Post #776729 by JasonMa on Tue, Jun 6, 2017 11:33 AM

On 2017-06-04 21:42, tikitube wrote:
Wow, lots of thought fodder here. Makes me wonder...If I was friends with someone of Polynesian descent, would I be concerned that they might be offended by my tiki room? Probably, but if we are friends I would hope that I could have a heartfelt and candid conversation with them to explain that it is all Walt Disney's fault for brainwashing me at such a young age. :wink:

But more seriously, discussion and respect, rather than arguments and score keeping, seem to be the best approach to explaining why I am into tiki. A true friend should give you that much.

As for commercial tiki bar owners and those profiting from it, I dunno. Tiki culture has waned before for less damning cultural moodswings, but it also came back. Ebb and tide, indeed. :)

This comment caused me to decide to go from lurker to poster here. Not only am I friends with somebody of Polynesian decent, I'm family with multiple people. My aunt is of Hawaiian heritage and my cousins are half Hawaiian. (technically she's not my aunt, she was my mom's college roommate, but since travelling home to Hawaii was not realistic at the holidays my grandmother all but officially adopted her and I was raised thinking she was as much an aunt as my Mom's actual sister) Also my sister's husband is 3/4th Hawaiian so my nephews are almost half Hawaiian. I'm also friends with some of my brother-in-law's family and have other friends who were raised on Hawaii (some with Hawaiian heritage, some not).

Because of this, even before this thread, I have been thinking about this topic. I talked with my aunt a bit about it and others, referencing the original article in this thread, and what I learned is first of all there are bigger battles to fight than tiki bars. Secondly that as long as the people involved respect the difference between Polynesian culture and having fun in the tiki fantasy setting my concerns are largely unwarranted.