I can, yep keep em commin. Picked up by the NY Times, still they're pushin "cheap" lots in Puna.
check this out and how do ya feel?
Read about Punaguide.com in brand new article of the
NEW YORK TIMES (can you believe it!)
April 7, 2007
On the Big Island, a Place for Price-Sensitive Home Shoppers
NEW YORK TIMES
PUNA is not the most obvious second-home paradise. It has a lot of rain, harbors a host (at least) of mosquitoes and is hard to reach from the mainland. Then there’s the hard-to-ignore fact that much of its lava-encrusted land sits right in the flow zone of an active volcano, Kilauea.
Even so, there is a magical quality here in this craggy, tangly, jungly region of the Big Island’s southeast. The sometimes lunar-like landscape, dolphin-frantic shores and back-to-the-garden vibe consistently seduce the most casual visitors and turn them into starry-eyed homebuyers.
Paul Fishman, a Jungian analyst from San Francisco, first stayed in Puna in the late 1980s, visiting the earthy-crunchy Kalani Eco Resort. When he and his partner, Mike Kurokawa, who is a massage therapist, visited the black-sand beach of Kehena, they were smitten.
“We heard drumming as we climbed down the rocky cliff at sunset,” Dr. Fishman dreamily recalled. Dolphins frolicked in the distance. “We at once felt so at home,” he said. “So welcomed by the community, by nature.”
After visiting for years, they bought a half-acre on the lava in 2003 for $40,000. Last August, they finished building on it: a small, modern screen house set in a grove of monkey-pod trees.
Elizabeth Ziff also had a transforming experience while on a yoga retreat. “I saw a whale breach about 50 feet away,” she recalled, “and that was it.” Last year Ms. Ziff, co-executive producer of “The L Word” on Showtime and a guitarist-vocalist with the band Betty, bought a one-room wooden house on a half-acre lot.
“I love Puna because there are no resorts, and it has Hawaiian culture that hasn’t been utterly destroyed,” she said, speaking from her home in New York City (she also has a home in Vancouver). “I like the energy. I go there to heal.”
But there is another, very grounded, reason to buy there: Price.
“Puna is the cheapest real estate statewide,” said Denis Fuster, an agent with ReMax Island Surf Realty. While prices shot up more than 20 percent from 2005 to 2006, he said, the market has leveled. Buyers can still find plenty of acre plots in the $60,000 range, and the median price for a single-family dwelling was $269,000 at the end of 2006. Those figures attract people from the mainland, but also those who live on Hawaii’s pricier islands.
“Although we do own a nice home on Oahu that we love, it’s getting a bit cramped, and traffic is often a problem,” said Michael Tatzber, a massage therapist who is in the process of buying a second home on the Big Island for $250,000 with his partner, Cassandra Holmes, a graphic designer. They also run Punaguide.com, a Web site that offers advice to potential buyers.
“If you love peace and quiet and a natural environment,” Mr. Tatzber said, “then Puna is the place.”
THIS IS THE PLACE! TELL EVERYONE!
see how many bodies we can cram in like a phone booth, 8) peace
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Shhhhhhh.
Shhhhhhhhh.
Shhhhhhhhhhhh, already, eh?
I've even got my relatives convinced I hate it here.
You're not with the visitors bureau, punapetah, are you?
on the contrary, enough already
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I know that you were born here, unlike me, punapetah. But I am sure that you can understand that the draws from whenever you moved-er-were born here are still the same. So what makes "fresh moves" worse then "old moves"? We'll never be Hawaiian, any of us.
I dunno who told you I was born here? I was born in SF. However, I have lived the most years of my life in Hawaii, and I am in my heart Hawaiian. My main concerns are for the aina. My fear that Hawaii Island will be whored out like oahu, maui and kauai.
To the extent I'm happy about the freggin NY Times picks up on the Punanews that land is still cheap! 60k an acre! Is really adding to the problems of puna before what's wrong with puna has even been addressed. Security, infastructure snall things.
And county apthay continues...........
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shinykapoho said: quote:
...But I am sure that you can understand that the draws from whenever you moved-er-were born here are still the same. So what makes "fresh moves" worse then "old moves"? We'll never be Hawaiian, any of us.
