Tuesday, November 06, 2001
Denereau, Fiji, a Pacic paradise, made in Japan
Denerau, Fiji - Sitting on the breakfast verandah and watching the moisy myna birds in the lawn below fighting over the scraps of out raisin bread, one sort of expects to see Ensign Nellie Forbush and the planter Emile de Becque come strolling over from the sandy ocean beach, hand in hand, to offer "bola," the universal Fijian greeting. After all this is South Pacific, and the English-speaking Melanesians of Fiji are pretty much the same people as the Prench Polynesians of the Rodgers and Hammerstein epic, and the gruff-mannered but friendly bartender who fetches Passion Fruit-flavored punches during the day and doubles as the bare chested spear-bearing warrior in the tourist girl threatening native dance and music act at night might be a distant relative of Bloody Mary’s, who sang "Bali-Hi."
I came to Fiji hoping to recapture the charm of Michener’s South Pacific that bewitched the readers of his post-WWII tales, and was not disappointed. The tour guests of Fiji are whisked away from the Nadi Airport of Viti Levu by the omni-present Rosie tour guides to the Denerau Island, a golf course drained by Japanese investors around 1975 out of a mangrove swamp in their days of power, and taken over by the Starwood’s Sheraton people, who have built five hotels around it. It totally natural now, with huge coconut palms, and charming Royal Poinciana and Golden Shower trees casting their orange and yellow coloration over the lawns.. There a re low ochre-colored two-story row buildings, and cottages hidden behind bushes of giant-leaf lobster-claw and hibiscus hedges, and the song of invisible feathered hosts fills the air as tourists stroll along. Occasionally one catches a glimpse of of what appear to be brilliant- feathered macaws; the plainer crested doves, magpies and myna birds do come out in the open.Animals visit the island, although its mongoose population (bushy tailed rodents) keeps it free of of snakes. Natives of the 3rd World country outside come here only to work.
We visited the villages on a guided tour, after having been warned of the proper etiquette - to keep our hats off in the village and to never, never touch anyone’s hair. The Fijians still remember the last missionary, rev. Thomas Baker, eaten in an outburt of long suppressed cannibalism, in 1867, after he, with the best intentions, offered a tortoise-shell comb as a gift of friendship to a native chief and explained its use by trying to comb the host’s bushy chevelure. He was promptly dispatched, sauteed and eaten by the tribe. Today’s villagers keep their hair neat, are friendly and bring out tables of carvings and beads for sale. Three rough fishermen using scrap wood to cobble together a table, having found out that we are New Yorkers,offer their condolences. Although there are few cars, they all claim to have TV and watch CNN Asia.
The villages are sort of extended families with clans: the fishermen all food for the village, the carpenters build houses and sheds, the warriors defend it, and the executive clan provides leadersship. The chief’s family rules. Membership is hereditary, marriage partners are often sought outside the village, arranged marriages nowadays are practiced only in the Indian community..
Half of Fijians stem from the Indian subcontinent. The ferocious native Melanesians, who culturally treated shipwrecked visitors, conquered neighbor islanders and any strangers found on the premises as food, were weaned away from their strange habits by European and American arrivals around 1820. The newcomers started sugar cane plantations. Americans were too free- wheeling, and the Fijian king invited the Britons to extend the protection of the Empire over the islands. Indentured laborers from India were brought in for five-year terms in 185x, and in 19xx were permitted to stay. Independence came in 197x. The Indians, three generations in the islands, have taken over the commerce and have grown to nearly half of the population. A native revolt, led by a white immigrant, John S, overthrew the elected Indian government in 1997, held the Parliament in custody for xx months, and was cured by an election that gave the presidency to a village chief (the one whose people we just visited). The tumultuous Fijians have lost their membership in the British Commonwealth twice in the past decade, and are still suspended. The leader fo the revolt, in jail for treason, has been reelected to the Parliament.
We were fortunate to visit a local grade school. It was a special event for the kids . The neatly uniformed barefoot sixth-graders cheerfully sang for us, recited the alphabet to help us count the letters in their language ( there are 23, vs 14 im Maori and a similar number in Hawaiian), and read the daily lesson in unison. We asked for the name and address of the school, and a bunch of the kids volunteered to write their names and addresses and shyly passed the slips to us. We now have acquired Christmas card correspondents in the Pacific. Any grade schoolers interested in outreach across te ocean can get the names from me. These bright bilingual kids are mostly doomed to incomplete schooling, since elementary education is not free, and the families often cannot afford the tuition beyond the read-write-arrithmetic level. Our well-spoken Rosie tour guide had to drop out a year befor his highschool graduation, to help the family.
The romantic Pacific islands and their laid-back natives are doomed to be tourist paradises for the duration. The copra (coconut) and sugar can industries cannot compete in the world market. High technology industries are just not in the cards for these charming unworldly people, who claim to be unable to compete in commerce, because the social and family structure obligated them to take care of the families and not ask for repayment of debts. The cost of living is high, since most goods are imported (they buy chicken by the container from the US). The hospitality industry is welcomed to build these hotel enclaves like Denerau, and the islands provide native dancers and singers to perform entnically correct entertainment. The islands protect themselves by not permitting land purchases and by selling only long-term leases to the outside investors (this is the way Mexico protected its ocean frontages; alas, no longer).Thus, the terrorist induced war and a severe drop in tourism is deadly for the islands, and our efforts are welcomed, even though a quarter of the Asian population is Moslem. .
