The Hawaiian Equivalent of King Richard's Faire

So on Friday, I died and went to geek heaven.

Last year when I lived in Hawaii, I foolishly resisted going to the Polynesian Cultural Center.  I’m not entirely sure why, everyone said it was a good time, but the fact that it was a center for learning about the six Polynesian islands, but was somehow run entirely by Mormons, I don’t know.  This just didn’t feel right to me.  Nothing against Mormons, but it just seemed weird they’d be doing the whole Polynesian thing. But I kept hearing good things and I thought, what the heck, let’s go figure what the Mormon connection is to the Polynesian islands.

Let’s be clear, the Polynesian Cultural Center isn’t all that authentic.  It’s King Richard’s Faire authentic.  The good parts of the culture have been scrubbed down and made palatable and tourist-friendly.  The roots are there and so is the spirit, but let’s just say the average American tourist would rather learn to hula then hear about say, the land struggle in Hawaii with the five ruling estates.  Just saying.  Regardless, it’s wickedly good fun. 

Now here’s where the Mormons really figure in.  The BYU students, most of them are from Samoa, are the performers, the fire dancers, the kings and queens of the luau.  That’s the Mormon connection.  And let’s face it, I’m sure there is all sorts of snarky, hilarity going on behind the scenes and putting up with dumb tourists, but what a totally awesome part-time student job.  I worked at a bookstore in college.  I ordered text books.  These guys get to dance the hula, climb trees, and ride water floats.   

I decided to do the guided tour by a BYU student because I heard this got you into special exhibits, shows and a VIP luau.  VIP food?  Sign me up.  Our tour guide’s name was Manny, he was a Samoan by birth and a BYU senior.  Manny was the s**t.  And here’s how you knew.  He carried a big walking stick and at one point early on in the tour, he shook said stick and said “just call me Tom Bombadil.”  He instantly won my admiration and adoration (at least for the first part of the tour, later he did something borderline unforgivable to me, more on that later).

Here’s Manny aka Snarky’s favorite Tolkien-quoting Samoan :)

FIJI

The first stop was the island of Fiji.  It was a good warm up stop, we all took part in a bamboo stick banging music ritual.  It was led by a man playing the nose flute.  Yup, that’s right, the Nose Flute.  The people of Fiji believed that the breath from the nose was the purest breath, more holy than that which came from your mouth.  This gave me pause, as queen of bi-annual sinus infections, this was difficult to imagine.  Maybe the people of Fiji should come visit me in the winter, check my nose out, and see if they still think that nose breath is holy and pure.  

Fun fact about Fiji that would upset feminists: very much like the pharaohs of Egypt, when the chief passed on, he got to take all of his worldly possessions with him.  This included all of his women: wives, pleasure ladies and servants.  Here was the kicker: there were three ways to send them into the afterlife: clubbing them to death, stoning, or drowning.  The chief got to pick (obviously, he made his wishes known before he passed).  I dunno, this probably inspired some sort of womanly obedience in life, because let’s face it: nobody wants to be clubbed to death like a baby seal.  But I digress.

HAWAI’I:

We learned to hula and not just total crap tourist hula they show you on the beach.  This was nearly an hour demonstration, courtesy of the VIP package.  Consider this heavy-handed foreshadowing for later: I cannot dance.  The sole exception is tango, for some reason that dance clicks with my brain.  For every other dance, I look like a wounded hippo.  The hula was no exception.  All I can say was, I stood in the back and tried not to call attention to myself.  Of course, this would come back to haunt me.  Course it would.

TAHITI:

This was a favorite destination of mine because everything we did here involved food.  First, we learned to make coconut bread.  Excellent.  And then we learned about Poi.  Poi comes from Taro, which is an indigenous root.  It’s considered the Hawaiian potato.  It is bright purple in color and when you grind up the roots, you get poi.  Now poi gets a bad rap and deservedly so.  When you go to a luau, the Islanders think it’s a hoot to put a bunch of poi out.  It tastes like paste.  What they don’t tell you is if you mix it with something (I prefer pork), poi is actually pretty good because it will pick up the flavor of what you mix with it.  The Tahitians flavor poi with coconut milk, which makes it taste delicious.  

