I learned a new word today, Hapa. It is Hawai'ian. It means a person who is half Asian and half Caucasian, ala Dean Cain. The topic came up because our new basketball coach is yummy and looks like a young Dean Cain so we were supposing that he was hapa. She told me that there's a song in Hawai'i about how 'I love my hapa man.' She said that in Hawai'i hapa men are somewhat coveted. They generally have the best charactaristics of their different races: the darkness and finer features of the Asian side and the burlyness of the Caucasian side. Upon further research with google, I discovered that hapa literally means half in Hawai'ian.
5 comments:
Your new basketball coach?
Joanne, I didn't know you played.
(Yummy pic, btw)
Oh, the new basketball coach at my place of employment. Assistant basketball coach actually. Seems to be dumb as dirt and somewhat annoying so we shall see. But he definitely IS eye candy.
"Hapa", according to my Hawaiian source, does mean "half", and usually means "half Caucasian, half something else", not necessarily Hawaiian or Asian.
Learning Hawaiian is fun!
Hmm... According to my various googled sources and Hawai'ian coworker hapa is specifically half Asian/Pacific Islander and half something else, but on one website I saw there were people differing on that as well. Some take it to mean any biracial or multiracial combination and others with the specific Asian/Pacific Islander and other race combo.
I'll check my "Speak Hawaiian" book from the '70s when I get home tonight.
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