I came to Fiji hoping to recapture the charm of Michener’s South Pacific that bewitched the readers of his post-WWII tales, and was not disappointed. The tour guests of Fiji are whisked away from the Nadi Airport of Viti Levu by the omni-present Rosie tour guides to the Denerau Island, a golf course drained by Japanese investors around 1975 out of a mangrove swamp in their days of power, and taken over by the Starwood’s Sheraton people, who have built five hotels around it. It totally natural now, with huge coconut palms, and charming Royal Poinciana and Golden Shower trees casting their orange and yellow coloration over the lawns.. There a re low ochre-colored two-story row buildings, and cottages hidden behind bushes of giant-leaf lobster-claw and hibiscus hedges, and the song of invisible feathered hosts fills the air as tourists stroll along. Occasionally one catches a glimpse of of what appear to be brilliant- feathered macaws; the plainer crested doves, magpies and myna birds do come out in the open.Animals visit the island, although its mongoose population (bushy tailed rodents) keeps it free of of snakes. Natives of the 3rd World country outside come here only to work.
We visited the villages on a guided tour, after having been warned of the proper etiquette - to keep our hats off in the village and to never, never touch anyone’s hair. The Fijians still remember the last missionary, rev. Thomas Baker, eaten in an outburt of long suppressed cannibalism, in 1867, after he, with the best intentions, offered a tortoise-shell comb as a gift of friendship to a native chief and explained its use by trying to comb the host’s bushy chevelure. He was promptly dispatched, sauteed and eaten by the tribe. Today’s villagers keep their hair neat, are friendly and bring out tables of carvings and beads for sale. Three rough fishermen using scrap wood to cobble together a table, having found out that we are New Yorkers,offer their condolences. Although there are few cars, they all claim to have TV and watch CNN Asia.
The villages are sort of extended families with clans: the fishermen all food for the village, the carpenters build houses and sheds, the warriors defend it, and the executive clan provides leadersship. The chief’s family rules. Membership is hereditary, marriage partners are often sought outside the village, arranged marriages nowadays are practiced only in the Indian community..
Half of Fijians stem from the Indian subcontinent. The ferocious native Melanesians, who culturally treated shipwrecked visitors, conquered neighbor islanders and any strangers found on the premises as food, were weaned away from their strange habits by European and American arrivals around 1820. The newcomers started sugar cane plantations. Americans were too free- wheeling, and the Fijian king invited the Britons to extend the protection of the Empire over the islands. Indentured laborers from India were brought in for five-year terms in 185x, and in 19xx were permitted to stay. Independence came in 197x. The Indians, three generations in the islands, have taken over the commerce and have grown to nearly half of the population. A native revolt, led by a white immigrant, John S, overthrew the elected Indian government in 1997, held the Parliament in custody for xx months, and was cured by an election that gave the presidency to a village chief (the one whose people we just visited). The tumultuous Fijians have lost their membership in the British Commonwealth twice in the past decade, and are still suspended. The leader fo the revolt, in jail for treason, has been reelected to the Parliament.
We were fortunate to visit a local grade school. It was a special event for the kids . The neatly uniformed barefoot sixth-graders cheerfully sang for us, recited the alphabet to help us count the letters in their language ( there are 23, vs 14 im Maori and a similar number in Hawaiian), and read the daily lesson in unison. We asked for the name and address of the school, and a bunch of the kids volunteered to write their names and addresses and shyly passed the slips to us. We now have acquired Christmas card correspondents in the Pacific. Any grade schoolers interested in outreach across te ocean can get the names from me. These bright bilingual kids are mostly doomed to incomplete schooling, since elementary education is not free, and the families often cannot afford the tuition beyond the read-write-arrithmetic level. Our well-spoken Rosie tour guide had to drop out a year befor his highschool graduation, to help the family.
The romantic Pacific islands and their laid-back natives are doomed to be tourist paradises for the duration. The copra (coconut) and sugar can industries cannot compete in the world market. High technology industries are just not in the cards for these charming unworldly people, who claim to be unable to compete in commerce, because the social and family structure obligated them to take care of the families and not ask for repayment of debts. The cost of living is high, since most goods are imported (they buy chicken by the container from the US). The hospitality industry is welcomed to build these hotel enclaves like Denerau, and the islands provide native dancers and singers to perform entnically correct entertainment. The islands protect themselves by not permitting land purchases and by selling only long-term leases to the outside investors (this is the way Mexico protected its ocean frontages; alas, no longer).Thus, the terrorist induced war and a severe drop in tourism is deadly for the islands, and our efforts are welcomed, even though a quarter of the Asian population is Moslem. .
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:19 AM 
