Shocking News About Shaka Sign

Mundi International, whoever they are, is selling the shaka sign. BSG commented on it for an article in The Honolulu Advertiser:

They note that shaka symbols have lived in stickerdom in Hawai'i for a long time — and as a kind of insiders' symbol of recognition connected with Hawai'i.

"So when our president and his daughters brought it to the world's attention as the Punahou marching band went by the grandstand, it was great for those of us who live in and all of us who love Hawai'i to see the symbol and feel like he was giving the state our special 'high five,'" Garvey said.

"The Puerto Rican firm which has developed the Mundi stickers saw the advantage of selling it around the world," Gramann said.

And while the Mundi company clearly recognizes the shaka symbol as belonging to Hawai'i, "their commercialization of it is all too obvious on their site, where they give Hawai'i no recognition whatsoever," Garvey said.

Gramann and Garvey would have liked to have seen some credit to the symbol's Hawai'i origin. In reality, the shaka can't be sold, any more than aloha can, they said.

And Gramann added, "let's hope no one thinks they can trademark it." That has happened in the past when transplants to the Islands lay legal claim to such local expressions as "chicken skin," a local description of the goose bumps that show up in spooky situations.

NOTE: Several commenters on the article noted that the shaka sign used by Mundi is facing
the wrong way: "so is it a real shaka?"

to read the entire article go to: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090330/BUSINESS02/903300314/1071


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