I volunteered this past Saturday at the Honolulu Convention Center to work the Leukemia and Lymphoma booth. The purpose of the convention center this past weekend was for the Honolulu marathon. Many people from around the world participated in this event.
I've attended this convention the past couple of years, well it's mandatory for marathon participants to stop by the convention center to pick up their race number and timing chip. Through the years the convention has been relatively unchanged, just new merchandise from Nike and numerous other vendors. However, one thing that has changed is my perception of language. I have noticed that there is a large Japanese population participating in the Honolulu Marathon, but I only noticed it at surface level.
One cool thing that happened occurred at 3:30 am today. Race participants can take the shuttle bus form the zoo to the starting line. When i entered the bus, the driver said good morning. I then realized that most of the people in the bus looked to be Japanese tourists. Since i'm quite cheery at this time, I said out loud, "Ohayo!" and it was so awesome to hear people say back in unison, "Ohayo!".
During the race, I heard many Japanese words, as there were many groups cheering everyone on. Needless to say after the 23 mile marker, I can't recall a thing they were screaming and cheering about. One thing that did stand out though is at every aid station I heard, "water!", "gatorade", "mizu!" ha! I learned a new Japanese word - "mizu!" which stand for water - tasty tasty ice cold water.
I do wish to share more about my new observations, but instead I decided to dedicate a part of the final presentation for the Honolulu Marathon.
Go team!
Mahalo for reading.
Until next time.
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