Hawaii: Waikiki – Laie

The epitome of scholarly involvement in a staged tourist attraction can be found in the Polynesian Cultural Center, located in the small community of Laie, an hour’s drive from the prime Hawaiian tourist destination of Waikiki. It is a recreation of Polynesian cultures which is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. The center was established with a threefold purpose, according to Stanton (1989), the purposes are:

        i.            to preserve the culture of the Polynesians;

      ii.            to provide employment for students of Brigham Young University- Hawaii Campus;

    iii.            to provide direct financial aid to BYU-Hawaii.

It is the “reconstruction of the exotic, more popular elements of Polynesia and puts “on stage” for the visitors selected aspects of Polynesian life”. In addition to showing aspects of Hawaiian culture, it also illustrates the material culture performing  arts of other Polynesian cultures, bringing employees from Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa, and Tonga to demonstrate their culture. This tourist attraction fulfills the cultural tourism expectations of most visitors and has become the second most popular tourist attraction in Hawaii. Also an important place from the community’s point of view, that the center has increased the income and material welfare of Laie without interfering with the daily lives of the people. “Students attend grade school, a college functions effectively. The bank opens and closes, in general, people work away from the prying eyes of the tourist”.

Other Example (Contd.......)

As a manifestation of this new approach, the Balinese Regional Government launched the Bali Arts Festival in 1979 at the opening of a new Arts Centre in Denpasar. Since its inception this month-long festival  has been regarded by the Balinese as evidence of the Island’s cultural renaissance, yet ‘it would be mistaken to consider this event as primarily a tourist attraction as over the years it has proved so popular with the Balinese that they make up nowadays the major part of its public’ (Picard, 1993; Yamashita’s Interview). Many of the offerings at the annual festival could not be termed traditional under the anthropological definition of something old, something performed in its traditional physical setting with its age-old values and purposes intact; but they are indisputably of Balinese origin, drawing upon the long continuous history of Balinese creative expression and, as such, they are authentically Balinese.

While responding about cultural tourism in Bali, Shinji Yamashita says, “up to now, tourism has always been considered negatively in relation to culture-the argument is that development of tourism destroys traditional culture. However, the destruction of traditional culture cannot reattributed solely to the development of tourism; this argument makes the mistake of idealizing traditional culture, as though it has been handed down unchanged from ancient times. In bali tourism stimulated traditional culture and influenced new cultural creativity.

Since Balinese tourism relies upon Balinese culture, if tourism were to destroy Balinese culture it would destroy Balinese tourism. The result is that the Balinese, having been compelled to define their cultural heritage, in the process have put tourism to work for Bali rather than the Balinese working for tourism. The key difference in the analyses of Picard (1995) and McKean (1989) lies in their emic approach, as distinct from the etic approach of many others. This conclusion recalls Wilson’s (1981; in Sofield) insistence that tourism analyses will benefit by ‘a thoroughly empirical research strategy which seeks hermeneutic understanding in terms of the knowledge possessed by the participants themselves-their definitions, goals, strategies, decisions, and the perceived consequences of their actions’. It includes their ‘on-going symbolic construction of tradition and authenticity’ (Wood, 1993: in Sofield).

While citing the views of American cultural analyst James Clifford, Yamashita does not agree to keep traditional culture in a museum. According to James Clifford, modern ethnographic histories oscillate between two metanarratives, or narratives about narratives: one of homogenization or loss, the other of emergence invention. In homogenization or loss idea is that lesser cultures will be assimilated and driven to extinction by stronger and more dominant cultures. The emergence or invention idea is the opposite; it highlights the act that cultures are fluid, and are capable of joining with other cultures or of diversifying and being reorganized. Under this idea cultures do not die out, but are in a continual process of creation. Today’s indigenous cultures exist within global political and economic systems; we need to think in terms of creation of cultures in new conditions, not of extinction. This is a period of globalization, and we should expert that indigenous cultures will move across borders and mix. The example of Bali shoes us that tourism can play an important role in the creation; as well as Bali, this has been observed at many other places in the world, including my country, Japan (Shinji Yamashita).

Other Example

Another example of the ‘imposed etic’ (Bery, 1990; in Sofield) may be found with reference to Bali, where numerous analyses have criticized tourism as a destructive agent of change (Hanna, 1972; in Sofield, 2000). However, the research of Picard (1995) and McKean (1989) inter alia, both working independently in Bali over a twenty-year period, demonstrates that by using a more actor-oriented (emic) approach the interrelationship between tourism change and culture change cannot be viewed as a ‘one-way street’; the host communities adapt to and in turn modify that tourism which takes place within their social space. Picard has termed this ‘touristic culture’: through tourism, culture has been transformed into the main economic resource of Bali and by the same token Balinese culture has become a major bargaining point with the central Indonesian Government, tourism authorities and tourist operators (Picard, 1993; in Sofield).