Mmm.  Poi.

TONGA:

Here I died and went to snark heaven the first time.  The main event in Tonga was a drum demonstration.  This required audience participation.  Now the Master of the Drums seen here in colorful feathers and in what I’m calling it a gut catcher (which I’m pretty sure is not the native name for it, but just look at it and tell me that its purpose isn’t to catch the gut), gets to pick three guys from the audience.

Master of the Drum Ceremony with Gut Catcher 

His choices are excellent.  You know how when you read a fairy tale, the set up is always the same? You have one beautiful princess, but she’s got a flaw, like maybe she’s not the most virtuous one, so you have the second beautiful princess, but the second princess has a flaw, not like she’s not the sharpest jewel in the crown, and then you have the third princess, who turns out to be the hottest of the three, the smartest of the three and the most virtuous of the three, aka the fairest of them all. This is what is was like here. 

The first drum beater is a shirtless guy from Seattle with long hair, white socks pulled up to his knees and he’s pushing a baby carriage.  Amazing.  The Master of Drum’s second choice is a kilt-wearing Alaskan (I knew he was from Alaska because he was on my tour bus.  Aren’t you jealous?)  This man has got an excellent sense of humor, you would need one to pull off the kilt and white chicken leg combination.   

The third pick is the stunner.  He’s a mild-mannered Japanese tourist.  And he’s wearing the world’s most b**ching fanny pack.  

Now, the Seattle guy goes first.  The Master of the Drums shows him a few uncomplicated beats.  This guy turns out to be a stud drummer and being from Seattle, it’s likely he’s a drummer in some grungy garage band.  Percussion-wise, he’s the most talented, so the Master of the Drums kicks it up a bit, but let’s remember, Seattle is like the first princess.  There’s a better princess coming.

Now here comes Baked Alaska.  Baked Alaska isn’t as rhythmically talented as Seattle, but he’s more daring (he’s wearing a flipping kilt) and clearly has a really good sense of humor.  The Master of the Drum finishes a routine by banging his head against the drum (shown here) and Baked Alaska follows the head bang.  The crowd goes wild.  But again, this is only fairy tale Princess number two.  Clearly, the best is yet to come.

Mild-mannered, fanny-pack sporting Japanese guy looks worried.  The Master of the Drum does a primal scream.  He looks expectantly over at the Tourist.  The Tourist gives a weak, nervous laugh into the mic.  Master of the Drum chides him accordingly and gives another primal scream.  Tourist leans into the mic, a determined look in his gleaming eyes, and he lets loose a yell from the depths of his belly that would make Howard Dean proud.  Crowd erupts into wild applause. 

But Master of the Drum isn’t quite done with this Tourist.  Master of the Drum begins to bang the drum and as he does, he twirls 360 degrees left without missing a beat.  Tourist follows and executes perfectly.  Master of the Drum twirls 360 right.  Now Tourist spins right, but he loses his balance and though I don’t have the right angle for it, I am almost certain that it’s his fanny pack is what knocks the drum loose.  It falls from the stand, begins to roll off the stage, Tourist goes running after it as does Master of the Drum, his face alarmed.  This is beyond hilarious, crowd is rolling because let’s face it: fanny packs are the devil and will get you into all sorts of trouble.  Clearly, this was Princess number three, the fairest of them all.  GAME.  SET.  MATCH. 

Drum Roll, Please (and note the fanny pack)

AOTEROA

Aoeteroa, or New Zealand to the rest of us, is home to the fierce warriors who stick their tongues out and scream a lot.  Even their women are fierce for these are the women of the poi balls.  Now poi balls are bags of poi on ropes that they swing around nun chuck style, only cooler. 

