Hawaii - Day Six

We went to the Hawaii's Plantation Village. I didn't take any photos. However, we were guided on a tour of the plantation. There were buildings there that represented the housing styles of the different ethnic groups that came to work there.

1. The Chinese were first to arrive in 1852. They had a Chinese Society building for their worship, and had tiny one room houses.
2. In 1868 the Japanese came, lived in a duplex style house, cooked over a fire and added a communal building for making Tofu-Ya. The Japanese adopted Christianity.
3. The Portuguese came in 1878, were already Christian and had a house for cooking with a stove, and house one for sleeping.
4. The Puerto Ricans in 1900, small house.
5. Okinawans came in 1919
6. Koreans in 1919 about this time there was a popular meeting place, the Barber shop. There people would learn what was newsworthy from each other. There was also a communal bath house. It was a large concrete tub that was divided in the middle by a wooden wall, and was housed in a room that was also divided into two spaces, one side for men, and the other for women.

Add later was a dormitory for male filipino workers. There was also a Sumo ring, and a plantation store. The families would earn $9 to $14 per month. They would spend all their earnings at the local store. An infirmary was made about 1915, to care for dental as well as medical problems. Must have been a hard life.

Our guide was very enjoyable and spoke about the variety of cultures that have come to make up the Hawaiian society today.

This was a pretty long tour. We called it a day after the tour.