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I've never been to Hawaii. I know nothing except what I've seen in movies or that tv network about buying homes. I know there's a few islands and I wonder if this kind of segregates people. It seems there are 3 types of people - vacationers, retired people from other states, and other natives am I wrong?
Do people there really shake their butt surf and eat fruits to island drums?
How prevalant is the local culture, is it dieing?
I can only speak from my own experiences living in Kauai for the past past 6 months. I have seen no segregation or racism of any kind. It is obvious who the locals are and when we go to the beach we see them fishing, picking shells in large groups with a bar-b-q and having a day of it at the beach. They have been very nice to me and my 2 young girls. The local culture is very strong here and it taught in the schools, which I think is great. You have seen to many old Elvis movies but when the surf is up there are hundreds of them out there riding the waves and it is fun to watch. Compared to the mainland and I lived in L.A. I find the people much nicer and more approachable. Everyone seems relaxed and not in a rush, people actually stop and let you in when driving. Overall it is a much better community and very peaceful to be. Some of the things I get here are the greatest beaches in the world, great swimming and diving, clean air and a chance to live my life ALoha.
Ah, yes, between infomercials and the Hawaii Visitors Bureau there are probably way more misconceptions about Hawaii than true knowledge. The HVB is always selling Hawaii as a tourist destination so there is a whole lot of folks out there being paid to spread the myth of "paradise". For some reason this myth generally involves blue drinks with paper umbrellas in them served by half-clad females to folks on "deserted" beaches. Drums, huh? Along with butt shaking? Sounds more Tahitian than Hawaiian but the tourist bureau isn't usually overly fussy as long as they can get some sort of image across that will have folks coming over to drop tourist dollars on us. Sigh!
There are cars, traffic, high rise apartment buildings, folks of all different types, retail outlets, hotels and coconut trees. So it is different than the mainland, but it is also similar to the mainland in some ways.
The state is made up of quite a few islands, the major ones are Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Hawaii (aka "the Big Island'), Molokai, Lanai, Niihau and Kahoolawe. About the only way to get between the islands is to fly, although there is some limited ferry service between Oahu and Maui. So, that does sort of isolate each island although folks do go visit the other islands. Mostly, from our island of Hawaii we end up going to Oahu for medical procedures we can't get done on our island. Sometimes that can be as simple a procedure as an EKG. Inter-island airfare goes anywhere from as low as $20 each way when there is some sort of new airline having price wars to $180 each way when they aren't. At the moment it is hovering around $50 each way, I think, since it's been awhile since we've bothered going to a different island.
Oahu is the only island that has what could be truly considered a "city". Oahu is the City and County of Honolulu and also has Waikiki, Diamond Head, North Shore, Pearl Harbor, Chinatown and most of the state's population on it as well. Big tall apartment buildings, traffic, people, and all sorts of goods and services which you can't get on the other islands. There is almost always something going on in Oahu.
Maui is probably the next most populated island but is way less dense than Oahu. Maui rolls up the sidewalks pretty early and there isn't anywhere near as much going on as Oahu. Maui has Lahaina for it's tourist spot, Hana for it's getaway spot, Haleakala for it's mountain, loads of scenery and the nice calm ocean between it and Lanai and Molokai.
Kauai is sort of off on it's own. It was never conquered by Kamehameha and has always been a bit more isolated than the rest. It is green and gorgeous although it has been hit by two hurricanes in the not too far away past. It doesn't have mongoose and does have a lot of chickens. It doesn't have the dense population of Oahu nor really any big cities.
The island of Hawaii is always being confused with the State of Hawaii so it is generally called "the Big Island" instead. Which it is, but only in square miles not in population. It has the volcano on it, is mostly rural, has two "towns" Hilo and Kailua (in the Kona district so it is sometimes called Kailua-Kona so folks won't confuse it with Kailua on Oahu). The observatories are up on the mountain, over at the volcano and the university in Hilo is growing bigger so the island is improving in education, at least at the university level. Folks are farming various things and there are quite a few ranches as well.
Molokai is very rural and took a huge economic hit in '08 when Molokai Ranch shut down as well as with the downturn in tourism. It seems to get up to above subsistence level for it's people and then something happens and they are back at subsistence level again. It is a really pretty place, though and the folks are generally really nice there, just not a lot of economic opportunities.
Lanai was mostly privately owned by a pineapple company until not too lately. It is small, has one sort of town and one or two fancy hotels now. Molokai/Lanai/Maui are all pretty close to each other so small boats go back and forth.
Niihau is privately owned by a family which doesn't let folks visit Niihau. It is still basically a Hawaiian population and has very little interaction with the other islands.
Kahoolawe was used as a bombing range by the military several decades ago and folks are just now starting to clean it up. It will take decades before it will be a nice island again. Nobody lives there now, maybe some folks will be able to live there again someday.
Hawaii is Hawaii and doesn't want to be like the mainland, thank goodness so we still have a sense of place. What we have that you can't find on the mainland? Hawaiians and mana, I'd guess, although a lot of our people have gone to the mainland and other places to find work and opportunities they can't find here.
