Made in China?
Made in China?
I took friends from the mainland to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We stayed at the newly remodeled Volcano House and walked across the street to the Volcano Art Center.
My friend purchased several items there, including glass jewelry pendants. We were assured by the gallery that everything there was made by “local artists.” However, when we walked back to the hotel, we also shopped for souvenirs in the lobby store, and we saw the exact same pendants that were in the gallery!
To our shock, the tag said “Made in China,” and at a fraction of the price we paid at the center.
I felt horrible taking my mainland friends, who spent so much money at the Volcano Art Center thinking they were getting authentic “locally made” art, when they were purchasing something made overseas. Someone needs to get to the bottom of this.
The center was closed when we returned, but we did call the next day and left a voice mail message, but no return call.
They have thousands of tourists who go in there on a daily basis; shame on the center for calling itself a “local gallery.”
Jeannie Thomas
Holualoa
‘A fantastic sport’
I was pleased to see the articles in both papers by J.R. DeGroote about the Konawaena/Hawaii Preparatory Academy lacrosse game.
I played high school lacrosse at Huntington, Long Island, and college lacrosse at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., in the late ’50s and early 1960s. I was a center midfielder at RPI and missed by a year playing against the great Jim Brown of Syracuse. I was involved playing pickup games in the 1970s at Kapiolani Park. Honolulu attorney Brook Hart, whom I played against while he was at Johns Hopkins, played with us back then.
I came to Hawaii Island in the early ’70s, working in the Hilo and Kona ERs, and began having some informal games at HPA with the students. Loren Barker had started some middle school lacrosse lessons.
In an October 1980 West Hawaii Today article, my son, Chris, and I demonstrated some lacrosse moves, and I expressed how I’d love to see lacrosse in Hawaii’s high schools.
I met HPA teacher and former college lacrosse player Will Zucker a few years ago, and I want to congratulate him and Konawaena on getting the path to BIIF lacrosse started.
Lacrosse, which had its origins with Native Americans in the Canadian and Great Lakes areas, is a fantastic sport.
I talked to Hart recently, and he says he still carries a lacrosse stick in his car on Oahu, hoping to toss the ball around with someone.
Fred Holschuh
Honokaa