Ohana

If there’s one thing I love about Hawaii the most, it would have to be the concept of family, or ohana. I’m not too sure what the customs are here in the mainland, but back at home the line between friends and family is often erased, as we are all one big ohana.
Growing up in such a diverse place, you get to experience a lot of different cultures. By doing so, you develop an appreciation towards others who aren’t exactly the same as you. Furthermore, this gives you the opportunity of sharing your own culture with those who aren’t as familiar.
One great example of this would be Christmas at home. There is that typical American stereotype that you spend Christmas day with your relatives dressed real nice and you eat turkey and pie. This is definitely not how my family and I spend our day. Like many others, my Christmas festivities start around noon where everyone gathers at my house bringing some sort of dish as we always make it “pot-luck” style where everyone contributes. By doing it this way, we always get such an assortment of foods such as Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, and so much more. This is a great example just showing the mixed culture. Christmas just wouldn’t be the same if I weren’t eating sushi, ham, cake noodles, and my dad’s shrimp tempura.
Along with the assortment of food, we always seem to get an assortment of people. Of course my family is always invited to my house, especially because I don’t have too many blood relatives. Along with them, though come all of our other friends who don’t have other engagements. Even though we may all look different, we consider ourselves all to be family.
You could say that people everywhere celebrate this way, and I wouldn’t argue because it is just another way of sharing that feeling of family and togetherness and I hope that everyone could have a family as big as mines.