Several days after I arrived in Honolulu and a day before the start of Merrie Monarch, I boarded a small plane for the half-hour inter-island flight to Hilo, on the Big Island's east coast. If Honolulu, with a population of close to 400,000, is dominated by the ever-changing needs and desires of its visitors, Hilo, with a population hovering around 40,000, seems almost frozen in time. No one would boast about Hilo's wondrous climate: The lush landscape is fed by a warm though almost constant rain. Tourists aren't exactly shunned, but they are most definitely an afterthought. There are no pricey sushi joints or destination eateries, no boutique hotels or luxury-brand stores. Hilo's main—and only—strip has a handful of shops, a gym, and a smattering of restaurants, but these are no fancier than what you'd expect in any small town. My accommodations at the Dolphin Bay Hotel, which afforded me one of the last rooms in town (Hilo's hotels book up months if not years in advance for Merrie Monarch), were essentially a one-room efficiency. The only food that was offered up was the coffee and pastries that were set out each morning in what functioned as an outdoor lobby. A small garden groomed by the Dolphin Bay's proprietor attracted numerous species of birds; at night, they chattered so loudly that talking on the phone was occasionally a challenge.

The trade-off for sacrificing round-the-clock service and some creature comforts was the chance to spend time in a place uniquely representative of a Hawaii almost impossible to find in any of the state's other cities. Outside of Kona, the Big Island is best known for Kilauea, the active volcano that occasionally sends radiant waterfalls of thick, fiery lava into the Pacific. Kilauea is also home to many of the eight islands' pantheon of gods and goddesses. If Merrie Monarch's presence in Hilo is coincidental, it is also wholly appropriate.

The competition itself takes place in the Edith Kanaka'ole Tennis Stadium, just outside downtown. During my visit, the weather was unusually dry—the misty, ghostlike cloud that seems to settle upon Hilo whether or not it is raining was replaced by actual rays of sunshine—but the fans, many of whom had traveled thousands of miles, wouldn't have cared if they'd been stuck in a downpour. The pavilion where Merrie Monarch takes place seats 3,000, and the festival's tickets are sold only to those who send in money orders or cashier's checks postmarked on December 26 of the preceding year. Even though that tradition now inspires frenzied trips to post offices around the world, the festival's organizers have seen no need to change it.

Merrie Monarch also actively discourages foreign participation: Even with the rapidly growing numbers of people around the world learning traditional hula—there are halaus throughout Europe, in the continental United States, and especially in Japan, whose citizens constitute almost 20 percent of Hawaii's annual tourist roll of 7.4 million—entry into the festival remains limited to American troupes, a source of some controversy. While a handful of mainland halaus participate every year—virtually all of them led by transplanted Hawaiians—there are those who feel that the competition should be limited to halaus who study and practice in Hawaii.