Millions keep coming to a place in paradise
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LAIE, HAWAII — So-called experts said it would fail. Build a cultural center on an obscure side of the island of Oahu adjacent to a small Mormon-owned college and expect tourists to not only come watch amateurs perform, but pay them for it as well? You'll be bankrupt within two years, they sneered.
That was 37 years and 27 million visitors ago.
And they're still coming — from 130 countries throughout Asia, the Americas, Europe, Africa — to watch students at Brigham Young University-Hawaii perform their native Polynesian dances and songs at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie, Hawaii, on Oahu's north shore. Since the doors of the center opened in 1963, some 26,000 young people from Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, Marquesas, Fiji and New Zealand have helped finance their educations at what is now BYU-Hawaii by entertaining guests and dignitaries from throughout the world. The Polynesian Cultural Center, now the No. 1 paid attraction in the Hawaiian Islands with up to one million visitors annually, has contributed some $125 million in direct and indirect funds over the years to BYU-Hawaii (previously the Church College of Hawaii). It employs 1,000 people, two-thirds of whom are students. If students are not performing, they are working among the center's 11 related businesses as accountants, maintenance workers, guides, waiters and waitresses, retail clerks and office workers.
"Laie is a very special place," said Lester W.B. Moore, president of the Polynesian Cultural Center since 1991. "Our people have an opportunity to interface with different people from throughout the world in a way they can't do at any other place in the world."
The Polynesian Cultural Center, he surmised during a recent Church News visit, contributes to the mission of the Church in five ways: "One, financial support to Brigham Young University-Hawaii; two, an extension of the classroom to focus on leadership skills and management competencies; three, as a bridge to world leaders from our Church leaders; four, as an example to the world of true brotherhood and true sisterhood; and five, as a chance for visitors to meet the Church. We have a tram that picks up people and takes them to the visitors center [at the nearby Laie Hawaii Temple]. We make up about 65 percent of people who go through the visitors center."
Speaking of the center's unique relationship with BYU-Hawaii, Brother Moore continued: "The cultural center has evolved into an extension of the BYU-Hawaii classroom. Where else in the world do you have a thriving well-managed corporation side by side with a university where the students will have an opportunity to take what they learn in the classroom and come and apply it at the cultural center — the same day?"
Skills such as leadership, management competencies, organization, planning, along with drama and dance, are all sharpened at the cultural center, he explained. Over the years, he added, these same students, after graduating, have gone on to become bishops, stake presidents, auxiliary leaders, Area Authority Seventies and to hold leadership positions in their communities. Many have taken their newly developed talents and abilities home to their islands to serve the communities of their childhood.
"There's a Chinese proverb that goes something like this: Tell me, I'll forget; show me, I may remember; but if you involve me, I'll understand," Brother Moore related. Continuing, he described the student internship program arranged between the university and the center. For example, a student in accounting might be assigned for a term paper to work with the auditing company that oversees the cultural center.
"The student internship program brings these two institutions together as one campus. This is just like having a hospital at a medical school!" he declared, with a smile.
The successes of the Polynesian Cultural Center seem to have followed the course hoped for by Church leaders. When the Church College of Hawaii was dedicated by President David O. McKay in 1955, the Church president declared, "The town of Laie [will] become a missionary factor influencing [for good] not thousands, not tens of thousands, but millions of people," Brother Moore related. "At that time there were approximately 107,000 visiting the islands yearly, so how in the world could millions come to Laie?" he asked.
Well, come they have, in droves. And not only tourists. Some 1,200 to 2,200 dignitaries a year visit with Brother Moore and other officials at the center, including visits from two vice premiers of China in 1994. In fact, China has since built four cultural centers within its borders, using the Polynesian Cultural Center as a model. In the last decade, some 60 countries have requested guidance from the Polynesian Cultural Center to help build their own centers.
However, the greatest effect of the Polynesian Cultural Center is still in individual lives — whether performers or visitors. Recently returned from a mission to the Philippines, Vaneta Moea'i of Samoa is back working at the center, performing in the evening show. A major in social work, she is a second-generation performer at the center. Her parents met while working here in the 1970s, married in the Laie temple and later returned to Samoa, Vaneta related, smiling as she made reed baskets and headbands.
"I've always loved dancing the cultural dances," she said. "That's why I came back after my mission. I can't stay away. It keeps me happy."
Another woman, Mary Peters, is also "back," but for a different reason. She met her husband, Kenneth Frank Peters, while dancing at the cultural center in 1984. He died of heart disease in 1997. The Peters have three children, Michelle, 14; Melissa, 12; and Kenneth, 8.
"When my husband died, I had to make a big decision, whether to just work or get more education. I chose the latter, only because of my children and their future," she said, her eyes filling with tears. The university is only about five minutes from her home and has provided her with new avenues and "opened windows," she related. She may not be performing any more at the cultural center, but she is now teaching her cultural dances to her own children.
Then there's little 6-year-old Roland from a nearby elementary school who recently came to the center with his class and teacher. Speaking of this incident, Brother Moore recalled how the child was being teased by his classmates. A performer noticed the child's tears. She and others offered their help to the teacher, who gratefully accepted. Later, the performers dressed him in a lava-lava and talked their supervisor into letting him be part of their canoe pageant. They even got the script changed to include an introduction for "Prince Roland" to the audience, including his classmates. The boy quickly became a hero.
"This story is one of my favorites about what we stand for at the Polynesian Cultural Center," Brother Moore said. "We let people know that we are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ is our Savior. All are princes and princesses.
"That's our story."
