
Police, I feel like I'm unprepared- too
shy, too obvious- and most
of all, unqualified.
No language barrier or loneliness, but who am I to specimenize these
boys,
while I myself am too timid to even talk to them? Especially since,
after all I
chose to watch them primarily because they were so, so pretty.

|