7 Reasons Hawaii Hates You
7 Reasons Hawaii Hates You
By
Liz Beacon. Last edited by
Marios Alexandrou.
Flickr by Hawaii Air National Guard
Doesn't it seem kind of weird that Hawaii is a US state? It's about 2,500 miles from California's east coast and has a completely different history than the mainland US.
Until 1898, Hawaii functioned perfectly fine as an independent nation. That was the year that Hawaii became a US territory and the government forced
Queen Liliuokalani out of power. It later became a state in 1959.
You might think, so what? That's all history, right?
Think again. Consider the perspective of Hawaii's native people. To natives, a bunch of Europeans showed up one day and decided to make major changes to their culture. If, say, Germany took over your state, wouldn't you be pissed?
Oh, and then Germany sent so many of its people to live in your state that you can't even get around by speaking your native tongue anymore. So this foreign country has essentially forced you to revoke your heritage and follow its culture instead.
Yeah, we thought so.
2. You Sound Like an Ass
Image via
Flickr by Kojach
Just so you know, you don't sound cool when you try to use Hawaiian words while visiting Hawaii. When you mispronounce simple words like “aloha” and “nani,” you sound like an ass.
Here's the deal, it's about as acceptable for a mainlander to use Hawaiian words as it is for a white person to call a black person the N-word. You don't know what you're saying; you don't know how to say it; and you have no right to appropriate another culture's language.
To reiterate: you sound like an ass, so shut up already before Hawaii punches you.
3. You're Destroying Hawaii's Environment
Image via
Flickr by Justin Ornellas
Tourists visit Hawaii because they love the sand beaches, lush jungles, and, of course, the warm weather. That seems pretty understandable. Unfortunately, so many tourists want to visit Hawaii that they're screwing up the very things that make them want to go there in the first place.
The state (do not make the mistake of assuming that the state and the native people have the same perspective on anything in Hawaii) plans to accept 262,000 visitors
a dayby 2020. That means Hawaii, with its population of 1.8 million people, will have 12.6 million tourists every year.
All of those people are destroying the environment. It doesn't even matter what tourists do. They can pick up after themselves, choose sustainable hotels, and refuse to use plastic bags, but it still doesn't matter because Hawaii cannot support that many people.
The situation is so bad that the Hawaii Ecumenical Coalition issued a declaration in 1989 saying that the Hawaiian Islands and its people faced a
state of emergency.
Hawaiians who understand this hate you just for showing up. They don't want your stupid tourism dollars. They want to enjoy their beaches without worrying about sewage backflows.
4. You Helped Ruin Breasts
Image via
Flickr by quinn.anya
Do you know what most Hawaiian women wore before European missionaries showed up? I'll tell you what they didn't wear… shirts! Hawaiian women typically strolled around without anything
covering their breasts. And then a bunch of European Catholics came along and said, “Oh my! Cover those things up!”
The men are still pissed off over that one. Some of the women aren't too happy, either.
5. You're Mocking Hawaiian Traditions
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Flickr by garryknight
Now that you've stolen public breasts from the Hawaiian people, how about mocking the rest of the culture by wearing cheap clothes that vaguely imitate items traditionally worn on the islands.
Go ahead, put on that grass skirt made of plastic! Why not wear a feather head dress while you're sitting beside the hotel pool? Hey, it's your vacation, go for it!
If you think that sounds ridiculous, let's turn it around and use it on your culture. Let's say you're a devout Catholic, and here comes someone wearing a big plastic cross or maybe a Pope hat made of cheap materials. Are you offended?
Wait. Before you answer, consider that this type of dress has become acceptable by most of the people around you. When you get upset, they tell you not to be so uptight. I mean, come on, we're just mocking the traditions of your ancestors. Get over it already.
Now how mad would you get when you saw an airplane dumping these offensive cultural parasites on your native soil?
6. The Living Was Easy… Until You Showed Up
Image via
Flickr by Sarah_Ackerman
Tourism has made it nearly impossible for average people to live in Hawaii. When you spend your tourism dollars on hotels and condos, you push housing costs so high that the people who actually live in Hawaii can't afford to live in Hawaii.
In 2000, the
median cost of a house in Honolulu County was $274,600. By 2009, the median price had reached $552,100. Renting makes life a bit easier, but locals can still expect to spend over $1,000 per month for a small apartment.
Meanwhile, guess how much people get paid in Hawaii? The median household income in 2009 was just barely over $67,700. A family making that much money cannot possibly afford a house that costs half a million dollars.
The state might love your tourism dollars, but the locals know that every dollar you spend makes it harder for them to survive.
7. You Pay Hawaiians to Demean Themselves
Image via
Flickr by Steve Snodgrass
Before you argue that Hawaii has more jobs because of tourism, stop and think about what those jobs entail. You're mostly talking about the kinds of jobs that force scantily clad women to dance on the beach for your entertainment or demand natives to roast pigs for your enjoyment. Yeah, because those traditions were only created for the pleasure of tourists who don't understand a thing about Hawaii's history or people.
Thanks so much for making economic conditions so hard for native Hawaiians that they're forced to demean their customs just to pay the rent.
Hawaii hates you, and it has some pretty good reasons. If you still want to visit, then take some time to remember that you are a visitor. You better act like a visitor if you want people to respect you at all.