We watch a demonstration involving spears.  And then we get to throw them.  This is fun.  I discover that I am quite good at throwing spears.  I throw my spear even further than the retired cop in our tour.  I win.  I’m also about twenty years younger than the next youngest person in our tour, so it’s not much of a victory.  But given that I’m so accident prone, I’m just stoked I didn’t injury anybody. 

I am not so lucky with the poi ball demonstration.  We spread out in the field and Manny brings out poi balls and the girls in green.  They lead us through some simple poi ball technique.  At first, I’m pleased to realize I’m quite gifted at poi balls.  This is amazing!  But of course, pride goeth before a fall.  We do some move where you bring the left poi ball across the chest while swinging the right one over the head.  The next thing I know, I taste blood and have a fat lip.  Of course, this is not lost on Manny, who makes a snarky comment of some sort at my expense that I can’t hear.  Everyone laughs.  Okay, given that we were throwing spears before this, a fat lip isn’t too bad.  

Manny and the stupid poi balls....

SAMOA:

Our last stop is Samoa, Manny’s home island, and home of the Happy People.  Samoans are considered the Happy Island because in this culture, men do the hunting, gathering, and cooking.  Most excellent.  Here the men show us to make fire from coconut husks and then they shimmy up the trees to get the coconuts.  Everyone in the group takes a collective breath inward, but I suspect the ladies do so because the state of this man’s abs from shimmying up the tree are in a word: abtastic.  And he does all the cooking?  Sign me up.

CANOE PAGEANT:

Now before we head off to the luau and the night’s show, we watch a canoe pageant from the six islands.  I’ve never been a parade kind of girl, never liked watching them or marching in them  as a kid.  So I plop down expecting some boring, good-natured floats (literally floats, they come through on a waterway).

Float 1: Here comes the Ali’I, the royalty.  They look stern and regal.  Yawn.

Float 2: Enter the fierce Aoteroa.  Girls in green with poi balls do an absolutely jaw dropping display with poi balls while balancing on the floats.  This makes me feel worse about my stupid fat lip, but now I’m interested in the canoe pageant again.  There’s an element of danger.  

Float 3:  Fiji.  Their costumes are brown.  Sigh.  Their routine is sedate, they don’t even stand up on their barge.  There are no poi balls or other things to swing around. Sigh.  This is like the 4-H float.  Back to being bored.

Float 4: Tonga.  I dozed off.  What happened?

Float 5: Hawaii.  This is the prom queen float.  The most beautiful BYU girls get picked to be Hawaii, wear the sweet costumes, and move through a graceful hula.  Okay, I can get on board with this. Everyone loves the prom queen.

Float 6: Samoa, the happy people.  They do a happy dance.  Life is good in Samoa.  Until one of them loses their balance and plummets into the water.  Better still, this guy takes a while to fall and he almost takes the whole float with him because his unbalance causes the boat to nearly tip and he almost kicks one of the girls in the face.  The happy Samoans lose it, shaking silently with laughter, once the guy has surfaced and appears to be okay.  The routine is in shambles.  Snarky likes the canoe pageant again.

 (And into the water goes Samoa)

Float 7: Tahiti.  These girls aren’t the prom queens like Hawaii, but they have a different kind of appeal.  I will call this the wrex-n-effex appeal.  These girls are the rump shakers and as they gyrate through their routine, shaking it like they have something to prove, every guy in the crowd sits up straighter.  Good titillating times.  Good way to end the canoe pageant.

VIP LUAU:

Now here is where Manny sticks it to me in a big way.  He announces to our little group comprised of pasty mid-westerners, jovial Canadians, and retirees, that he needs a volunteer.  I’m no moron.  I keep my hand and eyes down.  So does everybody else.

Manny looks directly at me.  Now keep in mind, I’ve already taken some good-natured ribbing from Manny:

He has teased me for being by myself: “why you have no young man with you?  Why you no pick one from Samoa?  They cook you know.  I’m single.  I cook.”

This is fine, I’m used to being on tours by myself by this point and the Canadians from BC have more or less adopted me as a surrogate grand daughter.  I love old people. 