Before I read shiny's comment, I had thought of starting a new thread about this question. Please understand that I'm not inviting a flame war, I really speak with aloha and a desire to fit in with the customs and attitudes. Someone implied elsewhere in another thread that people with less than 20 years on the islands are somehow "less than", and it caused me to wonder.
Unlike you, petah, I actually was born on Hawaii, and lived there for awhile as a keiki, though I have no pre-Cook Hawaiian blood in me. Also unlike you, I have spent most of my life on the mainland, unfortunately. I'll claim to be a Hawaiian, because if you look at my birth certificate, I really am. More importantly than a birth certificate, Hawaii has just been in my heart and my thoughts and even in my dreams for the last four decades. I just haven't returned, yet.
Is it possible to be Hawaiian at heart, for those tourists who weren't born there, and have never lived there? Are there "Hawaiians" out there who have never even been there, not even as a tourist, but have always dreamed of going there someday based on movies and National Geographic articles, and maybe just will never be able to afford it in their lifetimes? Are there "seniority" shades of being Hawaiian, where people with less than 20 years on the rocks are not qualified somehow? Are Oahu Hawaiians less Hawaiian than Big Islanders? I'd accept that Niihau Hawaiians, from what I understand of Niihau, are probably the closest to the ancient culture, which is a good thing, but are they somehow "better", or even more Hawaiian than a 20 year Puna veteran?
If I've offended anybody with this line of inquiry, I'll apologize in advance, because that's not my intent. To me, ideally, thinking and acting and believing with aloha, with compassion and a sense of community in ones' heart, is what makes one a Hawaiian. What does it mean to you to be Hawaiian?
How do I know?
Edited by - mgeary on 11/18/2007 09:15:47
Aloha! ;-)
I agree with you. I was probally Hawaiian before I knew it exhisted. I believe Hawaii and what it is to be Hawaiian is synonamous with Human.
My first setting foot on these islands was with reverence and respect. Because before here I had been all through the northwest, in nature, all the time and even though I was born in a city my heart is in nature. Blame it on the Hippies in the 60's and trippin in the Santa Cruz mts. or Muir Woods, but those who see the world through one's set of glasses can't explain it to someone who's never tried them on.
No question if you're born here you are Hawaiian by state, if you are by blood that's another variable. If you're mixed more variables. If you left and never came back you'd still be Hawaiian.
But to be Hawaiian in Hawaii, means to live with ALOHA. And I see NO aloha in the exploitation of these islands. And it's been eating away at me ever since the 1st trek into Napili Valley only to find Kodak film wrappers.
I'll say I hate "it" that Hawaii is treated like Disneyland. Yes it's a tourist's destination but does that mean pimp out every coconut pickin thing about Hawaii you can? That's not Hawaiian. Hawaiians, GIVE it to you, not sell.
Hawaiian is Aloha, welcome to my house, sit, eat, talk story, drink, talk story, smoke, talk story, make music, talk story, eat, talk story.
Not KAPU, PRIVATE, No Parking, $75. for a taxi ride. Your Kodak Moment. Superferry, Superwallyworld, 1 banana $1. (no joke ABC store in waikiki). Speaking of which is not Hawaiian, Honolulu is LA in the Pacific.
If people come to Hawaii and respect her and if intending to move here assimilate to the Hawaiian, not the Commercial/explotaion of, lifestyle. I feel people who come here and build McMansions and demand pools, wider roads, superstores, superferries do not have Hawaii's best interest at heart. Those are selfish wants.
Hawaiians I know are the furthest thing from selfish. Mainlanders are selfish. ooops did I offend? OMO
how was that?
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Punaweb has really been blessed with some interesting new members lately, who speak from very different perspectives.
Is Hawaii and being Hawaiian a matter of blood or attitude? That's the question we are all trying to resolve right now. I call it the "Sammy Davis Jr" question. The man was born black into a Christian family. Is being Jewish a matter of belief, or is it a matter of race?" Some Jews say "belief". Others say "race". Still others say both.
Is Herb Ohta, Jr. (ukulele God), Hawaiian? Well, yes he is. He was born in Hawaii during Statehood, and so he is a Hawaiian, from the standpoint of American Jurisprudence, as much as I am a Californian. To those that don't recognize that Jurisprudence, Herb Ohta, Jr. is not Hawaiian (unless he has an ancestor that is indigenous to the Islands, and he may).
