Hawaii, Day 2

[ladysprite]

Day 2
(written Friday, July 14)

I just realized that before I got here, I had never seen the sun set over the ocean. It’s a little thing, and it had never occurred to me living on the east coast, until a day after I saw it.

The Polynesian Cultural Center is wonderful, if you’re a nerd like me. It’s somewhat like a cross between Epcot and Plimoth Plantation – touristy and polished and a little gimmicky, but at the same time an honest attempt at historic reenactment and cultural preservation. The little shows in each area teach you a lot, there are a bunch of hands-on activities, and if you pay attention, it’s even more fun to talk to the behind-the-scenes people.

The luau was ridiculously fun. The food was good, though I’ve learned that I don’t particularly like poi – it tastes a bit like Cream of Wheat that’s starting to go bad. The slow-roasted pig was delicious, lomilomi salmon is my new favorite food, and I’m sure there was a bunch of other good stuff, but I was rather distracted by watching the hula dancers (lakshmi, it reminds me a *lot* of Indian dancing on Valium - similar symbolism and motion-categories, but more slow and vague and flowy. I don't quite have the vocabulary to explain it.).

Then there was the Big Damn Cultural escapade with dance from all the Polynesian nations, and I have a few take-home points from that:
1) The people of Tahiti worry that their best dancers in their sexy hip-shake dance are too sexy for normal mortals to survive watching, so they make the best women wear ridiculous pope-hats, and their men all do the Funky Chicken instead.
2) Fiji is like the semi-feral and possibly psychopathic relative that gets locked in the basement but can kick everyone else’s ass into next week. And their war dance rocks.
3) The people of Samoa are insane. They also apparently invented the pratfall, and they put out fires with their butts.

Let me say that again. They put out fires with their butts. I know they’re the people of Maui, the trickster god, but that’s really a bit much. I can understand the fire-spinning, and things like that. It’s flashy, and showy, and impressive. But how does fire-sitting become a cultural symbol? Not only does someone have to think of it, and convince someone else to do it, but they have to then convince them to do it again, and again, until they figure out how not to get burned in the process.

All in all, I’m both impressed and a bit…. Well, not amused and not scared, but…. They put out fires. With their butts.

Long day, much fun. And now, off to the conference.