Aloha Festivals Aloha Festivals The Aloha Festivals are an annual series of free cultural celebrations observed in the state of Hawaii in the United States. It is the only statewide cultural festival in the nation. Highlights include the presentation of the Royal Court, a ho'olaule'a in Waikiki, and the Floral Parade. Approximately 30,000 people volunteer to plan, organize, and provide labor for the Aloha Festivals each year. Their efforts entertain over 1,000,000 people from throughout the state and visitors from all over the world. In the spirit of preserving the Hawaiian culture and heritage, the Aloha Festivals were established in 1946 as
Thai greeting The "wai" is also common as a way to express gratitude or to apologise. The word often spoken with the "wai" as a greeting or farewell is "sawatdi" (RTGS for , , sometimes romanized as "sawasdee"). This verbal greeting is usually followed by "kha" when spoken by a female and by "khrap" when spoken by a male person (see note on Thai polite particles). The word "sawatdi" was coined in the mid-1930s by Phraya Upakit Silapasan of Chulalongkorn University. Derived from the Sanskrit "svasti" (स्वस्ति meaning 'well-being'), it had previously been used in Thai only as a formulaic opening to