Whenever this topic comes up, I always think of that Sean Na'auao song "No Hawaiians, No Aloha", which goes on to suggest that non-Native Hawaiians have an important role in maintaining the culture by passing on the "spirit of Aloha".
I liken the Native Hawaiians to the Cajuns. The Cajuns were/are a unique fun loving culture, with their own langauge (a French dialect), a positive outlook on life, a wry sense of humor, their own brand of music, and a delicious cuisine.
I encountered this culture for the first time when I lived in New Orleans and went for a drive in the country one weekend. I walked into a little dusty country store, ostensibly in America, and heard people speaking French, without the Parisian accent! After that experience, I began completely obsessed with the Cajun culture. Listened to the music, went out of my way to see and meet obscure performers such as D.L. Menard. When I returned to California to go to school, I was shocked to find out that my return coincided with the "Cajun Craze". People were standing in line for 6 hours to dine on cuisine prepared by Chef Paul Prudhomme.
The French language was almost stamped out among the Cajuns because English was mandatory in schools, but it persevered in the families were it was the first language.
The Hawaiian language has not been so fortunate. It appears to live on only in song, although there are currently attempts to revive it.
It will be hard to do that. It is not just the Hawaiian culture that is endangered in the 21st Century. My grandmother spoke a form of English I call Texan but you will be hard pressed to find a real Texas accent (such as I knew it 50 years ago) in Texas any more, thanks to television, and to the monoculture that is spreading across the globe. "Y'all" is disappearing and is becoming a very self conscious "you all".
I support these localized cultures wherever they occur, because they are the only thing that keep us from becoming homogenized global consumers of a culture that is handed to us by people who profit from the proliferation of "popular culture".
All differences will be erased by the end of this Century and there will only be four languages at best: English (commerce, popular culture), Chinese (numbers), Japanese (strong cultural tradition),and French (they will never give in).
In the meantime, I come down like this:
* When I move to Puna, I will become Hawaiian because under the prevailing legal system, as a resident of the State of Hawaii and the Island of Hawai'i, I will be Hawaiian.
* I will not be a native Hawaiian, as I was born in California and have no indigenous ancestors from Hawaii.
* I hope to become a "Sammy Davis Jr" Hawaiian. That is, a person accepted by Native Hawaiians as a believer and adherent to the tenets of Hawaiian culture as best I understand them. I think those that fight to maintain the vestiges of Hawaiian culture, and that includes many, many non-native Hawaiians, should be treasured, even if they have no ancestors indigenous to Hawaii.
Lastly I would add this: No aloha? Then you are not Hawaiian, no matter where your ancestors were from.
I've seen nothing but aloha in this thread.
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The love of nature is a key aspect of being human, I believe. I also believe that Hawaiians may love their nature, on average, just a little more than most mainlanders. Okay, well, maybe a lot more than most mainlanders. ;-)
As petah said so well, though, there are many mainlanders who take nature to heart. I've been to several different Redweed forests, including Santa Cruz, and that's a special natural experience in it's own class, on a par with the Hawaiian experience.
I like to flyfish (catch-and-release), and I'm simply disgusted with the local fisheries in SoCal. After I got tired of seeing all the six-pack plastic pull rings, the dirty diapers, and the general trash that lines the local "Wild and Scenic Wilderness", I just quit fishing here. To really enjoy fishing, I've got to travel up the backside of the Sierras about 5 hours, or for days to Montana.
Having said that, I know there are native Hawaiians who don't love nature in the same way that I do. Junk cars, old refrigerators and washing machines can be seen rusting out in the beautiful Puna and Hilo jungle, and I'm pretty sure the tourists didn't put them there.
I'm not throwing stones, at all. I'm just recognizing that element in human nature, that some people can live in or go to really nice places like Puna or the Muir Woods, and f**k them up. So maybe there are Hawaiians, too, who could learn a little more aloha spirit. Maybe the whole human species could.
I really liked the "Sammy Davis" story, Glen. Even though I can claim to be Hawaiian by birthright, I would like to be a Sammy Davis Hawaiian.
How do I know?
Edited by - mgeary on 11/18/2007 13:40:42
Aloha! ;-)
Glen and mgeary, mahalos
My ohana here more or less adopted me into their Hawaiian (alii) family years ago. Dan was my Logic professor at UHH.
And my ex's son was related to his wife so there you go, here we are.
ALOHA
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