Where is China in Hawaii?

An easy question? A silly question? Or does this question have a curious answer?

Of course China's here, on one level. Go get some takeout from a corner restaurant. Go visit Chinatown, or find a telephone book and check the last names. China's here.

But on another kind of level, China is not here.

It's kept, on purpose, far away from the Hawaiian Islands. Having Chinatowns or a lot of restaurants or a bunch of names in a telephone book or a ton of stuff made in China that you can buy over here at an American store — that is one thing.

It's quite another kind of thing, though — and a no-no — to have a real living China in Honolulu.

A living panda, for example, a real bamboo-munching panda that all our kids would love to see and get up close to (called “;Lu Lu”; maybe for Honolulu). Our panda's nowhere to be seen.

So where's that big-box store, maybe like a Costco or a Sam's Club, called the “;Jumbo Mandarin”; — the one that's packed to the rafters with stuff meant for Chinese folks here by the thousands? The Japanese have their Don Quijote stores (aka Daiei), plus other places in town, and they have had them for many years. So where is China's? That box is nowhere to be seen.

Check the 101 cable TV channels out here. Where is China's? Japan and Korea have channels. Off in radio land, Japan has stations in Honolulu. The Filipinos have one, the Hawaiians have one, and other groups have their stations. So where is China's?

China is nowhere to be seen or heard in Honolulu's media market.

The biggest country in Asia by its size and population, the most dynamic economic colossus on the face of the planet nowadays — China that has been thriving on this Earth as a civilized country for more than 6,000 years — it's just a blip in a puka out here.

And why is that, do you suppose? Does China want to be kept far away from our shores?

Or is there someone out here who wants to keep things this way?

Yes, indeed, these are some curious questions.

So let me answer them maybe — or at least try to — with a question all my own: What's the name of the phenomenon that Americans think they know through easy childish stereotypes?

1) Great food, 2) Cute pandas, 3) Evil government.

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Dave Baumgartner is a tutor who has been teaching idiomatics to international students for many years in Honolulu.