Living in Hawaii

You folks that live there could you write me ? I'm thinking of taking a job there in Oahu, my e-mail is sailor_boy_94510 at yahoo.com

Life is good here, but expensive....what kind of info are you looking for?

you either love it or hate it. I myself am the latter of the two and can't wait to move.

right now I live outside san francisco so understand how expensive it is. I'm a submarine vet, diver and just all around ocean lover. been diving many years here in the cold north coast. I guess to better qualify my question would be how hard is it to secure housing, how are the schools and I've heard big pros/cons on how whites from the mainland are treated? I'm very excited to experience and be involved in the hawaiian culture and wonder how much of this is true or not ?

how long have you been there and why do you hate it, what are your circumstances ?

I'm a sub vet as well. I'm actually on the last 2 months of my shore duty, and I'm out. Oahu definitely has it's ups and downs...You really can't beat the weather here....If you're into water sports, or anything out doors, it's really the place to be. Housing might be in the same range as Cali....a little higher than northern cali though. As far as the racism thing, Hawaii is no better or worse than any other place I've lived in. It all depends on how you project yourself, and how people decide to react to it. A lot of caucasians have never experienced racism prior to coming to hawaii, and have a bad reaction to it, and end up hating the place.

Think about that last sentence I just wrote before you decide to react to it. When was the last time you were actually racially discriminated against, or called racial names in an offensive manner?

Don't get me wrong, it's not a "hate-on-whitey" free for all here. Just don't freak out the first time someone calls you the "h" word....it's not even derogatory to begin with...everyone just takes it the wrong way.

If you have school age children, the schools here in Hawaii rate 50 out of 50......
the kids go to school 0800 to 1415, oh, and only do 1/2 days on Wednesday,
With that said, the vast majority of the people here are great people. There is a VERY small minority that are anti-american(think Hawaii should succeed from the Union) but they have loud voices and lots of ad time on TV(makes my blood boil every time I see those Ads...)
Our time on the Island will be limited, Oahu is not on our "Retirement" list, although the Big Island is in the top 10.
Oahu is an awesome experience, and culturally rich, and overall has been good to our family......now if they only took education serious......but the people are not willing to pay for it.

The schools here suck!! My daughter has gotten the worst education here. They are about 2-3 years behind the mainland (some of us can't afford a private education for our children- before any makes that statement). The "H" word IS used in a very deragatory way 99% of the time. When you are called an *******ing haole it is meant the way it is said. I have been called that on a military installation at that. I have seen many locals treating visitors wrongly- throwing footballs at people with canes at the beaches, beating visitors who go to the gay bars (yes- many broken jaws etc...). Haole means "white person" not visitor like some will tell you so when you are called by your skin color it is racist. I don't call them brown people. If they want me to call them Hawaiians then they can call me Arizonian since that is where I am from. I don't call anybody names by there skin color. Back to the schools-- my daughter is in middle school and the some of the teachers will let the kids know that Hawaii was stolen from the locals by the whiteys, George Washington is the first known terrorist (he started the first wars), if they local kids don't want a class party with the white kids they are allowed to have their own party. Happened to my daughter. There is a big problem with some of the schools (gangs and racism). What school age? A friend who is also a diver got called some deragatory names while attending HPU and she was minding her own business.

Okay- not all people are that nasty, but you can expect to see it while you are here. I like the weather (seeing as how I am from southern AZ where it is like this all year round also), diving is decent (got certified here). I need to be able to drive and end up somewhere other than a circle. Flights are cheap to the other islands which is a nice break. April will be 4 years here for us and we are ready to get back to the mainland. I have dealt with racism before- we came here from D.C. . Let me say that the racism here is mostly towards the white people, but there is racism against african americans also. any questions you have please feel free to PM me or ask on this thread and I will answer what i can.

thanks so much for writing back. I got off the boats and out in 1982...seems like another life As far as racism goes I grew up in Tennessee and saw it all, here in Ca. you see it occasionally so no big deal. My whole family is vey laid back.

The level of education there and here in Ca. is comparable , but I see kids all the time who excel. It really has to be up to the kid when they get up to the high school age like mine. My whole family is all about water sports, we sail and dive. I have been racing and building sailboats for years, am an instrumentation and controls expert. Would like to get involved in the service and maintenance side of diving, also the technical aspects also.