Hello,
A the end of January, my wife, 2 good friends and I went to visit Hawaï. I was not so excited but I didn't know why i felt this way.
Then we arrived at Ohau wich Honolulu is the capital before leaving for Maui. Belive me or not, the islands of Hawaï are like their soul had disapeared...
I wanted to write my point of view about this kind of paradise as it's generally described and how people use to describe it.
Of course, the 4 of us were very pleased by the beautiful nature (almost) everywhere, mountains, volcanos, tropical forests, ocean, rivers, waterfalls, whales... don't get me wrong, we were lucky to go there and experiment this travel but it missed something really important : authenticity.
We stayed 3 days at Honolulu and 10 days at Maui. It was enough to see that it's quite difficult to meet polynesian people wose families have been living here for centuries. Our main question was "what's happened here ?", it reminded us the native american and their disapearance from american territory.
In both islands, don't look for traditionnal things like local restaurants with local foods, fish markets, traditional markets, it feels like the american machine has been there for enough time to change the islands. And about the population I understand now our surprise. In fact it's said on Wikipedia that only 6% of the population is Native Hawaiians (before James cook's arrival in 1778). It's complex to check these figures since you can make numbers or statistics mean whatever you want it to mean. The official number for hawaïian/part hawaïian (metis) people is 24,9%.
What I can afirm for sure is that we were very surprised to meet so few hawaïian type people. But that is not all. Everything is new and modern in these islands and it's totally american, the resorts, the big houses, the golf playgrounds, the towns, the freeways and the fast foods and malls everywhere...
By the way, it can be hard to find a restaurant without hamburgers, nuggets, tacos and ceaser salad... Quite impossible to eat fresh fish in a little restaurant near the sea.
About history and culture, hummm, let's say it's not the preocupation overthere. If you go there, don't ask yourself too many questions about what used to be these beautifull islands.
Yeah, as you can see we were very sad to see this scene. In fact, when we travel somewhere we like to feel the history, culture, meet and talk with people, learn from them and overthere, well, you got my point.
We were told that Hawaï is mainly for rich people from mainland and that it's like a good place to retreat after retirement of for a few weeks during holidays for people who can afford it.
After some researches it appears that the state of Hawaï is not a state by the international law. In fact, after many years of international presence (English, Russian, french), USA decided to replace the last queen in 1893 by a temporary government (still the same method nowadays, isn't it ?). Then in 1959, a vote made the republic of Hawaï the last state of USA. Problem is that Hawaïian never officialy gave up their sovereignty since it was a "coup d'etat". In 2008, when Obama was elected, some of his opponents claimed that he couldn't become the president because the place he was born was not a true state by law.
Anyway, we could see by our own eyes the result of the american machine and the ability for humans to forget even if it hasn't been a while since these ilsnads became american.
As Robert Brasillach said "L'histoire est écrite par les vainqueurs" (1967) (History is written by the winners).
it also reminds me that when I was young I was convinced that the indians were the bad guys... Have you ever been to a disneyland resort and watched the buffalo show ? Cowboys are still heroes and indians are still savages even if it's true they try to explain us more and more that it's more... humm complicated lol
Thanks for the reading.
A the end of January, my wife, 2 good friends and I went to visit Hawaï. I was not so excited but I didn't know why i felt this way.
Then we arrived at Ohau wich Honolulu is the capital before leaving for Maui. Belive me or not, the islands of Hawaï are like their soul had disapeared...
I wanted to write my point of view about this kind of paradise as it's generally described and how people use to describe it.
Of course, the 4 of us were very pleased by the beautiful nature (almost) everywhere, mountains, volcanos, tropical forests, ocean, rivers, waterfalls, whales... don't get me wrong, we were lucky to go there and experiment this travel but it missed something really important : authenticity.
We stayed 3 days at Honolulu and 10 days at Maui. It was enough to see that it's quite difficult to meet polynesian people wose families have been living here for centuries. Our main question was "what's happened here ?", it reminded us the native american and their disapearance from american territory.
In both islands, don't look for traditionnal things like local restaurants with local foods, fish markets, traditional markets, it feels like the american machine has been there for enough time to change the islands. And about the population I understand now our surprise. In fact it's said on Wikipedia that only 6% of the population is Native Hawaiians (before James cook's arrival in 1778). It's complex to check these figures since you can make numbers or statistics mean whatever you want it to mean. The official number for hawaïian/part hawaïian (metis) people is 24,9%.
What I can afirm for sure is that we were very surprised to meet so few hawaïian type people. But that is not all. Everything is new and modern in these islands and it's totally american, the resorts, the big houses, the golf playgrounds, the towns, the freeways and the fast foods and malls everywhere...
By the way, it can be hard to find a restaurant without hamburgers, nuggets, tacos and ceaser salad... Quite impossible to eat fresh fish in a little restaurant near the sea.
About history and culture, hummm, let's say it's not the preocupation overthere. If you go there, don't ask yourself too many questions about what used to be these beautifull islands.
Yeah, as you can see we were very sad to see this scene. In fact, when we travel somewhere we like to feel the history, culture, meet and talk with people, learn from them and overthere, well, you got my point.
We were told that Hawaï is mainly for rich people from mainland and that it's like a good place to retreat after retirement of for a few weeks during holidays for people who can afford it.
After some researches it appears that the state of Hawaï is not a state by the international law. In fact, after many years of international presence (English, Russian, french), USA decided to replace the last queen in 1893 by a temporary government (still the same method nowadays, isn't it ?). Then in 1959, a vote made the republic of Hawaï the last state of USA. Problem is that Hawaïian never officialy gave up their sovereignty since it was a "coup d'etat". In 2008, when Obama was elected, some of his opponents claimed that he couldn't become the president because the place he was born was not a true state by law.
Anyway, we could see by our own eyes the result of the american machine and the ability for humans to forget even if it hasn't been a while since these ilsnads became american.
As Robert Brasillach said "L'histoire est écrite par les vainqueurs" (1967) (History is written by the winners).
it also reminds me that when I was young I was convinced that the indians were the bad guys... Have you ever been to a disneyland resort and watched the buffalo show ? Cowboys are still heroes and indians are still savages even if it's true they try to explain us more and more that it's more... humm complicated lol
Thanks for the reading.