About the Book
A kingdom on the brink. A city in turmoil. A battle for the soul of Hawai‘i.
Set against the backdrop of late 19th-century Honolulu, Hotel Street is a gripping tale of intrigue, betrayal, and resilience in the face of a kingdom’s collapse. As colonial powers close in and political factions clash, the once-thriving Hawaiian monarchy teeters on the edge of extinction.
From the smoky parlors of Chinatown to the halls of ‘Iolani Palace, spies and revolutionaries, royalists, and opportunists maneuver through a treacherous web of ambition and deception. Secret societies conspire in the shadows, American business interests tighten their grip, and those loyal to the kingdom risk everything to turn the tide of history.
In a world where loyalty is tested, love is dangerous, and power is fleeting, Hotel Street brings to life a forgotten chapter of Hawaiian history with unflinching drama and heart-pounding action. As the fate of a nation hangs in the balance, the choices made in the streets and behind closed doors will determine whether Hawai‘i’s legacy is one of sovereignty—or subjugation.
About the Author
Teodoro “Ted” Visaya is an accomplished storyteller, historian, and creative visionary based in Hawai‘i. With a background spanning Silicon Valley’s tech-driven landscape to the vibrant arts scene of Honolulu, he brings a unique fusion of analytical precision and artistic expression to his writing.
Ted’s work explores the intricate intersections of history, culture, and speculative fiction, crafting narratives that challenge convention while honoring deep-rooted traditions. His passion for Talk-Story—the rich oral tradition of storytelling—infuses his work with authenticity, depth, and a profound connection to the past.
From reimagining pivotal moments in history to envisioning the frontiers of tomorrow, Ted’s fiction transports readers across time and space, blending meticulous research with gripping, immersive storytelling. As he continues his creative journey, he remains dedicated to uncovering hidden narratives, amplifying diverse voices, and inspiring a new generation of storytellers.
About the Book
A Fil-Am Journey
Talk Story With Uncle Ted:
Ever been mugged by history? No? Then you’ve never read Ted Visaya’s A Fil-Am Journey.
Equal parts cultural scrapbook, ancestral time machine, and laugh-out-loud kitchen table storytelling, this book takes you on a wild ride through 100,000 years of Filipino migration, the rice fields of California, the sugar plantations of Hawai‘i, and the sacred mysteries of Mama’s Calrose rice sack collection. Buckle up.
With wit sharp as a bolo knife and compassion deep as the Pacific, Ted unpacks the Filipino-American experience one talk story at a time—from ancient Austronesian seafarers and tattooed warriors of the Visayas to confused second-gen kids armed with clothespins and chocolate meat trauma. This isn’t just a history lesson—it’s a soul lesson, a love letter to identity, resilience, and the chaotic magic of family.
Whether you're a Filipino curious about your roots, or just someone who’s ever looked at a lumpia and thought, I need to know more, this book is your joyful gateway into a world of stories too good to be left in the attic.
So go ahead—turn the page. Your Manong is waiting to talk story.
About the Author
Meet Teodoro “Ted” Visaya—Filipino-American storyteller, backyard historian, accidental anthropologist, and full-time uncle energy. After years working in the high-tech chaos of Silicon Valley, Ted traded circuit boards for surfboards and settled in Honolulu’s Arts District, where he now crafts Talk-Story experiences like a barefoot Bohemian on a mission.
Armed with his dad’s bolo, his mom’s footlocker, and a questionable obsession with rice sacks, Ted writes with humor, heart, and a healthy disregard for the rules of polite conversation. Whether he’s unpacking Austronesian migration or explaining why balut might make you irresistible (depending on your audience), Ted delivers cultural history the way it should be told—warm, funny, and just a little bit spicy.
He’s navigating his mid-life crisis like a true islander, with aloha, creativity, and zero apologies.
About Ted Visaya Design
Experience
Collaboration
Experience
I have been working as a professional artist for over 10 years, specializing in acrylic painting and mixed media. My work has been featured in galleries across the country and I have won several awards for my pieces.
Style
Collaboration
Experience
My work is influenced by the vibrant colors and textures of nature, as well as the emotions and experiences that we all share. I strive to create pieces that are both visually stunning and emotionally impactful.
Process
Collaboration
Collaboration
I begin each piece with a vision in mind, but allow the materials and my instincts to guide me as I work. I believe that the process of creating art should be just as fulfilling as the finished piece.
Collaboration
Collaboration
Collaboration
I am passionate about working with clients to bring their vision to life. Whether it's a custom piece for their home or a collaboration on a larger project, I love the challenge of creating something unique and meaningful.
