Waikiki

Waikiki in the 2199 Kalia Road chapter of Well Then There Now, is a neighborhood that wears a mask of commercial paradise in the pacific to cover up its dirtier, more honest appearance. Even this so called honest appearance is itself dishonest to the original, once native environment of Waikiki. The transformation that happened there reminds me of the part in Valley of the Dead Air, by Gary Pak, when Correa was talking to Bobby about how the government was behind the malodor problem. He said the government creates the problem and then fools its citizens into thinking they’re doing them a favor by fixing it. This time the government is a man named Dillingham with a dredge, which comes into town and fabricates a reason to dredge, and then sells the excavated dirt back to the people once the dredge has finished creating the problem.

Waikiki was a natural paradise before America came to create its own version of paradise that sells “I got lei’d in Hawaii” t-shirts, California grade Mai Tais, and man made beaches to ignorant tourists. Now it’s a hollow kind of place that pimps its colonial history in bars with attendants who wear plantation style outfits and boasts its hotels authenticity by carbon dating the land it’s built on. Even though building on land that old would be considered illegal, the hotel perpetuates the lie in order to make more business. The swaying kiawe trees used in tourist guidebooks to express the picturesque experience one would have sipping drinks under it doesn’t mention the damage the trees cause. The image of Waikiki is exactly that, a fabricated image that has come to misrepresent Hawaii.

- Francis Miguelino