The Ha'ole man who knows more about Hawaii than some Hawaiians

The very interesting man Dr. Niklaus Schweizer is a professor of Languages and Literature of Europe and the Americas. Usually we have some kind of "tree hugger" or spiritual person present in front of the class. It was nice to have a change in topics to the history of Hawaii and what happened to change it from what it used to be to what it is today.

As I studied Hawaiian history, I did notice that the Westerners brought many things to Hawaii, as if changing it to their benefit. In actuality, that is what every country does when they invade and conqueror a new land, they make it comfortable for themselves but incidentally (not that they cared), they usually [forever] change the culture surrounding the invaded area. Oahu was invaded by westerners and now is not much more than an island filled with concrete. My first time here I compared it to Taiwan, which is similar, an Island off the coast of China that's filled with concrete. The most notable exception between Hawaii and Taiwan is that Taiwan is more tropical and the buildings are closer together.

In any case, Dr. Schweizer mentioned that Hawaiians refer to people as -ma (missing accented marks) as a group, or them. It's kind of similar to Spanish (Ellos, Ellas) or Chinese (ta men) when referring to outsiders. There were other words like 'ai kapu which was abolished soon after the westerners arrived (I think), this meant that men and women couldn't eat together. Or Kapope, the pope, 'olohana the right hand haloi of Kamehameha II. The history was extremely interesting to learn. What I found surprising was that missionaries were allowed to stay and were treated well even if they attempted to change the Hawaiian religion to something else. Instead they were allowed to stay because the Hawaiians wanted to learn the written language. Although they was a good point, it eventually led to the Hawaiian civil war (headed by calvinist missionaries) to over throw the monarchy. The history was sad and the monarchy was removed from power.

I noted before to my self that Hawaii would have been much happier if it was never annexed by the U.S. Unfortunately, there was no choice in this case. If Hawaii wasn't annexed by the U.S. some other country would have taken it over. Either way Hawaii would have been under some other country's rule since it didn't have enough military power to remove all foreign invaders.

It was cool to learn all this Hawaiian history from someone who really knows the subject. Although sad, one can't change the past and even then, there wasn't much to change. Now the people of Hawaii can only change the future or their benefit.