Na Kilinahe Wong (Undergraduate Student, ʻIke Hawaiʻi) & Nalani Balutski
Aloha mai kākou mai Iāpana mai!
Eighteen Hawaiian students were a part of the Hawaiian Youths Abroad program from 1880 and 1892, studying in six different countries–Italy, Scotland, England, China, Japan and the United States. Native Hawaiian Student Services (NHSS) restarted the program, and our group is the fourth cohort of the NHSS Hawaiian Youths Abroad program to Iāpana in Spring 2025, following and tracing the footsteps of Kalākaua and the relationships between Japan and the Hawaiian Kingdom in the 19th century.
In 1881, Kalākaua embarked on a kaʻapuni honua (world tour), and Japan was his first destination, spending nineteen days total in Japan. Today, our first full day in Japan, we embark on an identical journey he did exactly 144 years ago. On March 16, 1881, he traveled from Tokyo to Yokohama, after spending the first 12 days of his journey in Japan in Tokyo, he would return to Yokohama to board a ship to continue south to explore Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and Nagasaki.
On March 4, 1881, he arrived in Yokohama aboard the British ship Oceanic, after 24 rough days at sea from San Francisco. Kalākaua intended to visit Japan incognito and did not give the Japanese government prior notice of his intentions to visit. Nonetheless, the Japanese government received word that Kalākaua was visiting, and the Emperor of Japan prepared for his arrival. According to Marumoto, “As the ship approached Yokohama, her captain, desiring to announce that she carried a distinguished person, requested Kalakaua’s permission to display his royal standard on her masthead. At first, Kalakaua hesitated, lest if his standard were not recognized he would have humiliated himself, but ultimately gave the requested permission. Once the royal standard was hoisted, each man of war in the harbor having saluting batteries fired a royal salute of twenty-one guns, enveloping the harbor with the noise and smoke from the salvos” (Marumoto, pg. 54).
As soon as Kalākaua stepped on shore, Hawaiʻi Ponoʻi started playing, which surprised Kalākaua and made the Hawaiian delegation emotional. According to Armstrong, “When the boat touched the landing, the strains of ʻHawaii Ponoiʻ burst from the shore. This unexpected compliment from the Emperor’s military band, this music of our country in a strange land, upset us instantly, and a snivelling monarch with a snivelling suite, uncovered, our Japanese escort uncovering also, until the anthem ended.” Kalākaua was especially moved by this gesture, as not only was it the national anthem of Hawaiʻi, but it was his own mele he wrote five years earlier, and making him feel at home.
References
Marumoto, M. “Vignette of Early Hawaii-Japan Relations: Highlights of King Kalakauaʻs Sojourn in Japan on His Trip around the World as Recorded in His Personal Diary.” Hawaiian Journal of History 10 (1976): 52-63.