Mark Twain: The most beautiful island in the ocean

Mark Twain (30 November 1835 – 21 April 1910)

Text/Po Mu laughs

The plating of life

If you had to choose the "poisonous tongue" in the history of world literature, Mark Twain would never fall out of the top ten. The most important realist novelist in the United States in the late 19th century, he was untamed and pragmatic and easy, and his words were humorous and ironic, and he was praised as "a mirror of the United States". Lu Xun once said that Mark Twain "became a humorist for the sake of life, and in humor there was resentment and irony, but he was not willing to accept this." "This assessment is profound and precise.

Some people's lives are a dream start, and some people are just the opposite, Twain is the latter. Born in 1835, on a cold winter day, in rural Florida, Missouri, he was the sixth of seven children. My father was a very poor village lawyer, and even so, life would have been even worse at Twain's 12 years. The early death of his father brought the family to the bottom, and the 12-year-old Twain had to go to society to do all the work that could keep him alive, such as printing apprentices, newsboys, typesetters, sailors, and gold panners. Therefore, among the American writers of his contemporaries, no one can compare with Mark Twain in terms of insight into all aspects of society and understanding of complex human nature.

This man, who once struggled at the bottom of society, has long understood the significance of climbing upwards for small people, but he has not become the tragic "Gatsby". If he had to find the reason, a river and an island meant something extraordinary to him, the Mississippi River where he grew up, and that island was the Hawaiian Islands.

The trip to Hawaii was the straw that saved Twain from becoming a refined egoist.

Age of Empires

Mark Twain once said affectionately: "There is no place in the world that fascinates me as much as Hawaii, it is the most beautiful island in the ocean, the most lovely island fleet moored in the ocean." ”

In March 1866, Twain, who had just passed his life, came to Hawaii. At that time, he had not yet become a professional journalist and writer, and he was trying to get ahead. The opportunity came — The Sacramento Union was recruiting a journalist to travel to Hawaii to write a travel newsletter. At the time, Hawaii's distance from the U.S. mainland was clearly beyond the psychological reach of many people. While most people were still hesitating, Twain quickly signed a contract with the United Press and embarked on a six-month trip to the Pacific.

In fact, many famous writers have written about Hawaii, Herman Melville, Robert Stevenson, Jack London... Even James Michener barely counted. But whoever of them was better than Mark Twain in his writing about Hawaii. For more than four months, he sent back 25 letters to China, which caused great repercussions, and these texts were later combined into one of his famous works, "Letters from Hawaii", plus "Ascetic", "Hawaiian Novel" created in 1884 but eventually left in fragments, and "Journey around the Equator", which together constituted the main body of Twain Pacific writing.

Hawaii is undoubtedly the heart of it. Twain rode his horse through Oahu, Hawaii, Maui and other islands, traveling more than 200 miles, and even rode out of the saddle sores. He once walked under the moonlight through the shadowy sand, which was once the remnants of an ancient battlefield, scattered with white bones. Also on a foggy night, climbing Kilauea Volcano on the way to the eruption, he risked his life to stand on the edge of the crater, his face glowing red with flowing magma.

It was the middle of the 19th century, and the United States, though young, embraced the advent of the "Age of Empires" at a faster pace. Hawaii is a must-have "paradise" for the United States, and it is also the first colonial paradise it has touched. Twain came to Hawaii with a sense of superiority in the "Age of Empires," convinced that his homeland was fundamentally different from the European powers, shining with idealism and humanitarianism. Like countless Americans, he firmly believed that the United States was the "benefactor" of Hawaii, developed local resources, increased income there, and brought religion, science, health, and civilization to the "backward" natives.

However, this in-depth tour led Twain to the opposite conclusion. Twain's local guide, a weather-beaten old man from the Tutu tribe, accompanies Twain on most of his journeys and gets along well with the naturally free Twain. Twain's first question when he came to Hawaii was, "The most famous place here is Honolulu, but why are sandalwood trees rarely seen?" The old man brought Twain to his tribe, and Twain saw the cut down sandalwood forest. Tutu people say their premium, aromatic sandalwood attracted American businessmen with a keen sense of smell early on. Those people, armed with advanced and sharp equipment and powerful muskets, kept cutting down sandalwood trees, and now it is difficult to see sandalwood trees that have accompanied them for countless years on the whole island.

When Twain came to Hawaii, the American Civil War had just ended, and Hawaii, far away, became one of the most affected areas. The outbreak of the Civil War strained sugar supply in the northern United States, so the Americans rushed to Hawaii as fast as they could. Twain, a keen acumen of a good journalist, discovered that the Tuttu people's land properties had quietly changed—indigenous lands were "developed" in large tracts, and they said americans would pay "substantial" rent. But how could the well-informed Twain not know what was behind this, and he looked at the tutu tribe's plantations that had begun to take shape. The plantations still look lush and beautiful under the Hawaiian sunset, but Twain somehow remembers the miserable black slaves in his hometown as a child.

In 1866, leprosy was raging in Hawaii. Twain was surprised to find that the "humanitarianism" that filled the mainstream media in the United States had disappeared at that end of the earth. The Tutu told Twain that the Americans didn't care about the local patients at all, they had simply built a "hell" on Kalaupapa Island, far north of the Molokai Coast. Twain and his guide took a boat to get a closer look at the island, a desolate island with sharp triangles but "the highest sea cliff in the world"—a 3,000-foot-high steep wall on one side of the triangle that houses local lepers.