The Crazy-Talking Lady of Chinatown (creative short stories)
There she goes again, Noelani talking to herself; she was a homeless person wandering the streets of the Honolulu Arts District, walking and talking out loud. She’s a regular in Chinatown, never bothering anybody and keeping to herself. Sometimes folks would buy her something to eat like a manapua, and she’s always graceful and thankful.
Then there are these teenage skateboarder kids in the neighborhood who are always causing trouble and bullying people. Real, local neighborhood punks. Mischievous kids out for a good time hanging around the skateboard park.
Noelani was making her rounds around Chinatown, down River Street, and across to the park, talking out loud like there were people next to her. She rattled on without a care, not paying attention to where she was going. Then she stumbled upon the skateboard park where the skateboarders hang out.
Randall, one of the older kids and a big troublemaker, spotted Noelani walking by and whistled to the other kids to check her out. Noelani wasn’t that big, a little on the skinny side, and never asked for trouble, but she could handle herself to some extent, but not against a gang of kids.
The boys came closer to Noelani and started heckling her, calling her crazy lady. Noelani stood fast and said, “what do you want?” “Leave me alone.” Then the boys circled her and started pushing her back and forth, and she began to scream. She grabbed a necklace around Randall’s neck and yanked it off. Then, she made her way out, ran up the street into Chinatown, and disappeared. The boys ran after her but couldn’t find her anywhere. It was getting late and dark outside, so the boys went home. Randall told the others to meet him again tomorrow so they could find this crazy lady.
The next day the boys scanned the streets of Chinatown looking for Noelani. Randall wanted his fishing hook bone necklace back. Randall told the other boys, “When I see her, I gonna break her face.” The other boys laughed; “you mean break-face.” “You still a mainlander.”
The boys asked around town, and some folks say she stays in the park at Smith and Beretania streets. So, the boys skate-boarded to Smith-Beretania Park. They waited until it got dark—still no sign of the talking lady.
A thick mist began to gather on the surface of the grass, and Noelani appeared from the gate and sat in the middle of the lawn. The boys were behind the fence, out of sight, and sprang up, jumping over the fence to surprise her. She sees them, then nervously starts talking out loud again. Randall runs in front of her and sees her wearing the bone fishing hook necklace she took from him.
He yells at her, saying he will rip that off her neck. She started talking faster to herself, looking from side to side. Her eyes begin to flutter upwards as she gets into a hula trance, moving with sensual enchantment. She starts chanting in Hawaiian as the mist thickens beside her and surrounds the kids. She fills the park with a thick fog you can’t see from the streets. She magically transforms into an ancient hula skirt and Leis as she dances and chants for her ancestors to appear.
All of a sudden, sounds of warriors chanting a haka as the mists begin to take form into ghostly figures of men. Soon, the mists solidify into ancient Hawaiian warriors, and the kids cower, huddling together in a circle, yelling, “Don’t look at them! Turn your eyes down to the ground!”
Randall, scared out of his wits, not knowing what to do, couldn’t help but look at them as one of them picked him up by the neck and threw him down to the ground. Randall, even though he was a big kid for his age, was knocked unconscious as the other kids cried and cowered together, pleading that they were sorry over and over again.
Noelani also pleaded not to hurt them further, and they stopped; then, she told the boys to leave and take Randall with them. Without hesitation, the boys carried Randall out of the park as fast as they could. Never to come back to this park and bother Noelani again.
It turns out Noelani is never talking to herself; she’s talking to her ancestors, who walk beside her. We can’t see them until she calls for their help. She wanders these streets because these are the streets that covered up the land that her ancestors lived on. She is the last descendant of her clan. She is stuck between worlds, searching for the homes of her ancestors that all the buildings in Chinatown have long since covered up.
She will keep wandering these streets, talking to her ancestors, until she can find the location of their homes. Until then, her ancestors will be in a state of unrest.
If you happen to come across her, be nice and know that she is the power of the ancestral mist and can call her ancestors when she needs them. Her name is Noelani, which means heavenly mist.
THE END
SPECIAL SOUP
Best friends Xiang from China and Kenji from Japan were plantation workers who opened a little food bar in town after their work contracts with the plantations were over. Xiang brought his love of cooking from Guangzhou, Northern China, where his grandmother passed down her special wonton recipe to the family. He got this recipe from Guangzhou and then went to Hong Kong, where the style and ingredients were popular. Eventually, Xiang left Hong Kong to work in the plantations of Hawaii.
