Within hours of arriving in Honolulu, I have enough flowers around my neck to open a small florist. Garlands of pink frangipani, white jasmine and maile lei (made of a large white flower with glossy green leaves and reserved for special occasions), fill the humid Hawaiian air with tropical fragrance.
Escaping Hawaii’s iconic floral leis is impossible. They are given at every opportunity – welcomes, graduations, promotions, births and deaths – and recipients are often piled high with blooms.
“Giving someone a lei is not just giving them flowers. It comes with a lot of meaning,” says Noelani Schilling-Wheeler, a director with the Oahu Visitor Bureau who gifted me my first lei at Honolulu airport.
“The lei carries the mana (spiritual life force) of the person giving it to you. When you put it on, it also takes on your mana and becomes an extension of you. You wear it to show you love and respect it.”
Grateful to be draped in the beautiful flowers, and not wanting to offend my Hawaiian hosts, I wear my leis the whole day while shopping at malls, eating at restaurants and touring museums. In the evening, with no other option for disposal, I lovingly and respectfully place them in the hotel room bin.
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The next morning, I arrive back at my room after breakfast to find the cleaners have fished the leis out of the bin and placed them across the kitchenette counter. The flowers have lost none of their potency, but the smell now fills me with embarrassment. I fear I might have caused offence. To make amends, I hang the garlands on my hotel room door handle and hope the cleaners might accept this more respectful disposal.
The leis are gone when I return in the afternoon. Relieved, I swipe the keycard and enter to find the leis have instead been carefully splayed on my bed along with fresh towels. If leis are meant to be an extension of our spiritual selves, I wonder what the now dishevelled flowers say about the state of my soul.
Somehow, I find myself in an unexpected game of cat and mouse with invisible opponents. I don’t know what to do next. It seems I am blundering into one faux pas after another. Taking the clean towels as a clue, the next morning I fold the leis on top of my used towels and hope the cleaners will get the message. They do not.
Despondent, I browse the flower displays at Kapi’olani Park, where an annual lei festival is in full swing. I meet Bill Char, a master lei maker and repository of lei lore. Seated in the shade, the tanned and salty-haired elder listens to my troubles.
“We have a tradition that we still practice when two people are arguing. When they finally sort their problems out, they make a lei together and then walk out into the ocean,” says Bill. “They dip below the water and let the lei go free over their heads. It washes away their problems.”
Taking Bill’s advice, the next morning I wake before sunrise and pad down to Waikiki Beach with the bruised flowers bouncing on my shoulders.
Except for the first early joggers pounding the boardwalk, the beach is empty. I slip into the warm water, swim out towards the breaking dawn and then slip beneath the waves.
Buoyed with mana, the leis drift over my head and out to sea, carrying my troubles with them. I break the water’s surface feeling light and refreshed. If only the cleaners could see me now.
The writer travelled as a guest of the Oahu Visitor Bureau (hvcb.org), Hawai’i Tourism Oceania (hawaiitourismauthority.org) and Qantas (qantas.com).
Justin Meneguzzi traded his corporate suit for a rucksack and hasn’t looked back. With an emphasis on travelling sustainably, he now travels the globe as a journalist and photographer documenting the people, cultures, food, history, and wildlife that make up our big, beautiful world. Justin was recognised with the Australian Society of Travel Writers ‘Rising Star’ award in 2018.Connect via X.
