Polynesian Cultural Center

When we visited Oahu years ago, we passed on visiting the Polynesian Cultural Center. It’s a long ways from Oahu and we never spent more than a couple of days on this island so it was too out of the way for a quick visit. This time we made sure to visit this place especially after spending time in New Zealand and Fiji, two of the Polynesian cultures highlighted at the Center. 

Polynesian Wedding

The Center was created by the Mormon Church more than 40 years ago partly to provide work for the students at BYU-Hawaii located next door. Students come to the school from all over the Pacific and most of them need help paying their bills. Jobs at the Center provide both income for the students and a way for them to share their culture with others. The Mormon Church has long been a promoter of intercultural understanding. From a selfish point of view this is important for the young people they send all over the world proselytizing. These missionaries will only be successful if they can connect with the people they are working to convert and this can only happen if they understand those cultures. When I taught World Geography I used their Culturegrams as one of the resources. These four-page pamphlets on each country provided basic cultural information about the people of those countries. The Polynesian Cultural Center is another way they help people understand other cultures.

The park is a sort of Disneyland without the thrill rides. It only offers two rides. One is a canoe ride that passes by each of the six cultures with a ‘village’ for patrons to visit. The other is a tram ride that visits the college campus and the LDS Temple Visitor Center. Each of the villages has houses and other buildings one would find on their islands and one or two shows highlighting ceremonies or elements of daily life on the island. These included a Tahitian Wedding Ceremony, a Maori Welcome Ceremony, a demonstration of coconut preparation and tree climbing from Samoa and others from Tonga, Hawai’i and Fiji. The tour we had chosen also included a dinner with island foods and the big Ha! Breath of Life show at the end of the evening.

There is too much to do in one visit, so we chose to have a guide as we visited the six villages. Our guide, a political science student from Fiji, was great as she added information about her home and more knowledge about each of the different villages. We would definitely recommend using a guide for a first time visit. Next time, we will do it on our own and pick and choose a bit so we can see things we missed on this trip. We might also purchase dinner at one of the restaurants rather than the big one we had although that would mean missing the smaller singing and dancing show we had during dinner. It’s also a good idea to utilize one of the bus tours as it takes over an hour to drive and if you stay for the show, and that is a must, you will be driving back in the dark on dark and winding roads. Better to leave the driving to them. 

This boat takes folks throughout the park

This boat is part of a parade of nations

As we visited each village we also had time to ask more questions about the things we were seeing or didn’t see. Each of the people at the village is a student or graduate from that culture so they were able to answer any question any of us had. 

The evening show was spectacularly worthy of Broadway. The storyline begins with the birth of a boy and follows him through his life. Each segment includes dancing and singing from one of the six village cultures. The stage is backed by a rock wall through which performers can come and go. They also enter and leave through the aisles in the auditorium adding more excitement. The show ends with the most spectacular dancing of all, the Samoan flaming knife dance. The flaming batons are actually knives so the danger is real although the skill exhibited by the dancers makes it look rather easy. Not that I plan on trying this at home or anywhere else any time in the near or distant future. Watching this is enough, thanks. 

Through it all, we left with a much better understanding of how people live on the islands of the Pacific and increased our desire to see more of them. 

Samoans climb the tree to gather coconuts