Today I met up with Matt, with whom I've had the privilege of developing quite the friendship. He's a sophomore and is completely on fire for the Lord. While he's a total goofball with a TON of energy, he's also serious about his faith and aside from having fun and just being dork with me, he also loves to engage me in deep conversations about what God is doing in his life. Matt's just one example of an interesting demographic here- "local haoles"... in other words, white people who were born and raised here in Hawaii. Physically, he looks just like your all-American boy-next-door you'd find in Boise. But culturally, Matt (and many other local haoles like him) most closely identify with the majority local culture (Asian-American fusion food, Asian-American fusion culture, talkin' pidgeon, etc). It's fascinating to experience island life where these hybrid cultures all live side by side... I mean, take Savannah (pictured below with Matt), for example. She also looks haole, but she's from Maui which gives her a slightly different culture, AND she's quarter asian (which most people wouldn't suspect). More so than in any other place where I've lived, you really cannot tell what a person is like just by looking at them here. You have to get a bit of their back story to understand even the basics of what kind of culture they grew up with. Fascinating, I tell you.
Actually Savannah's Asian-ness shows more in this picture than it does in real life...
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