night crying, her eyes still red and swollen with remembered sorrow, but otherwise she maintained the stoic dignity of a woman who understood the meaning of han. I wished her well, wondering whether I would ever see her again. Jade Moon’s husband, Mr. Ha-despite the photograph of him posing impressively beside the Whippet automobile-did not seem to own a vehicle of his own, and they accompanied Mr. Noh and me to the nearby railway station. There the four of us were to board the Leahi, a steam locomotive bound for the northern shore of O’ahu. My husband was in a more cheerful mood today, in seeming good spirits as he and Mr. Ha chatted three steps ahead of us on the train platform. As we walked past, but not into, a luxurious mahoganypaneled passenger car, I realized that once again we were traveling steerage. In this case that meant second-class seats in a “combination car”-one that carried a mix of passengers, baggage, and mail. It also served as a smoking car, as I discovered not long into our trip when various prosperous-looking white men wandered in from first class and lit up a form of tobacco I had never encountered before. I was inured to the smell of Grandmother’s bamboo pipe, but nothing could have prepared me for the foul gases given off by these fat brown sticks called “cigars.”
I sat by the open window, taking in deep breaths of the fresh sea air as we passed the harbor. Seeing the world-famous flag of stars and stripes flying from the masts of the many battleships at anchor brought home for the first time that I was actually, finally, in America. As we steamed up the leeward coast of O’ahu we saw swaying fields of tall green sugar cane, the occasional water buffalo working a taro patch, and gangs of Chinese kulis plowing rice fields. We skirted groves of algaroba trees and tall coconut palms bending in the wind as if bowing to us as we passed. I found myself unexpectedly captivated by it all. The train slowed and stopped at a succession of sleepy little stations with exotic names like ‘Aiea, Waipi’o, Leilehua, ‘Ewa, Nanakuli. Then the lush green hills and rolling farm fields gave way to black rocky promontories that I first took to be coal, but which, my husband told me, were forged from long-cooled volcanic lava. Such unique natural beauty! Hawai’i was more than living up to Mrs. Kim’s description of it as a paradise. I was heartened by what I saw, as I think jade Moon was too, though we seldom spoke during the trip and remained quiet, like good Korean wives.
After two and a half hours the Leahi finally pulled into a tiny station announcing itself as WAIALUA . Jade Moon and I obediently followed our husbands off the train and out of the station, where a horse-drawn wagon was waiting for us. This was a far cry from Mr. Yi’s Model T; its driver was a laborer of some sort, wearing a kind of checkered cotton shirt I would come to know as a palaka. He exchanged greetings with our husbands, who responded warmly, lifted our baggage into the rear of the wagon, then helped us up onto a wooden bench in front. In minutes we were on our way and I worked up the nerve to ask, “Honorable husband, where is it we are going?”
“Mokuleia Camp,” he replied. This meant nothing to me until we crested a small hill. Now we found ourselves looking down at a vast expanse of green-thousands of acres of sugar cane, an army of man-high green stalks marching toward a shoreline of pristine white sand. Irrigation water gushed like rivers down gullies cut in the rich red soil, and in the fields were stooped hundreds of laborers hoeing, cutting, watering, and hauling cane. And as if standing watch above all this, like a lighthouse somehow stranded far from shore, was the tall smokestack of a sugar mill, from which rose a constant plume of sweet brown smoke.
Jade Moon glanced at me with mounting anxiety as our wagon bounced along a dirt road bordering the cane fields, the wheels kicking up a great cloud of
I sat by the open window, taking in deep breaths of the fresh sea air as we passed the harbor. Seeing the world-famous flag of stars and stripes flying from the masts of the many battleships at anchor brought home for the first time that I was actually, finally, in America. As we steamed up the leeward coast of O’ahu we saw swaying fields of tall green sugar cane, the occasional water buffalo working a taro patch, and gangs of Chinese kulis plowing rice fields. We skirted groves of algaroba trees and tall coconut palms bending in the wind as if bowing to us as we passed. I found myself unexpectedly captivated by it all. The train slowed and stopped at a succession of sleepy little stations with exotic names like ‘Aiea, Waipi’o, Leilehua, ‘Ewa, Nanakuli. Then the lush green hills and rolling farm fields gave way to black rocky promontories that I first took to be coal, but which, my husband told me, were forged from long-cooled volcanic lava. Such unique natural beauty! Hawai’i was more than living up to Mrs. Kim’s description of it as a paradise. I was heartened by what I saw, as I think jade Moon was too, though we seldom spoke during the trip and remained quiet, like good Korean wives.
After two and a half hours the Leahi finally pulled into a tiny station announcing itself as WAIALUA . Jade Moon and I obediently followed our husbands off the train and out of the station, where a horse-drawn wagon was waiting for us. This was a far cry from Mr. Yi’s Model T; its driver was a laborer of some sort, wearing a kind of checkered cotton shirt I would come to know as a palaka. He exchanged greetings with our husbands, who responded warmly, lifted our baggage into the rear of the wagon, then helped us up onto a wooden bench in front. In minutes we were on our way and I worked up the nerve to ask, “Honorable husband, where is it we are going?”
“Mokuleia Camp,” he replied. This meant nothing to me until we crested a small hill. Now we found ourselves looking down at a vast expanse of green-thousands of acres of sugar cane, an army of man-high green stalks marching toward a shoreline of pristine white sand. Irrigation water gushed like rivers down gullies cut in the rich red soil, and in the fields were stooped hundreds of laborers hoeing, cutting, watering, and hauling cane. And as if standing watch above all this, like a lighthouse somehow stranded far from shore, was the tall smokestack of a sugar mill, from which rose a constant plume of sweet brown smoke.
Jade Moon glanced at me with mounting anxiety as our wagon bounced along a dirt road bordering the cane fields, the wheels kicking up a great cloud of
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