Culture Shock! Hawaii Book Excerpt page 2
HAWAII’S PEOPLE
Hawai’i is a mix of Polynesian, Asian and Caucasian
cultures. The Polynesians have been in Hawai’i since around
400-500 AD. Captain Cook arrived in 1778 and the missionaries
later in 1820. The 1800s saw the arrival of Chinese, Japanese
and Portuguese immigrant plantation workers, and in the
beginning of the 1900s, Okinawan, Korean and Filipinos.
Through massive migration, Hawai’i became a mix of races
and cultures. In Hawai’i, everyone is a minority; there is no
dominant race. There is an influence of American mainland
culture, but that isn’t the dominant culture in Hawai’i. Even
today, the heritage cultures of many ethnic groups remain
strong, and can be seen in their food, festivals, TV, radio,
religions, etc.
In addition to the individual ethnic cultures, there is
also the local culture of Hawai’i. When mixing with people
from other groups, Hawai’i’s residents tend to default to the
customs and behaviours of the local culture. The local culture
developed through the unique history of Hawai’i and has
contributions from all the ethnic groups. One example is the
Pidgin English which borrows words from the Hawaiian and
Asian languages.
So what are the ethnic and local cultures? What are the
customs and behaviour we need to be aware of? Just as
there are different shades of people in Hawai’i, there are
different shades of culture and therefore many exceptions to
any conclusion we make in trying to understand the culture
of Hawai’i. For the newcomer, this can be confusing and
difficult to understand because Hawai’i’s cultures are complex
and changing. This book explains the major ethnic cultures:
Hawaiian, Japanese, Filipino, Caucasian and Chinese, which
provides a foundation for understanding the local culture. And
then it explains the local culture and how newcomers from
the mainland and foreign countries fit in.CROSSING CULTURES
The cost of living, homes for sale, employment opportunities
and local news information are important because it helps
newcomers get physically oriented, but the real adventure
begins when they start to interact with the people of Hawai’i.
This book has information on physical orientation but more
importantly, it tells you about the people: what they value,
why they act the way they do and how their unique history
affects their philosophy and way of life. This book will help
you cope with the volcano of unexpected issues when living
in Hawai’i.
The next best thing to living in a strange land is reading
about it. Many of us love travel stories like Mark Twain’s
Letters from Hawai’i, because it shows someone stumbling
about in a different society, and we laugh at the inevitable
mishaps that occur. As a newcomer, we can have some
wonderful new experiences in Hawai’i, but sometimes we
can have some unpleasant culture shocks that aren’t easy to
laugh about.
The American mainlander may feel like the outsider in
Hawai’i for various reasons. There is a history of Westerners
exploiting and changing Hawai’i that some residents may
hold mainlanders accountable for. However, the most likely
reason is a fear of security. The people of Hawai’i do not want
to lose their jobs or anything else to mainlanders or foreign
immigrants. They also do not want to return to the days when
the Caucasian was in the majority and held political control
over Hawai’i’s people.
Moving to a new place is stressful enough, and adding
culture shock doesn’t make it any easier. In everyday life, we
can only see the tip of the iceberg; underneath the surface
is a mass of unspoken and unseen behaviour, customs and
values. Understanding this mass helps make sense of our daily
interactions with the people of Hawai’i.
Culture shock has a learning curve with stages of frustration,
isolation, and eventually adaptation. This book conveys
the experience of many newcomers and old-timers, and it
provides you with some sample scenarios to test your cultural
readiness. This may save you and the people you encounter
the discomfort of a cultural collision, while you adapt to living
in Hawai’i.
There are thousands of people who move to Hawai’i each
year and then move back to the mainland a year later. This
book will help you avoid being another short-timer statistic
by dispelling the misinformation, myths and stereotypes you
may have already learned about Hawai’i; and then give you
a better understanding of the people and their customs so
that you and your family will be successful living among the
people of Hawai’i.
Lastly, James Michener in his book Hawai’i wrote of a
“golden man” of Hawai’i. The golden man is not a mixing of
races, or even the mingling of cultures. It is a product of the
mind. Someone knowledgeable of the ways of the East and
the West and bearing fruit on both sides. Through our crossing
of cultures, we become a golden man or woman.