The guide refused Twain's request to land on the island and fled as quickly as he avoided disaster. He told Twain that in the first half of Twain's arrival, dozens of locals were thrown onto the island, and the Americans gave each of them only a shovel, a blanket, and some potatoes, taro, and seeds, and then they didn't care about those people anymore. No one was able to escape from Kalaupapa Island, which was "built like a prison," and the Tutu people had never seen anyone return from that island, much less had anyone been cured. Twain listened to the guide's narration and looked at the island that was gradually moving away, and he had always been known for his ability to speak eloquently, and he could not find any words of justification.

A man goes out on a long voyage with anticipation, only to find that it is not the imperial era he wants.

Ultimate rebellion

The more people who have truly experienced suffering, the more soberly they have a clear understanding of religion. Mark Twain has never had a deep affection for Christianity, with bitter satires of priests and missionaries in his essays "The Christian God", "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven", and "The Man Sitting in the Dark". Twain found the native Hawaiians' beliefs wonderful, and he found that although the locals attached great importance to the danger of sharks, they were not as afraid as americans, because they believed that "those who have the protection of hawaiian gods should not be afraid of sharks, they will not eat sharks and will not be eaten by sharks" - in Twain's later life, he often used this phrase to ridicule his friends.

Twain was fascinated by the food culture of the Tutu people, preferring all kinds of sweets made from taro, and very much enjoying attending the Tutu people's dinner party. Before each meal, Twain prayed with great interest with the Tutu people, religiously expressing his gratitude for all that nature has given. At the end of the meal, the Tutu people will dance a hula dance that originated from nature to express their inner joy. Whenever this happens, the happiest moment of Twain's day, he dances with the Tutu people and laughs heartily like a real Hawaiian.

Twain, however, found that all this was under great threat. The original hawaiians worshipped polytheism, and Twain also knew their gods such as the Father of the Universe, the Mother of the Universe, the God of Fire, the God of Dwarves, and the God of the House. But these "idolatry" and "heretical beliefs" in the eyes of American missionaries are rebellious and "first things" that must be "resolutely corrected."

The Tutu told Twain that they could only "secretly" perpetuate their faith within the tribe. Because, the Americans forced their king to pass a law requiring all Hawaiians to believe in Christianity. In the past, ancient temples were the most important places in tribal life, and the most important activities such as praying for rain and blessings and ancestor sacrifices were held in it. But now Twain saw christian churches rising up, countless local temples razed to the ground, and only the ruins of the broken walls that no one dared to pay attention to.

More dramatically, Twain also found two diametrically opposed Images of Captain Cook. From an early age, Twain had heard of Captain Cook's "glorious and tragic heroic deeds": the captain came to the uncivilized land for a "great dream", and the hero was bent on bringing "peace" and "civilization" to Hawaii, but was "ruthlessly and cruelly killed" by the local natives. Native Hawaiians have been passing on history in the colloquial form of "storytelling" for hundreds of years, and Twain was so fond of having his guide translate those stories that resulted in hearing another Captain Cook story. Twain repeatedly chewed on the oral history of the locals and had to laugh bitterly.

Unable to contain his inner resentment, he sent back a newsletter directly from Hawaii to reveal the real Captain Cook in history, causing an uproar in public opinion, and he wrote bitterly: "The so-called assassination of Captain Cook is bland and unadorned, not romantic at all, and after careful study, the other party should also be ruled to kill in self-defense." ...... The truth is that on the island, he (Captain Cook) was warmly welcomed by the Natives everywhere he went, and his ship was piled high with all kinds of food that people brought. But he reciprocated these kindnesses with insults and violence..."

On July 19, 1866, Mark Twain left Honolulu, without sandalwood trees, by boat and returned to San Francisco, where bills were everywhere. But the Dao Scars left by the "Imperial Age" in that paradise were repeatedly reflected in his mind, and finally made him determined to retrograde towards the "Imperial Age" to the end.

Since then, Mark Twain has gone farther and farther on the road of "rebellion", faster and faster. He made hundreds of lecture tours, each desperately pointing out the persecution of native Hawaiians, repeatedly exclaiming: "Gentlemen of the civilized world, when these islands were first discovered, the population was about 400,000, but the whites came there and brought different diseases and disasters, and now the indigenous people there have plummeted to less than thirty-five thousand." He also wrote a political essay called "Why We Annex the Hawaiian Islands," which was a bitter satire on the American banditry he had heard and witnessed in Hawaii.

In his later years, Twain was called the "Voltaire of America", and he did his own thing and was not afraid. When the Eight-Power Coalition invaded Beijing, he said: "My sympathy is on the side of the Chinese people", and in his public speech, he took a clear stand in support of China, declaring loudly: "Chinese and the Boxers are patriotic, and they love their motherland... I just want them to win!" That year, he was labeled a "rebel" by the official and mainstream media in the United States, a label that was not removed until his death.

Many people do not understand that Twain is not a small angry youth with insufficient social experience, let alone an old giant baby who does not eat rice, he is a person who has a very clear understanding of social rules, but why he must choose the arduous path of "imperial rebellion". Perhaps, the answer lies in his travel newsletter sent to the Sacramento Union in 1866: "The sky is blue, the scenery is green, the trees do not wither all year round, and the sky is always sunny and clear. ⋯⋯ (Hawaii) It is the most beautiful island in the ocean. ”

—END—

*Published in Traveler Magazine, Issue 12, 2021

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