Picard chronicled the way in which the Balinese elite responded to the imposition of a tourism development plan from Jakarta which was based on an ‘outsider’ view of their culture by defining and refining in a comprehensive way their ‘Balinese-ness’. Over a period of eighty years, from 1971 to 1979, they held a series of seminars under the joint auspices of the Directorate General of Culture and the Directorate General of Tourism which resulted in the formulation of the ‘doctrine of cultural tourism’ for Bali and the signing of an agreement between the two Directorates General. This established the Balinese Commission of Cooperation for the Promotion and Development of Cultural Tourism (Komisi Kerjasama Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Wisata Budaya) whose chief objectives were to:

        i.            increase and extend the use of culture for the development of tourism; and

      ii.            to use the proceeds of tourism development for the promotion and development of culture.

Sanger’s Example

Sanger (1988; Hitchcock 1993; in Sofield, 2000) provides an example of the interface between tourism and traditional culture with an emic analysis of changes to the barong dance dramas of the village of Singapadu in Bali. Barong performances have been adapted in a variety of ways to suit tourist needs. They have been shortened from more than three hours to about one hour. They include new sequences and slapstick moments which transcend linguistic boundaries to enhance enjoyment for tourists. Women have been introduced to play female roles which traditionally only men had played. Trance sequences with Kris (daggers) and the eating of live chickens have been omitted because of tourist disapproval (Sofield).

However, the villagers have not interpreted these changes in terms of cultural denigration (Sanger, 1988; in Sofield, 2000). First, they have maintained the traditional prayers and offerings at the beginning of each performance and continue to treat the barong with great respect. Second, the oldest and holiest barong costume is not used for commercial performances so it is not desecrated. Third, the villagers maintain that the baring likes to dance whatever the circumstances. Fourth, ‘ownership’ of the barong provides a resource which the villagers can utilize for much-needed cash income and, since the tourist revenue is distributed communally, the charge of individual greed is inaccurate. Finally, the barong reinforces community solidarity in much the same way as the vilavilairevo of Fiji and Sanger records that during the monsoons the villagers miss the opportunity it provides to come together during the tourist season. In this instance, commoditization of culture may be reversed and considered as a process of ‘culturising commercialism’, since local traditions have not been modified in culturally acceptable ways. ‘Original’ traditions now exist with ‘new’ traditions in the same time and space and ‘touristic culture is very much part of the reality’.

Bali

Bali first became a tourist site in the 1920s. In 1930 the American traveler Hickman Powell published Bali: The last paradise, recounting the island during the 1920s. There was also a film of the same name, which was made in the 1930s. From that time through to the present day the image of paradise has remained unchanged and still features in travel brochures.

Model Cultural Tourism: Bali and Hawaii

In different parts of the world tourism receiving countries have developed several types of model cultural centers like Williamsburg, Plymouth Plantation, Old Sturbridge Village, and Mystic Seaport in the United States, as well as in many folk museums of Europe. This is a kind of reconstruction of a historic past. These turn time back a century or two, affording a scale against which visitors can measure progress, and be reminded of the hardships encountered by their forebears. Many are also “living museums” where school children may spend a day or two and learn firsthand history. In addition to Hawaii’s Polynesian Cultural Center, other ethnographic models include Fiji’s Orchid Island, Bangkok’s Rose Garden-Thailand in Miniature, and korea’s Folk Village. Smaller versions operate in cities such as Jakarta, Manila, and Cairo. Popular and profitable, these models appear to meet the ethnic expectations of the tourist. Although only a reconstruction of the life-style they had hoped to observe, these models offer a more accurate ethnographic view than is reflected in the modern native culture, and allow the visitor the freedom to wander and photograph at will. Model cultures also offer another distinct advantage, especially at tourist sites where the physical presence of humans may cause damage. The actual Paleolithic caves of Lascaux (France) with their world-renowned polychrome paintings are now closed to the public to prevent exfoliation of the paint. However, the surrogate display is in some ways more graphic than the original. Similarly, the Viking settlement at L’ Anseaux meadows in northern Newfoundland would have been destroyed by visitors tramping through the archaeological pits, but now-reconstructed village provides a fine interpretive center that documents the Viking ventures into the New World, and fully merits its number one rank on the United Nation’s World Patrimony list. Even the spread of popular fantasies, in the Disneylands of Tokyo and Paris, provide forms of model cultures for “children of all ages” for they too have internal “theme villages” and fairy-tale motifs.

Further construction of model cultures is to be expected and should be warmly received as long as the models remain reasonably accurate. Model cultures have the great advantage of structuring tourist visits to a site away from the daily lives of ordinary people.

Souvenir

As camera is the identity batch of the tourist so the souvenirs are tangible evidences of travel that are often shared with family and friends, but what one really brings back are memories of experiences. As Carpenter (1973) puts it so well that the connection between symbol and things come from the fact that the symbol-the word or picture (or artifact)-helps give the “thing” its identity clarity definition. It helps convert given reality into experienced reality, and is therefore an indispensable part of all experience. Souvenirs, derived from the Latin word subvenire, which means ‘to come to mind’ are an important symbolic adjunct to the tourist industry, providing the tourist with something tangible to take home while simultaneously providing local employment in an arts and crafts industry (Smith, 1989). Similarly, the term vacation is also derived from Latin word vacare that means ‘to leave (one’s house) empty’. But, now the term ‘vacation’ is used as ‘to go off to work’ which has become key concept for modern tourism.