The Kingdom of Hawaii
If you, like me, favor the cold; then I wouldn't fault you if you get a heat stroke the first day you're here. even though we are in the middle of winter as of writing this, Hawaii is about as hot and humid as PA in early summer. did I get love tapped by a car on the first day because I was on the border of a heat stroke... yes. Did I come entirely unprepared for a tropical island? also yes. but we managed to survive long enough to acclimate.
We press on and begin our trip as normal. I'm not sure I've ever explained my process of traveling to a new place in these things, so here goes. we begin by finding our Airbnb and acclimating to that. we then hunt down a coffee shop to work at with wifi and a guilt-free setting (surprisingly hard here ). we then find a climbing gym to break another leg in. Lastly, we start finding events, either through Meetup, Facebook groups, event bright, posters in back alleys, or word of mouth. We bottle up any social anxiety and commit and it's worked out surprisingly well the last year.
The Vibe of Hawaii ended up being very weird. it's a tourist state with many many locals (people who live there) and some natives (people of Hawaiian descent). unlike most places, the turnover rate here is quite high for people and you can feel it as a traveler yourself. it's hard to break into comfort for the first little while that you're here. on top of that, the locals deal with a lot of shit. from being priced out of living, food, and it's history; there's a lot. this blends into an interesting dynamic where the Hawaiin people are very nice and open, but the local's end up forming their own sports where it becomes more livable and devoid of tourists. From grocery stores that are as much as 30-40% cheaper, or food that's 50% cheaper even in the tourist spots, to hidden island spots to avoid damage and clutter. It's an interesting dichotomy that I still don't know how I feel about.
Before we get into the fun "how did dan almost kill himself this time" stories, acknowledging the issues of the island I think is useful and at the very least interesting. Starting with the kingdom of Hawaii, a Polynesian spin-off series that had a crossover with the Christian inquisition. The TLDR is that Christians wanted to spread the word of god to the hawaiins, so they created a written language for the at the time, vocal only language (fun fact, the language only has 12 letters, one of which is a glottal stop '). So far not so bad, in the end its a choice to believe.... wellll, that's until the the US of A invades and dethrones the king-
and declares itself a US territory (it was actually queen Queen Liliʻuokalani but I couldn't find a better way to make the joke). Namely, American Christians and missionaries began a coup to overthrow the monarchy and make it part of America. So an annexation here, a US territory there, a ban on the Hawaiian language and their culture sprinkled into schools. We land on Hawaii becoming a state sometime after WW2. Now may have skimmed over a lot, over 90% of Hawaiians wanted to be a state, but the means to how we got here were less than pleasant.
Fast forward to today, it's a big tourist spot. And as mentioned before, the locals being priced out is a really big problem and this has become more of an issue in the last decade or so. Plus outside of tourism, there aren't many industries in the area. With silicon valley falling apart and even more high earners working remotely, many moves here. A completely unverified number, given by a local was 250,000$ is comfortable living here. which seems a high but not too surprising. For reference, PA is the national average on prices, California is about 20-30% more expensive than PA, and Hawaii is about 20% more expensive on top of that when it comes to food and goods. considering everything has to be imported, it really is a millionaire's heaven and everyone else's nightmare.
This leads to the next issue, homelessness. It's something I've been keeping an eye on, everywhere I go. And I'm always surprised at how bad it is everywhere. some states manage it better than others but its never good. Hawaii has a HUGE homelessness rate, in a large part to locals and natives being priced out and forced to live on the streets. In addition to that, many states send their homeless to Hawaii with a one-way ticket. the support for the homeless here is good from what I here but the non profits still arent equipped to handle it. and thats before we consider states playing the Gregg Abbot game. Homelessness is a big problem due to finances but also because of health. And many issues are due to mental health and instability. this isn't your college student that can't get a job or is "lazy", it's your vets that have PTSD, it's your engineers getting schizophrenia, it's the people that just couldn't afford to get help early and now they aren't capable of it.
Hawaii doesn't feel divided, but it also isn't free of its problems. much like the rest of the US. The point I'll end on here really is that the hawaiin approach of treating everyone as family and not worrying about the cost or entitlement is what we should strive for. everyone grows stronger as a group when we work together, not when we are divided the way have been for almost always, but mainly the last 7 years.
This may have turned into a small vent, but it's been an annoyance all over my travels, and with the travels almost being over, I felt its a good time to make them known.