I have never seen modern local culture acurately portrayed in any film except for a movie called "North Shore".
The types of people I see are: Local: born-&-raised, whatever ethnicity, with fractions such as native Hawaiian, but they all mingle together. (I fall into this category.) There are plantation worker ethnicities due to mass immigration to work on sugar and pineapple plantations. Those are fillipino, chinese, portuguise, japanese, puarto rican, korean, samoan, and tongan. A lot of mainlanders moved here and had kids, so the kids are now caucasian locals.
Tourists/visitors.
Transplants: people who moved here from somewhere else.
subfaction- military
Another notable faction is the hippies and other eccentric individuals.
Depending where you are an entire town may have been established by a plantation which imported two or three ethnicities, so you could have a whole town mostly of filipino and tongans while another could be chinese and portuguise. There's no segregation though as everybody here now was born and raised in Hawaii.
Yes, we shake our butts, yes, we surf, and yes we eat fruit. The drum part... actually, we play a small guitar like instrument call an ukulele which, if I recall correctly, is something that portuguise plantation workers brought.
There is a pidgin dialect used extansively in Hawaii. Some people really get into it to the point where mainlanders would find it hard to understand. We almost talk another language at times. And we can talk perfect english too.
Hawaii is paradise for anybody who loves the outdoors. That's something little known to most mainlanders. There is some of the greatest fishing, hiking, diving, surfing, hunting, etc, found anywhere in the world, yet many of those aspect of Hawaii tend to be under the radar as everybody is concerned with resorts and beaches.
Hawaiian culture is alive and well, experiencing some oppressions and renaissances throughout history but now it is taught in schools. I remember in High school, we had a Modern Hawaiian History Class for one semester and throughout elementary, we learned to dance hula. Hawaiian foods are very popular. Traditional food crops are not doing as well as they could be despite high demand for poi and taro leaf.
You might find it interesting that motor sports are relatively oppressed in Hawaii. IMO, this is probably due in part to it being too loud and chaotic; It just goes against the mellow aloha spirit which predominates in Hawaii. Plus there are few good places to do it so most goes on illegally.
I could be wrong on this, it's just what I observed.
hotzcatz: The state of Hawaii should pay you for your extremely useful and excellent advice. You are an example of the Aloha spirit and why Hawaii is such a special place. May you live long and prosper.
You guys have definitely made me want to plan a get-away for Hawaii someday when I can. Looks like a lot more than a beach destination. The closest thing I've visited is Nassau Bahamas which was a culture shock. The beautiful climate and indigenous elements are what Ill particularly like to see.
Yep! That one of the reasons why there are so many chickens
There might be a couple running around but yeah, no established population yet. The story goes that the ship captain somehow got bit by the caged mongoose on route for Kauai. Angry, he threw the cage overboard thus saving the island from mongoose which have decimated ground nesting seabird on the other islands.
A more likely scenario is that biocontrol was probably a controversial issue even back then as it would be common sense that they would eat more than their intended target (rats). ...Not that a private introduction without any environmental review or testing can be compared to modern biological control.
In the '70s there was a mongoose killed along the roadway near Kalaheo. One story goes that it was a lactating female and that another was seen next to her by another vehicle. There are reports of mongoose sightings every few months in various areas on Kauai with Anahola being a hot spot. They brought in a dog once to sniff it out and the dog was gettign antsey, as though he was on fresh scent, however, because the area was so close to the road, the dogs trainer did not let it off the leash to work the area properly. Whenever there is a report, the officials go out with traps in hopes of catching it but they have always come back empty handed, to date.
When I bring this up with people, I'm surprized at the ammount of individuals who think they might have seen one themselves over here.
Yep! That one of the reasons why there are so many chickens
There might be a couple running around but yeah, no established population yet. The story goes that the ship captain somehow got bit by the caged mongoose on route for Kauai. Angry, he threw the cage overboard thus saving the island from mongoose which have decimated ground nesting seabird on the other islands.
A more likely scenario is that biocontrol was probably a controversial issue even back then as it would be common sense that they would eat more than their intended target (rats). ...Not that a private introduction without any environmental review or testing can be compared to modern biological control.
In the '70s there was a mongoose killed along the roadway near Kalaheo. One story goes that it was a lactating female and that another was seen next to her by another vehicle. There are reports of mongoose sightings every few months in various areas on Kauai with Anahola being a hot spot. They brought in a dog once to sniff it out and the dog was gettign antsey, as though he was on fresh scent, however, because the area was so close to the road, the dogs trainer did not let it off the leash to work the area properly. Whenever there is a report, the officials go out with traps in hopes of catching it but they have always come back empty handed, to date.
When I bring this up with people, I'm surprized at the ammount of individuals who think they might have seen one themselves over here.
wow! I had no idea either....it's like how they freak out on Oahu when the planes from Guam come in and somebody claims to see a snake...
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We're holding up okay...
