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[{"type":"text","text":"Now give him a treat..."}]

Smile 26 4 4

<title>Daily Smile: Saturday, April 4, 2026</title>

Now give him a treat...

Daily Smile: Saturday, April 4, 2026

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

MĀNOA — With the amount of urgency the University of Hawai‘i water polo team played with in the final 10 seconds of their match on Friday evening, one would have thought the stakes were much higher for the Rainbow Wahine. 

In reality, the 'Bows were polishing off a rout of Cal State Fullerton on senior night, but those closing seconds still had added meaning to head coach James Robinson. In the final minutes of the game, all seven of UH's seniors were playing together for one last time. 

Raha Peiravani's goal at the buzzer was the exclamation point of a dominant 20-2 rout over the Titans. 

The Rainbow Wahine, ranked sixth nationally in the Collegiate Water Polo Association's most recent varsity poll, improved to 13-5 overall and closed Big West regular season play a perfect 6-0. Following the contest, the team honored its seven seniors, then celebrated its third straight conference regular season title by jumping in the pool. 

"Today's game was a good one. I thought we approached it the right way from the beginning," Robinson said. "Had to take care of business first, but to be able to celebrate all our seniors was really exciting, and to be able to have all seven of them in the water at the same time to finish the game was a really special moment. We also be captured the Big West regular season, one of our season goals, so it felt good."

Peiravani scored three goals for the Rainbow Wahine, the third hat trick of her career. The Canada native admits her years spent at the Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex went by faster than she was anticipating. 

"It's definitely a very emotional night," she said. "Some of us have been here five years, so it's a whirlwind of emotions, and we're all really grateful for the experience that we've had here, and we've all grown so much as people. I think it's been emotional looking at our past four or five years here and seeing the growth and the change.

"Like they always say, the days are long, the years are quick. And I didn't really understand that until now. I like, blinked, and I'm done. So, yeah, it's gone by very quickly."

The seven seniors who played together in the closing minutes come from four different countries. Together, they raised the standard of UH water polo, reaching the national semifinals two years in a row. 

"It was definitely very emotional, and I think a very unique experience, and we were so lucky that all seven of us got to be in together," Peiravani said. "And I think all of us were just playing for each other and with each other. We an ‘ohana, we're a family, all of us. It's just a very amazing experience to get to close out our years here all together at the same time."

Contributing to Peiravani's sentiments that the season has gone by quickly is the fact that the NCAA pushed its women's water polo championships up two weeks, wrapping up on April 26 in La Jolla, Calif. For UH, the compressed schedule allowed it to have just four official matches and one exhibition at home. 

Next up for the Rainbow Wahine is the Big West Tournament, which runs from April 10-12 in Long Beach, Calif.  

"I think we're looking very strong," Peiravani said. "We've definitely grown a lot in the past month, and there's still a few things that we need to focus on, but I feel like we're looking really strong, and our team culture is in a very good place."

"They've done a really good job of every single day, treating it as an opportunity to get better, focusing on ourselves," Robinson says of his team. 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

UH water polo 040426

<title>No. 6 Hawai‘i water polo earns Big West regular season title in dominant senior night…</title>

UH routed Cal State Fullerton 20-2 in its home finale on Friday, delivering a special moment for its seven seniors at the end of the match.

No. 6 Hawai‘i water polo earns Big West regular season title in dominant senior night victory

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Columnists

Stand-up comedian Tumua is doing crowd work somewhere on the Mainland, and 

 from the audience. The guy is from Kauaʻi, not born and raised, but “flown there, grown there.” He hasn’t lived there in nine years. While Tumua works the crowd, the guy shouts “chee hoo.” Tumua says, “That’s a solid chee hoo, man.” He does it again. Tumua has to shush him.

It’s a small moment, and Tumua plays it off with dry affection. The guy is playing out what he remembers of a place he left nine years ago. Much of the crowd never lived there at all.

Frank De Lima didn’t have that problem performing locally. Most of his audience hadn’t left. They were in the room — sharing the same plate lunch memories, cringing at the same accents, laughing because every joke was an inside joke. This wasn’t an introduction to local culture. It was a reminder, a celebration, even a reinforcement.