Kenji is from Fukuoka, Japan, and loves to cook. Back in Japan, he specialized in ramen noodle soup. Xiang and Kenji met in the soup kitchen on the plantation they were working on. Kenji’s job was to take over cooking responsibilities from Xiang, who was ending his contract soon and expressing interest in traveling to California. However, his plans were thwarted when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed, and Xiang feared he would be deported if he couldn’t prove his place of residency, so he asked to stay on and help out with the cooking where the plantation owners were more than happy to keep Xiang on board. They kept Kenji on board because the new migrant workers were coming from Japan to replace the Chinese, and they reckoned Kenji would cater to the Japanese taste in food. Soon these two operated the kitchen together and became good friends, exchanging new ideas in cooking.
Xiang had saved up some money for his travels to California. Still, he changed his plans and decided to open a food bar restaurant in Chinatown instead. With the help of Kai and Jones, a couple of local construction workers who provided him with leftover wood scraps and free labor in exchange for food, along with some financial contribution from Kenji, they were able to open a small food bar in front of one of the hotels being built by Kai and Jones.
A crowd gathered patiently on the other side of the counter, waiting for Xiang and Kenji to open the food bar. All of them were former plantation workers familiar with Xiang's cooking from his time back at the plantation.
As they both came to open up, one guy yelled out in a pidgin accent, “Eh! Why you guys open up late morning all time?”
Xiang answers in pidgin, “We get ingredients and vegetables at the farmers’ market first, you like best kind soup, yeah? So be patient; we here.” Replied Xiang.
“Oh, back at the plantation, you have food already, den.” Replied the plantation worker.
“Yeah, but we no back at the plantation, so quit complaining.” Chuckled Xiang.
Kenji set the stools for the guest to sit at the food bar. Seven of them sat around the bar waiting for their soup bowls. There was no menu, just soup of whatever Xiang and Kenji had for that day. All seven seats were filled with two guys playing a ukelele on the wooden sidewalk, waiting their turn. As Xiang prepared the food, Kenji set out the bowls and scooped the wontons into the bowls. He placed them all in a row and asked each of the patrons what ingredients they wanted in their soup.
The first customer told Kenji, “I want dat, dat, and dat.” Kenji obliged and moved on to the next customer; he pointed to what he wanted and asked for a medium-boiled egg. Kenji said it’s going to cost a little extra. The customer said, “Dats okay.” Then Kenji came to the next customer, a new plantation worker who didn’t speak English well. “Okay, my friend, what you like?” Kenji asked. With a lost look on his face, he shook his head. Then Kenji pointed to the bowl with noodles in the broth and pointed to the seafood and veggies in the separate bowls back and forth. Then the new guy said, “De Quan,’” pointing to the bowls. Kenji replied, “Dis one, dat one, which one?” The man looked slightly embarrassed at his lack of English, pointed to the bowls again, and said, “Deeee Quan.” Knowing he struggled to speak English, Kenji smiled because he knew how it was when he first came to the island.
“Okay, braddah, which kind you want, dis kine, dat kine, which kine?” Kenji pointed to the bowls again. “Dee kine,” pointing to a bowl with fish in it. Kenji added it to the bowl. “Okay, what next?” The customer pointed to another bowl with veggies in it and blurted out, “Dat Kine!” “Okay,” replied Kenji, “What else?” With more confidence, the customer said, “Da Kine, da kine, da kine,” pointing to each bowl. Kenji started chuckling, “Yeah, brah, I like da kine too.” Another one of the customers said, “Hey, I want some more of das kine too,” pointing to the same bowl and laughing, which made the newcomer feel welcome. Before you know it, all the customers would refer to the bowls saying, “Da kine!” It turned out to be a new pidgin slang word.
It turns out that the newcomer is from the northern part of the Philippines, from a province called Ilocos Norte. The phrase “Dee Quan, literally means referring to an inanimate object, like that thing, that object, that fish, those veggies, etc. So in the event that the plantation workers congregated for work, they did the best they could to communicate with each other forming a unique pidgin language amongst themselves. Each culture contributes in its own way.
Soon Xiang and Kenji’s soup became popular in Chinatown and around the island, and soon every customer, when ordering the add-ons to their soup, would say, “Da kine!” when pointing to the bowls. Eventually, thereafter Xiang named his unique soup, Saimin, meaning thin noodles. The locals called the soup Hawai’i’s noodle soup as it grew in popularity.
