One of the tangents the Superferry flap has taken is the claim that Neighbor Island residents don't want O'ahu people washing up on their turf. Stay on your own island, you wild city people you. Don't bring your fast cars and city ways and bad influences to our virgin shores.

At least that's how some O'ahu people are taking it.

Though there may be some meat in that stew, it is being served up more by the people taking offense, seasoned, of course, by the Superferry folks themselves. It works in their favor to frame the conflict as locals against locals rather than Superferry versus concerned residents.

Truth be told, there is a fear among Neighbor Islanders about Honolulu ways and big city style taking over their small-town groove. This predates Superferry, though. It goes back decades. O'ahu has long been the fast and fancy city mouse that both impresses and frightens its country cousins.

O'ahu has things that are foreign to the Neighbor Islands. Like freeways. There are lots of folks who are comfortable driving through Kaua'i's Knudsen Gap in the pitch black night with blinding rain, only one good headlight and a goat tied to the hood of the truck but who would not, could not dare navigate H-1 during broad daylight in light traffic.

Paying for parking is another city complication. There are now parking structures in Kahului and a few stalls with parking meters in Hilo and Lihu'e, but you can usually find a spot on the grass beyond the mud where no coins are necessary. In Honolulu, there is no grass parking. There is no mud parking. There is no parking, only circling and swearing.

Many people on the Neighbor Islands think of O'ahu as Ala Moana Center during the Christmas rush. Crowded, crazy, watch your wallet, grab the thing you want quick before somebody else gets to it first. The idea of Magic Island is a mind blower if you're from a place where the beach is a beach, not the part of the city that happens to end in water. Magic Island, Ala Moana Beach Park, all of Waikiki — the concept of an urban beach is awful to consider if the beaches you know are a bit wild and untamed.

Images of the misty green Ko'olaus, the bucolic country lanes of upper Wahiawa, the sweet old Manoa houses with big backyards never come to mind. Many Neighbor Island residents who have been to O'ahu have never seen where it is quiet and gentle.

O'ahu carries a kind of a guarded respect, like the big bull on campus with a good heart but a wild streak.

Opposition to the Superferry isn't discrimination against O'ahu people, but a rejection of the big city problems that O'ahu represents.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.