The plantation village was a truly different kind of place — shared land, shared labor, ethnic groups pressed close together with no way out. Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and Hawaiians were all crowded into the same neighborhoods and schools. What came out of it — the food, the humor, the pidgin — came from people who couldn’t opt out of each other.

Even as that world was dissolving, people reached back for its symbols. By 1978, a political movement called Palaka Power had taken the plantation worker’s cloth as its name — a clear link to the past. The Palaka Power 

 said so plainly. The writers also noted, in the same breath: the ILWU was declining, sugar and pine would soon be gone, the Democrats of the ‘54 Revolution had mostly left the arena. They chose the symbol precisely because the reality was already receding. The myth was always partly constructed. But it was backed, then, by people who had actually 

The built world that replaced the plantation village included public housing, suburbs, and apartments. The Mainland has all of those. And then came radio, television, the internet, smartphones, and eventually TikTok.

Stand in the Sandy Beach parking lot on a Saturday. A kid near the lifeguard stand is hitting a vape and dancing to a song trending in Atlanta. The shaka sticker on the bumper is working harder than it used to. But social media didn’t cause any of this. It arrived to find the flattening of culture mostly finished and has been tracking it ever since.

The audience for local content skews diaspora: Aunties in Vallejo, Kalihi kids now in Las Vegas, people holding onto something they can’t quite name.

Nostalgia is real. But it runs in one direction. You can package a memory and ship it to Fresno. What you can’t do is put it back. A friend put it plainly: are we our own cover band?

Distinct cultures are not accidents. They grow from particular people living side by side. The plantation village wasn’t a brand. It was a neighborhood. The shaka sticker can travel, but the neighborhood can’t. Something real is lost when a place becomes content.

. He’s reaching for something he actually had, once. What is it, exactly? The memory of a place, a people. The kind of memory that swells within and erupts in shouts — or tears. It’s the memory that many hold of Hawai‘i, even those who visited only for a week.

Nostalgia can become sinful when we deceive ourselves. It’s easy to romanticize farm labor from the comfort of air-conditioned offices, but the plantations were not a paradise. And neither is Hawai‘i. The past is worth a visit, but no place to make a home. 

That’s a solid chee hoo, man — but once is enough. Shush.

Pineapple Plantation housing 16x9 Large

<title>What's in a chee hoo?</title>

Generations removed from the plantation era that forged it, local culture is in danger of becoming a nostalgia-fueled performance of itself, writes ASD columnist Sterling Higa.

What's in a chee hoo?

Kam Napier Headshot

A. Kam Napier

Arts & Entertainment

Onlookers were stunned on Sunday, March 29, when the famous Scottish lake monster, affectionately known as Nessie, broached the waters of the equally famous Ala Wai Canal.

[{"type":"text","text":"ASD was first on the scene, bringing you these exclusive photos."}]

We were soon joined by noted Isle cryptozoologist Sigmund Zack, who said he was alerted by postings on the private social media channel of a secretive monster hunter society.

“I never thought I’d see the day!” said Zack. “I had been saving up all my Atmos Rewards miles for a trip to Scotland and now this happens — amazing!”

The creature kept perfectly still, head in the air, as if embarrassed to be caught in the open in broad daylight.

[{"type":"text","text":"Isn’t Nessie a little far from home? we asked."}]

“It’s 42 degrees in Loch Ness,” says noted Isle cryptozoologist Sigmund Zack. “That’s Fahrenheit, it’s sounds even worse in Centigrade, just 5 or 6 degrees! So the question isn’t, ‘Why would Nessie swim 7,000 miles to vacation in Waikīkī?” it’s ‘Why wouldn’t he?”

Zack speculated on the beast’s route across the Atlantic, down the Eastern Seaboard, through the Panama Canal, past Easter Island, finally arriving in the Islands with uncanny navigational skill. Was Waikīkī its final destination?

He shrugged. “There’s just so much we don’t know about Nessie. Its mating habits, its taste in streaming content, its connection, if any, to Big Foot. So many blanks to fill!”

Could Nessie pose a threat? If, as theories suggest, the lake monster is a Plesiosaurus, a living fossil from the Jurassic period, it’s likely to be carnivorous.

