Re: From a Newcomer in Hawaii to Other Newcomers
Posted by Gigi Gillespie on 6/19/06
06-19-06
Hello, My name is Gigi and I am finishing my last year of grad
school with Ole Miss in Mississippi. I have a perfect husband that
is getting me through it and two great kids. My goal in life has
been to live in Hawaii and teach. I have had to wait for many
years to do this because my kids needed a full time parent and my
husband and I have shared that responsibility back and forth. I am
36 yrs. old and am finally getting to persue this dream. I don't
really have much time for friends in my life with the situation
but have a few people, especially family, trying to tell me it
cost to much to live there and I can't make it. I want to prove
them wrong and all the research I have done has helped me to feel
confident. I read your entry and wanted to talk to you about the
salary and availibility of positions there. Also, I want to get my
masters and will have one more year to finish when I arrive. Is
the college situation there good and is there better pay with the
masters? I have seen several ads in the Hawaii papers about lowest
job pay in the teaching field there and am becomming spooked. My
reason is I plan to give my husband the opprotunity to go back to
school and support the family myself. Please help! I want my dream
to come true for me and my family.
Gigi
> On 5/31/06, nicole wrote:
>> Andy you have it right. Homes may cost more to buy, but
>> everything else is about the same, and the people are
>> wonderful. I spent my adolescent years living in Hawaii and
>> am hoping to move back soon. All that stuff about locals
>> hating all haoles and it being impossible to get by is just
>> not true. My best friends to this day are from Hawaii. It is
>> the nicest, friendliest place I know. The only adjustment a
>> mainlander needs to make is to get used to Hawaii time and
>> waiting patiently in lines. The best part of Hawaii is that
>> people are not in a rush.
>> On 5/27/06, Joan wrote:
>>> On 5/12/06, Andy wrote:
>>>> To Whom It May Concern,
>>>>
>>>> I've recently moved to Hawaii with my family from Taiwan,
>>>> where I lived for more than a decade. In the year prior
>>>> to our move, I often logged on to the Hawaii chatboard in
>>>> order to get some practical advice as well as general
>>>> impressions of the area of the U.S. I was planning to move
>>>> back to. As it seems that people interested in moving to
>>>> Hawaii and teaching there frequently access this website,
>>>> I am writing to try to satisfy their curiosity on certain
>>>> points and to give them a newcomer's set of impressions on
>>>> what it's actually like here.
>>>>
>>>> First, I'd like to comment on the cost of living here,
>>>> about which you read a lot of negative commentary. My
>>>> impression at this point is that the proverbial high cost
>>>> of living in the islands is exaggerated. True, I lived
>>>> outside the U.S. for many years and am just now trying to
>>>> get a sense of what day-to-day costs are like in my home
>>>> country after being away for so long. But I have taken
>>>> frequent vacations throughout the years to visit my family
>>>> in Pennsylvania, and my sense is that, apart from the
>>>> costs of housing, the day-to-day costs of getting by in
>>>> Hawaii are about the same as on the mainland - IF, that
>>>> is, you shop where the locals do and avoid paying the
>>>> greedy middlemen who run things in areas where (often
>>>> extremely wealthy) tourists hang out. I've read horror
>>>> stories of people having to pay $6 for a gallon of milk or
>>>> a box of cereal, but where we shop we don't pay more than
>>>> $3.50 or so for either. Gas is 10&37; more expensive, but
>>> of
>>>> course you don't really feel it in most situations as
>>>> you're living on an island where everything is in close
>>>> location to everything else and the farthest distance you
>>>> can actually drive from one place to another is about 44
>>>> miles.
