Eyewear Designer. Kea’au Hawaii. Expat Alley Interview. Karlos Hlenczuk

I was born in Buenos Aires Argentina and am 52 years old. I lived in Argentina until age 20 and then moved to California. I moved back to Buenos Aires for 6 years and then back to California. I’ve have been in the US since 1992.

Now I live in Hilo, Hawaii. In 2004, my partner and I bought planes tickets and reserved a house in Kauai, Hawai’i hoping to buy a lot for building an income/vacation home. A week before departing to Kauai, we cancelled everything and re-booked for Hawai’i Island known as the “Big Island”. We searched properties, put in 5 offers to buy a lot and one seller accepted.

In 2005 anticipating a housing market collapse and bad economy, we put our home in Pasadena, California up for sale.

Where to next? We are not moving around the block, I said.

We had considered Las Vegas, Miami, Costa Rica and Hawaii. Hawaii won out. We packed everything. One 2200 sqt.foot house. One car. Eight pieces of luggage. One Border Collie-Black Lab mix. Bye-bye California.

We camped out on our lot in Hawai’i while the house was being finished (who doesn’t want to camp by the ocean in Hawai’i? Just for a couple months…) but those couple months end up being 8 months. Camping was a change, sleeping on the floor, living outdoors while waving to our neighbors passing by, cooking while flies tasted my meals before me, having bucket showers and so much more.

Finally in 2007, the house passed the city inspection and we moved in!, Yes! A real bed, eating on a table with real plates, taking hot showers. Having these things back was such a luxury!

How long have you lived there and how long will you stay? What keeps you there?

We have been living in Hawaii for about 4 years now. How long we’ll stay is hard to say. The Big Island was left behind in progress and it is hard to get jobs and establish businesses, which is my current concern; money making. Our home is paid for, but we have small bills. We live on a dirt road with no street lights, no county water, and no high speed internet. There is no need for a/c, fancy clothes–just shorts and flip-flops– and that helps us get by in this economy. We spend less but we are still living well, and living in Hawai’i.

We don’t have many of the amenities a big city has but no temptations either. We no longer live in a place where people spend thousands to have 1 week of vacation once in a while. Our property taxes are far cheaper than in Pasadena, CA and we have a nice home 500 feet from a cobalt blue ocean. We have more than 50 palm trees on our property along with a mango tree, some pineapples, bananas, clean air, peace and beauty. We have a blanket of stars at night, no city noises, just coqui frogs to help us dream better. We found life, a different meaning of life, that many don’t even know exists.

Around the globe the word “Hawai’i” has a special appeal. In a way, Hawai’i conveys the same sort of magical, mystical, beautiful place that Disneyland does. Not many people have the good fortune to be able to say ‘I’m going to move to Hawai’i” and carry it out.

What do you do to make a living?

In 2003, after being laid off from an eyewear company, I decided to no longer make companies rich by giving them my talent and ideas and in return get paid like I wasn’t doing a good job.

In 2004 I opened Sebastianmiki LLC and have been self-employed since. I’m a salesperson by nature and sell prescription eyewear and products for optometrists and optical labs–mostly in Latin America. I like to create and design. I design web pages. I’m an interior design consultant. We sell merchandise from Sebastianmiki Home Décor which carries high-end merchandise such as exotic fabrics from India, hand-carved Buddhas and other unique Asian accent pieces. We closed our store-front in Downtown Hilo last year due to the bad economy and now sell on EBay, Craigslist and from our web page to private customers and designers.

Describe your average weekday and weekend day.

Everyday is an Aloha Friday for me, which in Hawai’i means it is the end of the weekday and now it is time to have fun (you might call it happy hour !? ). For me there is no weekday or weekend. Everyday I get up very early because most of my clients and my eyewear accounts are either on the East coast of USA or Latin America which are 6 to 8 hours ahead of us. So I work for a couple hours, and because business is slow I have no other option than enjoy where I live. I work in the garden under a gorgeous blue sky with fluffy clouds. I walk our dog to the close-by tide-pools. On weekends I visit friends or go to the beach, have BBQ’s or just stay home watching movies and relaxing. I also work for my life partner Ken Elliott, who he is an actor and is co-artistic director and co-founder of GASP Theatre Company. I help to maintain the web page and promote future theatrical plays and cultural events in our town and abroad.

What skills have you learned while living abroad?

Living abroad gave me so much exposure, experience and opened my mind. I like foreigners. I learn much from them, knowledge you cannot learn at home, school or college. I learned how to live with less and still have the best lifestyle possible. I learned how to respect other people even though they think or act differently than me, and I learned how to be patient (imagine downloading a file on dial up?) I also learned how to live with no electricity and still be OK. Most importantly I learned how to be a better person.

What are you missing (professionally) by not being in your home country?

I don’t miss much of my profession because since I moved to the States I have had to juggle many jobs. Many were not as good as the one I had in Argentina, but I bit the bullet until I got established with my profession. Then I started to travel to many countries to visit my clients and create new accounts. I also participated in eyewear trade shows in cities like: New York, Las Vegas, Milan, Sao Paulo, Paris, etc. Professionally and personally I don’t miss much of my home country Argentina, but I do miss the rest of my family I have there. Since I was a little boy, the United States was in my heart, and I made many sacrifices. I worked very hard and my dream came true; now I’m an US citizen who lives in Hawaii.

If you could live anywhere, where would that be and why?

Well, that is a hard question because I have a big canvas. I like many cities in the world but being on vacation is very different than living permanently. It is important to me to be in a multi-cultural city where we all blend and nobody feels they are more than anyone else. I like acceptance and where I feel comfortable. The beauty of a place is important to me. I’d rather have less but enjoy more, so my list is reduced to: Brazil, Costa Rica and Italy because I’m familiar with the customs and the way they live. But at this moment, Hawai’i is my place of residence because it truly is paradise.

What is your favorite gadget that makes your work life abroad better?

Of course the internet and my cell phone but I’m not a gadgets fan. My mouth and personality are my favorite gadgets. I love to talk, I’m a half Italian, half Russian Argentine. Italians love to talk, gesture, mingle with people, share, and laugh so that is my main tool! This tool has worked well professionally and personally for the last 52 years……..

Do you have a favorite book that inspired you to travel or consider a different way of living?

I don’t have a favorite book because I’m a very active person. I do like to read people’s stories or biographies. I’m interested in people who make differences for a better world. I was inspired to travel since childhood, but the move to Hawai’i inspired not by a book, but by a TV show called Fine Living. The show was Radical Sabbatical, where people left everything behind in pursuit of their dreams, and that is how we got inspired.

Do you have a favorite expat blog?

No answer at this time, but your blog has caught my attention by you being interested in a man who is not popular or famous, just a regular guy who likes to live well (me). Thank you for letting me share my life and I hope some of your readers become inspired to also make a life change for the better. The world is yours, make it happen…..