A Truth About Hawaii Spoken in Jest?
Travel Blog • Sophia Dembling • 03.13.09 | 10:56 AM ET
Photo by Yup, I have to admit, I’m among those who laughed at the harsh Saturday Night Live sketch that has Hawaiian officials in a huff, as discussed by fellow World Hum blogger Pam Mandel. The Gallup Well-Being Index recently ranked Hawaii as the second happiest state in the nation, after Utah, but my limited experience with the state (three visits) introduced me to more hostility than happiness. I’m actually a little afraid of Hawaiians. I understand that they have reason to be pissed off, what with their paradise being paved over with hotels and low wages and all. It’s a problem with tropical paradises everywhere. So I’m not passing judgment, really. I’m just saying.
For example, once, when I was visiting a guest ranch, the Hawaiian storyteller hired to entertain guests learned I was a travel writer and got all up in my face about how my type were destroying the islands for personal gain. It wasn’t a conversation, it was a tirade I couldn’t stop and it was so rough that other guests finally intervened and got him to back off.
Then there were the ukulele lessons on a Hawaiian cruise. Ooh, I still get tense thinking about that. I went to every lesson and practiced my little heart out in between. Then, right before we went on stage for the big passenger talent show, our teacher informed us we would be playing a song we had barely touched in class, and that he wasn’t allowing us to use our sheet music. This felt entirely like calculated hostility, meant to make us look like chumps. I don’t know what chords I played on stage but they weren’t the right ones and I hate that guy still. This was supposed to be fun.
Hawaii itself was a thousand times more lovely than I even imagined it would be but these experiences kind of tainted it for me. So Hawaiian officials might be offended, but maybe it’s a discussion that needs to be opened. And I do mean discussion—as in both sides keeping open minds and ears—because even as I laughed at the sketch, I wasn’t sure who it was harder on. The abuses heaped on the tourists had a painful ring of truth, too.