THE END
I Was Here
I was here when the people arrived to make a home of this place, and only a few grass huts were scattered around this island. I’ve seen generations of their families thrive and grow. I watched them flourish and develop their unique agricultural and aquacultural systems and fishing engineering technology.
They are loving people that made love in more ways than you could imagine. The art of love in its most innocent blissful way. A natural course of love without boundaries or guilt. Just pure love in its blameless origin outside of rules, laws, or any inhibiting taboos. Love in its purest intimate form.
Spiritually, I admire how these people love and respect the land and how they bathe in nature’s natural nourishments—excavating the ground carefully, just enough to consume what is needed for life—respectfully loving nature, knowing that nature and their ancestors are spiritually one with the Aina.
The balance of nature is dependent on the natural selection of evolution, and like any living organism, the will to expand and multiply comes with growing pains. Soon families become tribes, tribes become clans, and friction between neighboring clans eventually turns into war. Maybe it’s nature’s way of keeping the balance within a species. For whatever reason, the situation is a natural occurrence of evolution.
So, life goes on, and generations flourish throughout the land. They evolved into established people with a complex sociopolitical structure in place. They create a unique system of artistic expression in music and dancing called hula and in recreational activities called heʻenalu, which means surfing. Nowhere else has anyone cultivated such unique characteristics in their culture. These people are well on their way to achieving a higher level of civilization.
What is this? A new strange traveler with fair skin has entered from the sea. They come in a very large canoe. They arrive at a time when there is conflict amongst the natives of the islands, and the people are divided. A strange people are bearing gifts never seen from the people of the land. Who are these strangers? Are they friends or foes? What do they want? I want to tell them to be careful, but all I can do is observe.
They have powerful weapons, and their canoe harnesses the power of the wind. They must have powerful gods on their side. They seem friendly, offering new knowledge to improve our way of life. New knowledge is the true treasure.
The people welcome these strangers with Aloha. The strangers seek out the most powerful chief of the land and help him in his quest to untie the islands. I’m amazed at how these strangers have come to infiltrate the tribes—cunning manipulation with the introduction of these new objects forged of metal. The knowledge that will change the course of the native people, and I fear, will bring about my demise.
Suddenly, many of the natives have drawn ill—sickness from a disease they have never encountered before. This once virgin land has given way to contamination spread by the newcomers. As more of the haoles come, more of my Kanaka Maoli die. I fear my end is near as well.
Less than half of my Kanaka Maoli survive, and the haoles keep on coming. More from different lands, of different nationalities and languages. Soon, they are too powerful to confront with force as my native people dwindled and the remaining became dependent on the haole way of life. The royal native monarchy succumbed by force, and their lands were taken away from them. The Kanaka Maoli are now subject to foreign rule. They have now felt the sting of Imperialism.
The spirit of Aloha is too strong to break the will of the people. The foreigners may try to impose their ways, even try to take away the native language, but my native people are too strong. They will never give up their ways and identity. Their mana is their backbone, and the spirit of Aloha is the guiding light.
Not all is lost; the newcomers from other lands have learned to love the natives’ way of life. They come not to destroy the culture, but to contribute to it. That is the true spirit of Aloha. They love the native dance and the sport of surfing. They adopt the wisdom of Aloha into their hearts to be a part of the Kama’aina and uphold the ways of the indigenous people and the love of the Aina. A beautiful culture built on the foundation of love.
The so-called powers-to-be tried to erase the natives’ cultural practices and beliefs but failed, even trying to take away their native tongue. Nevertheless, the Mana of the people was too strong to be broken; the Aloha is too powerful to overcome. Even the newcomers who came to work the land adopted the native culture into their own to become Kama'aina, people of the land.
I’m so lucky to see each culture's contributions to the development of these islands. A mixed plate of love from those who want to call this paradise their home. It is fun for me to witness the blend of cultures, especially in the food. Each newcomer brings their cuisine style to contribute to the Hawaiian mix-plate palate. That’s aloha in action, but alas, my time has come.
I am the great banyan tree, and my time is up. At least I was here to see my beloved native people overcome the sting of Imperialism and fight back with the power of love. The world loves these islands and the indigenous native culture. You can see many countries practicing the native dance of Hula and the sport of heʻenalu, surfing, is now an Olympic competition. Their character is their Mana and Aloha, their sword. So, who really colonized who now? And just like me, the banyan tree, the natives are extending their branches to the newcomers to plant their roots into the land and become branch-rooted as part of the native Hawaiian banyan tree, and the honor of becoming Kama’aina.
THE END.