Wombat

I just got back from Hawaii, which is, as you know, delicious. While there, we spent a day at the Polynesian Cultural Experience, which was the weirdest thing. It's like one of those movies that starts with a perfect vacation spot which slides downhill into a nightmare, like Westworld or Jurassic Park.

All the people you meet working there are friendly beautiful Polynesians, but gradually you realise that the whole enterprise is owned and operated by the Mormons, the perfect enemy of the relaxed liberal Polynesian culture. You know the Mormons who dispatched missionaries to those islands to destroy the native culture, and make everybody wear clothes and stop having fun.

So what you get is a patronising mormonized version of island culture. A lei is not presented as is traditional with a kiss of friendship, because that's too racy for the tight-arsed mormons. The "traditional" dress that the performers wear includes long underwear, zips up the back, and even whole extra lycra garments to ensure a Salt Lake City standard of decency at all times. Don't expect any alcohol at the evening Luaua - there isn't even caffeine. Depriving Americans of alcohol while on a Hawaiian trip is cruel and unusual punishment.

We were repeatedly offered a free side-trip to the Mormon temple, a really offensive way to treat paying customers there for a celebration of the polynesian culture.

So how do they get all these young polynesians there to staff the center? The deal is that they get to come out to attend Brigham Young University Hawaii, but must work their way through college at the Polynesian Cultural Center. I can see the upside of this, but it seems to me that the church is making a big profit on the deal, and that it aims to send them back home to their islands as Mormon missionaries. Diabolically clever really, using the pretense of preserving their culture to help destroy it.