A Hawaiian in Berlin.

I was laying about in my apartment in Berlin one day.
It was an unusually warm winter Sunday afternoon.
My apartment was on the top floor of the Sony
center in Berlin. The Sony center was a extravagant
glass and steel futuristic architectural structure built
in what used the be the no mans land between East
and West Berlin.

In the lower courtyard we had a Cafe to represent
every ethnic food to be had. Italian, French,
Japanese even Australian. I never knew that
Australian was considered a world class cuisine but
the Germans that would come in droves to marvel
at the star trek like structure I lived in could not get
enough of those kangaroo and crocodile
hamburgers.

That Sunday I did not feel like dealing with the
hordes of tourist during lunch so I called
in for Indian delivery. There was this great
delivery service that offered the best chicken
Masala I have ever had. I clicked on the TV.

Everything was so difficult in Germany. It took
me 3 weeks to get one phone line turned
on, I wanted 2 and a fax line. I even hired an
assistant to deal in the German dialect, but
still I ended up with 1 line an and a still not
understood explanation that it would take 2
more months till I had what I really wanted
due to adhering to proper German procedure.
When it came down to trying to order cable TV?
Forget about it. I settled for the free
English BBC channel and weekly visits to the
English DVD store.

There was a documentary on about China’s
dynastic history. I was thinking about
Michaela. She was a stunning East Berliner
that worked at the Starbucks that I hung out
at across the street. She spoke broken English
but she always made sure that she was the
one to help me when I got in line to order. Her
initial attempts to talk with me were
amusing. The open and friendly “Allo Kaiyo”.
The non existence of conceit and ego
starkly contrasted against my associations
with women of her beauty back in the states. I
was confused. I was intrigued.

We spent her smoke breaks talking about America
and her opinion on the changing face
of Berlin as a person with an East Berliner value
system. I told her my views on America
as a Hawaiian. We went to the Einstein café on her
days off and talked about socialism
vs. capitalism. She told me stories about what it
was like to be a East Berliner before the
wall came down. I told her what it was like to be
Hawaiian in postcolonial Hawaii.

The doorbell rang and I got up to let the delivery
guy in with my food. The guy was
Turkish and spoke no English, he didn’t even try.
I ordered so much from his restaurant
that we seemed friends even with out
communicating. His very Un-German like beaming
smile and extra pieces of Naan bread. My weak
attempts at German. My uncomprehended
comments on how duners ( gyros) were evil. My
excessive American style of tipping. It was always
a pleasant exchange.

The show on BBC was talking about the period of
Mongol conquest and their assimilation into Chinese
history as the Yuan Dynasty. They were pointing out the
vicousness of Kublai Khans steps to the empires
throne. Before he took power there was
120 million Chinese nationals when the dust cleared
60 million was accounted for in a
1300 AD government consensus. Plague was a major
factor but they concurred that the
Mongols also took their share.

They went on to comment on the cultural impact of
the Yuan Dynasty’s rule of China.
They accredited the huge jump in the development of
drama and the novel to this period
pointing to the sudden increase in the use of a written vernacular.

When I first began my friendship with Michaela I was thinking in a normal red blooded
American manner of sexual conquest. It is all I knew. Her pure desire to really just know
me, her grabbing me by the hand, walking me to the Christmas market stand and
ordering gruenkohl with sausages for me.

“ Dis iss real German food.” as I poked at the
steaming green mess of bowel evacuating
roughage. At some point I got past the college boy
warmth in my loins when we would
hang out. At some point she became off limits in that
manner, she became the beginning
of my desire to get past my callused American bachelor
for life way of treating women.

She became my friend.

The English accented narrator has moved on to the Ming
dynasties era but started to reference the cultural impact
of the Mongols foresight on needs to have a highway system
and distribution infrastructure, how these things allowed
for the economical expansion of
the Ming's dynasty's international trade and eventual
global political and economic presence.

Suddenly, I had an explosion of thoughts and Ideas.
“ Wouldn’t the Chinese that were conquered by the
Mongols say they were the victims of
Genocide and the war crimes of barbarians?”

“ Don’t the Chinese today proudly claim this legacy as
part of the culture that represents
China as a whole today?”

I was headed down a path in my head that excited
me with the possibilities of the
conclusion at the end of these thought processes.

“ So, according to individual perspective, some things
are right and something’s are
wrong, it all depends on what side you are on.”

“In our human cultures, after accusations of war crimes
and genocide, time solidifies the
conquerors point of views and ways of life within the
prevalent societies they have
created.”

I dipped my Naan bread into the Masala sauce.

“ The word society is just as legitimately applied to a
prehistoric hunter gather clan as it
is to the Roman empire. What causes humans to
gather? Resources, actually when it
comes right down to it food and the means to control
the manufacturing of it.
Fortifications to protect that food. Armies to protect
that fortification. Over time one
group has an abundance which allows for specialists
to pursue their quest for expertise in
a certain field such as spear head chiseling,
canoe carving, medicine, Black magic. All of
this due to the fact that they are not needed to
produce food because it has become
abundant. That society splinters into different professions.
Some professions are deemed
more important then others. Resources become allowed
to the more important endeavors
to expedite the race for a needed solution. Social classes
begin to form around the
professions. Factions within this society begin to disagree
on where the resources should
be applied. Politics, big business, black markets, police
forces, underground societies, all
of this off a gathering around food.”

“ None of this has anything to do with blood content,
but everything to do about resources.”

“ What about racism?” I thought about how I was a
Hawaiian blooded US citizen that
was considered a successful international businessman.
How I was currently on the A list
of Germanys entertainment industry roll call sitting in
a luxurious penthouse built by the
Japanese on the ground that was just blocks away from
the bunker Hitler killed himself in.

“ Wow, if that isn’t contradictory I don’t know what is.”
I thought to myself.

“ What about Kalani and his inability to control or even
understand why his hate consumed him so?”

I got sad remembering Kalani. How good of a guy he
was, how he would share
everything with his friends even though he did not
have much of anything.

“ When two people are fighting they use all their
resolve to win. Eventually one wins and
has his way. What happened in Hawaii was a century
long genocidal endeavor.
Kalanis thoughtless racism is a remnant of those that
lost, those that have not been
assimilated. Sad or not this is the truth.”

I grabbed a bottle of soda water and took a swig, It seemed
that my mind was on a path of
its own, that I was only along for the ride.

“There is no personal right or wrong to be found in the
acts of racism, genocide, social
hierarchies, sub cultures and definitions of governments.
They are phenomena of human
interaction that transcends the individual. They are
brought to fruition by the passing of
centuries and the hardiness of their original heralds
and heirs. The only space for
individual human expression is in our ability to express
what we know, think and feel is
important right now. Right here. In THIS moment.

I began to feel overwhelmed and tried to think about something
else.