Nope, you’re wrong there

I had a recent to-and-fro with Scott in Raye’s comments, regarding my misunderstanding of what sort of housing units are in the Bronx. I’d somehow thought that all of NYC consisted of high-rise apartment buildings; Scott said “not so!” It got me to wondering, just how many misconceptions do people have about where I live? For starters:

  • There are lots of “little grass shacks” in Hawai’i (none I’m aware of)
  • We all live on the beach (on Oahu alone there are two mountain ranges)
  • Standard female attire is a grass skirt with coconut shells acting as a bra
  • Hawaii has very few people (we’re 2nd largest in population per square mile behind NY)

And so on. What misconceptions do all of us who don’t live there have about your home?

13 Comments

  1. Hey, what about that grass shack in the watercress field next to Pearlridge? I love that thing.
    Another thing that’s surprised friends who’ve come to visit us here for the first time: they think everybody’s going to be really and truly Hawaiian-Hawaiian, not Hawaiian-and-ten-other-things, and aren’t expecting all the Asian-influenced food, style and so on.

  2. What, you mean I won’t see grass-skirted women everywhere? I’m shocked, I tell you — shocked!
    Kim mentioned we need to take some photos of our neighborhood, so we can really show you what Da Bronx looks like. 🙂

  3. Folks think we all wear cowboy hats and boots all the time, that we all name our children “J.R.” or “J.D” or “J-something.” They think everyone has a cow in the backyard.
    Y’all think we all walk around saying “y’all” all the time and that Dallas women all wear too much makeup and we all drive these monstrous gas-sucking trucks and SUVs…. wait… never mind. Oops.

  4. Not everyone here in Amish Country (Lancaster County, PA) is actually Amish, for starters… 😉 Hordes of non-Amish live here with electricity, broadband, cars, blah blah blah. That some people don’t know that before they come here amazes me almost as much as the breadth of tourist ignorance about the Amish in the first place.
    There’s an apocryphal joke about the New York tourists who tried to stop a farmer in the middle of plowing his fields so they could take his picture. He refused, and they were offended beyond measure. They promptly filed a complaint with the local tourism board… they thought that the Amish were actually hired actors, a la Williamsburg. 😉

  5. No matter what your image of Washington, you’re about half-wrong.
    Think it’s rain and water and evergreens and squishy liberals? Hie thee to Moses Lake or Walla Walla or Spokane. Think it’s high desert, wheat fields, the Grand Coulee and conservative farmers? Check out Seattle or Bellingham or Olympia.

  6. Oakland is dangerous, and you are at constant risk of being murdered.
    Which is totally untrue. There is no risk of being murdered if we like you.

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