Unapologetic

Both of the Hawaiian islands I've traveled to—Maui and Kauai—are awash in native culture. That's not to say native culture is now what it once was, but despite the onslaught of Westernism, the aboriginal Hawaiian way of life is very much a part of how things happen around here these days.

But all of that stops at the gates of the Kilohana Plantation, a (yep you guessed it) 19^th century plantation in the middle of Kauai. Layla and I went to dinner at Gaylord's (quit snickering) at the plantation and perused the in-house art shops before we were seated. In stark contrast to the heavily Polynesian influenced Hawaiian art found elsewhere on the island, Kilohana's featured loads of prints of searfaring vessels, paint work on canvas, and all signed with Anglo-sounding names. Not that there weren't any shops without native art, but clearly the whole plantation had a decidedly colonial feeling.

The interesting thing about this is that the mainland US has approximately the same cultural representation as the plantation, but the Kilohana buildings (and Gaylord's) feels so much more out of place than anything at home.