'Talking story' in Hawaii

Barack Obama returned to Hawaii in October to visit his dying grandmother

Born in Hawaii, US President-elect Barack Obama rose to power on a platform of change, and Christine Finn has been touring the islands to see just how much they have transformed during his lifetime.

The traditional and distinctive "tiki" style of these islands is exported worldwide. I am talking about coconut palms, fringed huts, hula dancers, orchids, and the tiki themselves: totem-like representations of island gods.

Today, though, there is a brand new generation of visitor loving its kitsch celebration of cocktail hour and South Pacific sunsets.

Tiki may have had a makeover at the plush hotels, but the souvenirs still sell as they did 50 years ago.

The mecca of tourist tiki is a place called Hilo Hatties in Honolulu. Here you can find all the treasure - or tat - you can imagine, much of it with "Hawaii" written on it.

There are dashboard hula dancers - like nodding dogs but with swivelling hips and rainbow-bright synthetic leis (fresh flower garlands they sell for a few coins in Chinatown) - tiki corkscrews, and paperweight snowstorms dumping a blizzard on Waikiki Beach.

Concrete invasion

There was no rhyme, no reason, no order, no beauty - just concrete masses - high, mighty and ugly Annette Nahinu

Hilo Hatties is home to the world's largest Hawaiian shirt. But those who want something smaller can select from racks of originals at Bailey's in Waikiki. Here you can find an authentic shirt so loud it yells: "Thousands of dollars"!

Walking into the Hyatt Regency hotel in Waikiki, where Barack Obama stayed on his last visit to Hawaii, I found a quintessential piece of tiki-style, an indoor waterfall.

But in my search for something just a little more antique, I drove out near Honolulu docks and parked near the yachts.

Out of the night, I could hear a parrot cawing above the sound of a piano and Hawaiian guitars.

Annette Nahinu owned La Mariana for 53 years and lived in the flat above it

This is La Mariana Sailing Club, the very last of its line. It is decorated entirely with tiki bought by its founder, Annette La Mariana Nahinu, at the closing-down sales of now long gone and mostly forgotten bars. This really is Hawaiiana heaven.

Blown-up puffer fish, giant shells, lau lau leaves and tikis. Even soft drinks are dressed up like cocktails, with cherries and coloured paper umbrellas.

This summer, Annette died aged 93. A shrine near the bar displays photographs of an elegant woman who would "talk story" - that is history - with her customers every day.

I was handed a leaflet written by Annette about the 33 years of struggle she went through trying to keep hold of La Mariana as Hawaii changed around her.

"It was the year 1959," I read over my mai tai cocktail. "President Eisenhower's signature made Hawaii the 50th state.

"East descended on the west. Buildings sprang up here like mushrooms on Oahu.

"There was no rhyme, no reason, no order, no beauty. Just concrete masses... high, mighty and ugly. Prostrate and pathetic, the rapacious rape of lovely Waikiki was complete."

Celebrating history

Mr Obama went to Sandy Beach as a teenager growing up in Honolulu

I steered an outrigger out through the surf to get a view from the sea of Honolulu's iconic coastal strip.

I tried to imagine how the pink 1920s Royal Hawaiian Hotel must have looked without its backdrop of towering skyscraper hotels.

I chose low-rise over high-rise and stayed in the thoroughly tiki-style Hawaiiana Hotel, built in 1955 of distinctive lava rock.

One of the last old-style hotels, its swimming pools are watched over by the tiki of various island gods. Honeymooners are given rooms near the god of fertility.

The small cafe is a celebration of 50 years of Waikiki. I had the special, a Hawaiian hot dog, sweet with pineapple.

Later, I "talk story" with Lisa Holly, who has been managing the Hawaiiana for 26 years.

Resplendent in a red and black patterned muu-muu - the billowing traditional dress for Hawaiian women - she tells me about her residents, including Father Fred, an east coast priest who is still coming here in his 80s.

"There is a place in my heart for every one of them," she tells me before admitting she gets tearful when she hears of guests finally too frail to travel the great distance, or of those who have died. They are family.

Returning visits

Around 40% of the state's inhabitants were born elsewhere

Loyalty works both ways. 75% of the hotel's guests are returnees and some have been coming back for more than 40 years.

Many first caught the aloha spirit when they came on a military posting.

Decades on, they meet up at the assuredly unchanged Hawaiiana for cocktail parties and poolside barbecues.

I had breakfast with Merrill and Della from San Mateo, California. They flew to Hawaii in 1953 on one of the first tourist planes.

This year, they were back for the umpteenth visit, with their middle-aged children, taking me on their typical day-trip. A park, an ice cream stop at the Dole Pineapple Plantation, then on to the National Memorial Cemetery, to pay their respects to a wartime colleague.

For the guests who return to this 93-room Hawaiiana landmark amidst the forest of thousand-roomers, simply making it back seems enough.

If they are aware of the change around them... the cranes working on the Trump Tower next door... they do not complain. Which is also the Hawaiian way. Safe in this oasis of old Hawaii, I think they are still celebrating sunrise on America's 50th state.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 15 November, 2008 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.