He has teased me at the coconut bread making activity: “you learn how to cook, Boston and maybe you get yourself a man.” 

Haha.  I think I cook just fine, but I let this slide.  I’m in good-natured, non-Snark mode.

Finally, he has teased me for hitting myself in the face with a poi ball (this was completely warranted). 

I’ve proven to be a good sport and he knows it.  So he says, “hey, Boston.  How bout you represent our happy Ohana (Ohana is Hawaiian for family).  You do us all proud and maybe we get called to dinner first.”  Everybody on the group is on board with this. 

I have a sinking feeling.  “What do I have to do?”

“You just have to dance the hula.  I saw you dance the hula.  You good, girl.  You shake a da, hips and we get to go first for dinner.”

Damn it, Tom Bombadil.  This is not cool.  I thought we were friends.

I don’t want to dance in front of a bunch of burned tourists.  I don’t want to let everyone in on what I already know: there is just no excuse for how poorly I dance, how rhythmically uncoordinated I am for a non-injured, healthy human being.  This is not one of those scenarios, where I’m like, oh I don’t want to do this, but secretly I do (that scenario is karaoke).  This is not that. 

But there’s no getting out of this.  I blush deeply red (and yes, my Sam Adams tour guide brethren, you know exactly what I’m talking about).  Even my ears are flaming red.  So I let myself be taken and dressed in Hawaiian accoutrements.  The gal in charge reminds me and the nine other suckers how to do the hula.  I look around.  There’s a child of ten, so I’m not the youngest this time.  Good times.  We’re a motley crew of people, some people are wearing fanny packs, others visors, most of the group is over forty and are bound to have arthritis or ailments of some sort which will make me look better. I’ll just smile a lot.  I will get through this.  I will never see any of these people again.  

We get called up on stage one by one and the lady of the house, the woman in charge, introduces each of us along with our bus number.  Then we have to dance for the Royal Family. 

Tough Crowd:

I don’t want to talk about it.  I just swivel my hips a lot and blush.  A lot.  Of the ten tables, we are called third.  I’m beaten by the 10 year old and a woman who was a spring chicken back when the civil war was fought.  Oh good.  

But, my happy Ohana seems pleased at getting to go third as opposed to last, which is where I expected to be.  And here’s where I redeem myself (but I guess this hinges on your concept of redemption).  Remember the Canadians who adopted me?  Well, these two couple are celebrating their 40^th anniversaries and life long friendships here in Hawaii.  They are so, so, so, so, so nice (essentially, they are Marmots.  Snark snark, inside joke).  Well the, uh, portliest one of them all (he’s got at least a hundred and fifty pounds on me) and an absolutely amazing handle bar mustache, leans over to me and says, “well, at least they’ll be making money off you on the buffet, because they won’t be making it off me, that’s for sure.”

What’s that supposed to mean?  Look, I’ve been on the butt end of all jokes today, and I’ve been a good sport, but now my pride has been seriously nicked.  There is one thing I do better than anyone in this whole Ohana and no, it’s not the hula.  Let’s revisit the source of pride and constant theme in my blogs: girl can eat.

And girl does eat.  Girl goes up four times to the buffet, including the dessert table twice.  Luaus are pretty exciting because of the Kalua Pig (so keep in mind, this is what danced for.  Pig being cooked in an underground oven).  

So here I am with my first plate of food.  Three plates later, I’ve got the respect of the burly man from BC.  I’m not sure, this is a good thing or not, being such a glutton, but the food was really good and it had been an awfully long day of fun activities. 

As you know, you cannot really appreciate the sweets of life without the sour.  There was a couple from New York on our bus and they were, well, New Yorkers (I’m sorry, Pete.  You’re my best friend and you know I love you, but you’ve got to admit, on the whole, the only people more obnoxious than Bostonians are New Yorkers).  I avoided them most of the day, particularly at the Canoe Pageant where the lady New Yorker narrated the entire pageant in nasally tones to someone on her cell phone.  So here comes the unexpected snark delight of the evening for me (this was even cooler than the guy falling in the water).  And I also want to point out that we were briefed on the bus about the lack of alcohol at a Mormon establishment, so this shouldn’t have come as a shocker to anyone who had been listening.

