The wild fire devastated Lahaina, Maui Island/Carlos Pueblo

 The wild fire devastated Lahaina, Maui Island/Carlos Pueblo

Last week, the wild fire devastated Lahaina, Maui Island in Hawaii. I have been to that ancient capital town of the Hawaii Kingdom twice. First time was during the 90's of last century by land while the second trip was just a couple years before on a cruise in this century. It was a lovely town at the coastal line with a very found memory of my visits.

I was solicited by a commercial time sharing builder to have a discount time share room at Maui near the airport in front of a mountain. We have to take a cross island highway to reach back to Lahaina on the other side of that mountain. The town was one time served to be the capital of the ancient Hawaii Kingdom. The Main street was on the coast line where you could view it on the fire ruined photos which was the downtown. That year, I had visited an old Cantonese Temple, Chih Kong Tung where a Asian Thai Chinese young lady provided me a research draft report of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's stay at Maui done by a research group of Chinese students at the University of Hawaii at Honolulu campus. I did my local research myself to find an oriental grocery store with a gas pump by the main cross island highway. The lady owner referred me to her husband at the downtown ice cream store at a mall for further information. I had circled the entire island several times even went up to the top of an old volcano. Ping Tong Magistrate gave Maui Island a Statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen at the southern end of a small stop by the across island highway. 

I also love to mention a flower called the Protea transplanted to this island by a University professor in 1965 at Kula, Maui, an University agricultural extension garden. The Protea flowers are with similar shapes of lotus flowers and very unique and charming. At that time at a super market closed to my house in Houston asked about $100 a piece. On the second time to visit Maui on a cruise, I tried and couldn't find such garden because we were on bus to Lahaina.

Near the cross island highway, you can see a cane sugar factory on the plan. I went to visit the campus. Japanese immigrants came to Maui to grow sugar canes and joined the sugar industry. I have always guessed that sugar factories in Taiwan are a copy of Hawaii. No one did the research. In 1895 Japanese Empire annexed Taiwan and put the mass land in Taiwan for Japanese investors to build sugar factories. There were no sugar industry in Japan  and no sugar canes were growing in Japan either. Japanese business learned it from their immigrants' experience from Hawaii and that was why. That sugar factory factory at Maui is still in operation so is our home town sugar factory at Huwei, Taiwan.