>>>>
>>>> The biggest difference, as might be expected, is with
>>>> respect to home costs. Of course, things have gotten just
>>>> as expensive in many areas of the U.S. mainland (and
>>>> probably more expensive in fact in a lot of places such as
>>>> California). The key thing is that you have to get used
>>>> to living in smaller spaces. This is relatively easy for
>>>> me, as I've spent the last decade living in the second
>>>> most densely populated country on Earth, where you don't
>>>> get much for your money when it comes to space. In fact,
>>>> I've gotten so used to it that I've come to like living in
>>>> modest spaces as you have that much less work to do
>>>> keeping everything in good condition. My impression is
>>>> that most people in Hawaii simply don't feel the need for
>>>> the grandiose spaces that people in general enjoy on the
>>>> U.S. mainland. The majority of people here either have
>>>> either immigrated from or descend from people who
>>>> immigrated from heavily populated East Asian countries
>>>> where people simply don't have so much space as we have in
>>>> America or in Western Europe. The other thing is that, in
>>>> an area of the world where the weather is so perfect, you
>>>> don't feel the need to have such commodious indoor spaces
>>>> simply because you don't feel the need to spend so much
>>>> time indoors. I suspect that many people from the
>>>> mainland who relocate to the islands, particularly those
>>>> raising families, (understandably) can't get used to
>>>> dealing with the smaller spaces associated with living on
>>>> a space-hungry island. If, however, you're in a position
>>>> such as myself, coming from a part of the world where
>>>> people live in similarly crowded circumstances, or if you
>>>> are single or don't yet have children, you'll have a much
>>>> easier time adjusting to the smaller spaces and will be
>>>> able to accept not having so much space for the same
>>>> amount of money.
>>>>
>>>> In short, I believe that the perception that Hawaii is so
>>>> much more expensive than the mainland is only correct from
>>>> the point of view of people who are not willing to
>>>> sacrifice the great amount of space they enjoy on the
>>>> mainland and force themselves to pay double or more when
>>>> they get here than what they would have to pay if they
>>>> were willing to make such a sacrifice.
>>>>
>>>> Second,to all the people, whether locals or mainlanders,
>>>> many of them apparently mean-spirited, who are constantly
>>>> griping about ethnic issues and racial slights on this
>>>> chatboard, I will say this: lighten up a bit, and you're
>>>> sure to a much nicer time of it. Doubtless there are a
>>>> lot of people who go through life looking for trouble of
>>>> this sort, and doubtless, in a frequently mean-spirited
>>>> world, they're able to find it. My impression, however,
>>>> is that there is FAR LESS of this sort of trouble in
>>>> Hawaii than anywhere else in the U.S. My daughter,
>>>> although she is half-Chinese, looks far "whiter" than any
>>>> of the other kids in her class, in an elementary school
>>>> where there are only a handful of white kids. She
>>>> certainly doesn't notice that she looks any different from
>>>> the rest of her classmates, comes home with a big smile on
>>>> her face every day, and is overjoyed to be out of the
>>>> crazy, high-pressure study environment of public school in
>>>> Taiwan. She's already picked up the local accent and
>>>> apparently fits right in. The other white kids I notice
>>>> at her school all seem to be just as happy as everyone
>>>> else. Doubtless in high schools you do encounter
>>>> problems, some of them involving ethnic or racial slurs,
>>>> but doesn't this happen everywhere in the American public
>>>> school system? Adolescents can be nasty and groups of
>>>> them will frequently treat poorly anyone who is perceived
>>>> as non-conforming, including when it comes to appearance.
>>>> This is a just an unfortunate part of American youth. My
>>>> suspicion is that the sort of kids who encounter this sort
>>>> of trouble in school here are the sort of kids who would
>>>> encounter this sort of trouble anywhere (and possibly
>>>> administer to this sort of trouble to other kids). And
>>>> I'd like to add that, while I understand that I've only
>>>> been here for a couple of months and likely haven't had
>>>> much occasion to experience certain negative aspects of
>>>> living here, so far I have found strangers and especially
>>>> people doing any sort of public service (grocery clerks,
>>>> bus drivers, etc.) to be far more relaxed and FAR
>>>> FRIENDLIER than most of their counterparts in the frantic
>>>> East Coast area where I grew up.
>>>>
>>>> To conclude, my experience so far as a newcomer has been
>>>> entirely positive, and I would recommend it to other
>>>> teachers or prospective teachers who are looking for a
>>>> change of locale and who would like to make a contribution
>>>> to a part of the U.S. which desperately needs more good
>>>> teachers. The costs here really seem to be exaggerated,
>>>> as do the reports of poor, mistreated haoles.
>>>>
>>>> If other newcomers or prospective newcomers would like to
>>>> contact me for an exchange of info, I'd be happy to hear
>>>> from them!
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes,
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>> AMEN!! This is my first day on this site. I came here
>>> looking for teachers in Hawaii in which to share standards-
>>> based lessons, successes, (and failures) in the classroom,
>>> etc. WOW, except for 2 posts, the firstpage of topics have
>>> to do with negativity and exaggerations.
>>>
>>> Can someone direct me to a productive message board?
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