May 10, 2012
Today after class we took an excursion to the only palace in
the United States of America, Iolani Palace. We also visited the Mission Houses
Museum.
The morning started just like most morning here. We got
ready in our little apartment type bungalow, that some of the girls call
Martha. Then we went to the main house for breakfast and class.
Today in class we talked about personalities, what we in are
and the different personalities of people on the trip.
Yesterday on our excursion, all five us girls in the car
happened to pile in the car that our professor was driving. As a communications professor, he
noticed our interactions we had with the one boy in the car, the only person in the
car not in the Intercultural Communications class.
In class today, Dr. Elliot suggested that we should have a
new passenger or “victim” every time we go on an excursion. Today did not work
out as planned so we will have to put the plan into action on our next
excursion.
Our excursion today led us to the city of Honolulu. All of
the sudden out of the clouds and hills popped up a big city. It is very
interesting to see how different the landscape and the weather here on the
Island is. At one point while we were driving, we could see it raining in
one area, sunny in another and hazy in another…only in Hawaii.
Lucky for us it was sunny were we were located.
Our first stop was the Iolani Palace. Before we could enter
the palace, we had to put little blue booties on to cover our street shoes. We
still aren’t sure what the purpose of these slippers were. Maybe the staff just
needed a laugh.
With the light blue booties secured, we were given the
typical handheld devises the museums give out. The ones that have a phone like
shape, and have numbers that you punch in to correspond with the room you are
in.
From number 1 the palace was interesting. The handheld
devise explained the Hawaiian culture a bit. It also pointed out the portraits of Americans
and Europeans that adorned the walls. I was not expecting to see these in a
Hawaiian palace.
After viewing the whole house and learning about the royal
Hawaiian culture, we walked a few blocks over to the missionary houses to learn
their time in Hawaii and how they integrated American culture into Hawaiian.
The missionary houses were made out of coral dug up from the
bottom of the ocean. They also contained wood brought over from the “Main Land.”
The house styles were definitely had a New England feel to them.
During our guided tour I learned that the missionaries
changed things about Hawaiian culture and introduced things to it as well.
Introduced:
1.
The Bible
2.
Newspapers
3.
Reading
4.
Writing
5.
American furniture (beds)
6.
House building material (wood)
7.
Pastors
8.
The clothes they wore
Through this excursion I learned that missionaries
definitely help “Americanize” Hawaii. And I can now say that I’ve been to the
only palace in the United States!
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