Ayase Leilani's Blog

My friends on the mainland think just because I live in Hawaii, I live in paradise.  Like a permanent vacation.  We’re all just out here sipping Mai Tais, shaking our hips and catching waves.  Are they insane?  Do they think we’re immune to life?  How can they possibly think our families are less screwed up, our cancers less fatal, our heartaches less painful? Hell, I haven’t been on a surfboard in 15 years… Paradise? Paradise can go fuck itself.

~Matt King - The Descendants

People from the mainland like to project this fake idea of Hawaii as some paradise that has no challenges.  When I hear people go on and on and on about the mainland stereotypes regarding Hawaii, I just want to scream and howl in frustration.

The idea of a perfect life on the Hawaiian Islands is utter rubbish.  The minute other people project perfection onto paradise, then true paradise is lost.  I look at it this way:  you know you’ve found your home when you love it because of–not in spite of–its imperfections. True “paradise” isn’t paradise at all, but rather a love of everything involved:  good, bad, beautiful, ugly, light and dark.  All at once.

How many people hate gentrification?  Well, it’s widespread on Hawaii, which has some of the most obscenely-high housing costs in the world; this is a huge reason why homelessness is such a challenge.  Want to get your favourite food from the supermarket?  Expect to pay a significant markup because of the logistics involved with getting food delivered to some of the most isolated islands in the Pacific.  And of course, I’ve already discussed the horrendous social consequences left behind by the sugarcane plantations.  How about economy?  I hope you like working for the State of Hawaii government, scientific organisations or the service and hospitality industries; these are the only places you can even begin to find any sort of stable employment on the islands.

On the other hand, how many people like a life separated from the way things work on the mainland?  How many people like warm weather year-round?  How many would like to pay less for petrol (gas) than you do in California?  How many people like the idea of living in a place where white people are somehow still a minority in spite of the power they hold over the islands?  How about the access to Shinto temples and Japanese cuisine all over the place?  Or having a place to live where you don’t have to worry about slapping plastic on the windows every winter?  Hawaii has all of this to offer…and more, should you be interested and willing to take on the aforementioned challenges.

The truth is every single place has its challenges and its benefits.  In the end, paradise–as an ideal–doesn’t exist. That’s the truth of it. If we lose sight of this, then we lose our entire focus on what matters most in our world.  I believe we must focus on changing what needs to be changed and enshrining what needs to be kept the same.  If we do not educate people on these matters when–and where–necessary, ignorance will just continue to fuel the challenges that make daily life so difficult on the Hawaiian Islands.

You must take the positive along with the negative, otherwise you will never understand life in general, much less life on the Hawaiian Islands.