At that, Zack narrowed his eyes and dashed off a quick text message to unknown parties.

“I want to assure people,” he said to ASD, “that Nessie would never use its long neck, jagged teeth, lightning reflexes and propulsive swimming ability to pluck people from the sidewalk in a flash and drag them down into the Ala Wai as a snack. Not joggers, not kids, definitely not pets. And definitely not at night, when no one would notice. Nope. Definitely not.”

A crowd had gathered. Someone noted that the long neck and apparent humps of the sinewy serpent looked suspiciously like a log carried into the canal by the recent Kona Low deluge. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Zack threw up his hands."}]

 you to think!” he exclaimed. “Listen, people, and look at these photos,” he said, taking ASD’s iPhone and rummaging through the photos without so much as a thank you.

“The first photo is from 2:48 p.m. and the creature is clearly facing makai, looking into the feeding grounds — I mean, excuse me, the 

 — of Waikīkī. Then, just 12 minutes later, he is photographed again — by a journalist, mind you — this time facing mauka, possibly toward the ball field for leaner prey, I mean, where people play.

“Now, you tell me, what kind of log can change direction on its own, huh? Only flippers can do that!”

As he wrapped up on that conclusive, scientific point, Zack handed back ASD’s phone, took one last look at the bleached, scaly, possibly bark-like hide of the beast and walked off in a hurry.

[{"type":"text","text":"Happy April Fools’ Day, everyone!"}]

Nessie 29 March 2 48 pm 16x9

<title>Loch Ness monster spotted in Ala Wai Canal</title>

“It’s 42 degrees in Loch Ness,” says noted Isle cryptozoologist Sigmund Zack. “The question isn’t, ‘Why would Nessie swim 7,000 miles to vacation in Waikīkī?” it’s ‘Why wouldn’t he?”

Loch Ness monster spotted in Ala Wai Canal

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

Last October, The Kāhala Hotel & Resort announced that 

Alan Wong’s would be replacing Hoku’s as its signature restaurant

The resort announced today that, after 30 years of service, Hoku’s at The Kāhala will conclude its last dinner service on Feb. 20. The restaurant’s closure will lead to the opening of Alan Wong’s Kāhala Hotel & Resort, scheduled to debut on March 25.

Hoku’s last Sunday brunch service will be Feb. 15. On Feb. 23, restaurant reservations for Alan Wong’s Kāhala Hotel & Resort will be available via OpenTable for dining on and after April 8.

The Veranda — known for its afternoon tea — will temporarily close during the transition and reopen with regular service upon the opening of Alan Wong’s. Customers can also look forward to the return of the resort’s popular Sunday brunch on March 29 with no changes to the current menu selection.

Guests who want an earlier dining experience at Alan Wong’s can book The Kāhala Hotel & Resort’s 

. The package includes a dining credit, exclusive restaurant reservations during its first two weeks of operation, daily breakfast buffet at Plumeria Beach House and spa credit. The eatery will open to the general public on April 8.

These milestones are part of The Kāhala’s “Legacy of Aloha” celebration, which honors the resort’s rich history. As part of the celebration, the resort has undergone an extensive refresh of its suites and guest rooms; upgrades include new flooring and local collaborations.

“The Legacy of Aloha represents everything The Kāhala stands for — genuine hospitality, deep respect for place, and meaningful guest experiences,” states Joe Ibarra, general manager of The Kāhala Hotel & Resort. “As we bid farewell to Hoku’s and prepare to welcome Alan Wong’s, we are entering an exciting new chapter that further elevates The Kāhala as a destination for exceptional dining and refined luxury.”

For more information, visit The Kāhala Hotel & Resort’s 

Alan Wongs at The Kahala staff photo 020526

<title>Alan Wong’s Kāhala restaurant is opening March 25</title>

Hoku’s at The Kāhala’s last dinner service is Feb. 20. Alan Wong’s Kāhala Hotel & Resort will open to the general public on April 8; guests who book The Kāhala Hotel & Resort’s Legacy of Aloha package can secure early access to experience the new restaurant.

Daily Smile: Saturday, April 4, 2026

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Daily Smile: Saturday, April 4, 2026

Authors

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