Male New Yorker signalling to our luau server: “Yeah, I’ll have a Mai Tai.”

Luau server: “I’m sorry, sir.  We don’t serve those here at the Polynesian Cultural Center.”  She’s trying to be subtle.  I admire this, but there’s no being subtle with New Yorkers.  This approach is doomed to fail.

Male Yorker: (rolls eyes and sighs loudly).  “I’ll just take a beer then.”

Luau server: (smile faltering) “I’m sorry, sir.  We don’t serve alcohol at the Polynesian Cultural Center.”

Lady New Yorker: “Honey, they’re Mormons (she says this as if they all have leprosy), no alcohol.  They don’t, uh, partake of that.”  She smiles condescendingly at all of us as if the Mormons are primitive bush folk with quaint, non-Western traditions.

Male New Yorker: “Are you kidding me?  You mean to tell me I can’t get a drink?  What kind of luau is this where you can’t get a goddamn drink?”

Luau server: (not without some irony).  “A traditional one, sir.”  (She smiles, oh so sweetly).  “But I’d be happy to get you a non-alcoholic smoothie.”

I exchange small, furtive smiles with the Canadians.  You just can’t take New Yorkers anywhere.  Every Ohana has one.

Now, don’t worry, it wasn’t all cold-hearted snark.  In fact, Snarky got a little misty when the Lady of the House invited all the couples celebrating their anniversaries to come up and dance on stage.  Here are my Canadians.  I’m not gonna lie, Snarky definitely got a warm and fuzzy feeling.    

Then it was time to waddle over to the show, where I ordered Pineapple Delight.  This made the BC’s guys eyes bug out.  But in my defense, Pineapple Delight is pineapple-flavored sorbet (okay, like 5 scoops worth of sorbet) and there’s mango, peach, and pineapple cut up in the bottom.  I’m not being a total glutton, this is a totally strategic move on my part.  I learned last year that fresh pineapple is a digestive aid and helps with stomach aches.  You know, just in case you ate four plates of food at the luau buffet or whatever.  And after eating it, I do feel better.

 

Snarky, post luau.  Note blog shirt.  That's right.

The show, the crowning jewel of the PCC, is Ha: the breath of life.  It’s outside in a stadium with fireworks and waterfalls and again, it highlights not only Hawaiian culture (there’s a really touching story of boy, boy grows to manhood, boy meets girl, boy becomes a man, man defends village from invaders, man loses father but has child of his own.  Very Lion King Circle of Life, but it’s not a bad message), but also the Hawaiian disregard for general liability laws and safety.  By this I mean, the fire dancing called the fire knife dancing portion of this show is nothing short of the coolest thing I have ever seen.  It goes on and on and there are men in skirts and they catch the skirts on fire, and set their feet on fire, put fire in their mouth, and twirl the fire sticks around, and then they throw the fire spears back and forth to each other.  

Look, it’s probably a whole lot less dangerous than it looks, but there is no disputing how freaking cool it is.  Also, at some point, there is a gaf because a guy misses catching the spear and someone, who isn’t in costume, runs out and stomps the flaming stick out.  So yes, accidents do happen.

But all snark aside, there’s something so incredibly cool about this.  This is something, I will never do.  And yes, there are lots of things I will never do, like go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, vote Democratic, sing the National Anthem at a sporting event, but there is something so inherently dangerous and primal about fire. It's mesmerizing.

After the show, we all head out to our bus.  Manny makes everyone clap for Baked Alaska (our brave kilt-wearing, drum guy from the drum demonstration) and me, the hula queen.  “Hey Boston, how come you no try to sneak a fire dancer home with you?  You got one of those on the bus with you?” 

Ha ha, Tom Bombadil.  Ha ha.