Rabaul and Me

I have never been to Rabaul. I know it's the capital of New Britain, the 38th largest island on earth, and that it's up above Papua New Guinea, but that's about it. My only connections with the place are marginal:

At boarding school in Australia, Roberta Zanda from Rabaul had the bed next to mine and, late at night, whenever she was particularly homesick, used to tell me about the beauty of the place. Words whispered into the darkness of a beautiful city built around a spectacular harbour, over-shadowed by an enormous volcano. It seemed a very special place.

However, George Telek's song "Rabaul I Panie" reminded me that I do have another Rabaul story; one that I didn't even realise was a story:

Back in 1994, when I was teaching in Townsville, in North Queensland, in one of my classes I had two major-scholarship boys from Rabaul, Suki and Pio. Exceptionally bright kids. I liked them both enormously, even if they were wound up too tight. Guess it isn't easy being PNG's equivalent of Rhodes Scholars!

But then came September 19th, a Monday, when Bob Weir, Head of Boarding, dropped by my class and asked to see both the boys. He talked to them for a while outside and they returned completely devastated. "The volcano erupted." they told me. "Mr Weir says we can't go but we have to leave right away."

I could see it in them. Already too wound-up, they were now ready to explode. They wanted to be moving. They wanted to be there. They were scared and worried and desperate for news, to help, to know. They were prepared even to swim back home if that's what it took.

"You can't leave." I said. "Your parents need to know you're safe. You need to be here when they call." but that wasn't nearly enough. They weren't prepared to come back to "ordinary", so I sent them away to phone Townsville Red Cross to find out what was happening there and what they could do to help, and they returned to say they needed the entire class to help them get tinned food and clothing, particularly bedding, so we all promised to do what we could, and then I set the boys aside to write out a game plan/strategy for getting what was needed, and getting it to Red Cross.

Pretty much useless, huh?, but I couldn't think what else I could do for them.

But then came that awful afternoon. Wednesday. Two days later. We had double-English on a beautiful afternoon, so were sitting out under the trees reading novels, when slowly an enormous black cloud floated down from the North. It covered the sky and, no, it wasn't a cloud. It was a massive plume of smoke that rained down ash on us. Suki and Pio, oh boy, the look on their faces. Horror! Sheer horror! "It's from those Australian bushfires." I lied to them but they knew I was lying.

I know I would not have liked having my homeland rain down on me. "Would you like us to go inside?" I asked them quietly.

"No." they both said simultaneously, and so, in support, the entire class remained outside, holding a spontaneous silent vigil and private prayers, as Rabaul rained down on us, and Suki and Pio both wept.


But it wasn't until I saw this footage in George Telek's "Rabaul I Panie" that I realised the extent of that devastation. Particularly from 3.00 onwards. Have a look:

Telek's "Midal"

This is most odd. Keith's just got a new world music CD ("Gardens of Eden" from Putumayo World Music, 2001) and was playing it this morning when suddenly a phrase of a song leapt out at me.

It said "I am frightened for the children's future. I'm frightened they will lose their spirit." in Fijian, except the language of the song definitely wasn't Fijian and I definitely didn't understand anything else apart from that.

Checked it out and seems the song is called "Midal" and comes from Papua New Guinea and was written by a PNG fellow called George Telek.

Everything is wrong, huh! Fijians DO NOT come from Papua New Guinea and have no links with any of the PNG linguistic families ... and thus there's no chance of a Consonantal Drift ancestral language suddenly coming into focus ... yet suddenly there's this!

Can there BE anything more mysterious? This is obviously something I'm going to have to check out. Get back to you shortly.

10 minutes later: Amazing! In the past, this search would have taken me weeks, yet today, on-line it's taken me less than 10 minutes.

Telek is from New Britian, an island atop Papua New Guinea. AND he doesn't look even remotely Papuan. If anything, the fellow looks Fijian.

You know, I think we may have found ourselves the route the proto-Fijians took from Java to Fiji; they traveled over the TOP of PNG. And we may also have accounted for the missing 1000 years in their journey. They were here in New Britian.

I think another piece of my life-long puzzle, recorded in my post "Made in Indonesia.", has just fallen into place.

30 minutes later: I'm liking George Telek sooo much. I found a couple of his songs on youtube, and here's one that is so heart-breaking; his song, in Pidgin, asking for Indonesia to release West Papua. Have a look at it:



Doesn't it make you ache just looking at the pride and defiance on the faces of the West Papuans as they raise their "Freedom Flag", and knowing that the Indonesians came in and gunned them down. Heart breaking!

And just look at those faces. You tell me how Indonesia has the cheek to claim those people as fellow-Indonesians. They are sooo not the same people as the Javanese. TOTALLY! So the land the Indonesians cruelly claim as "always theirs" and known by the name Irian Jaya is definitely an illegal colony that deserves to be returned to the rest of Papua. Yes?

However, if you actually look past Telek's Papuan costume, you can see how much he doesn't look Papuan. He definitely looks Fijian. Look closely, you can see it, can't you!

What Kills Us This Week

There's a new type of lung cancer that's being called 'Guangdong Cancer' because it's only found along the Pearl River Delta and scientists have been investigating and, this week, published their findings. Turns out that several factories are churning out some rare pollutants that contain 28 times the safe level of whatever and they suspect this is the cause.

Naturally, since we in HK get our pollution funneled down from Guangdong, this week all HK is in a tizzy about this, despite the fact that no one in HK has ever got this type of cancer.
But for me, there's something else that's got me not exactly knicker-knotted but rather more "mmmm, interesting!"

This is it: have you noticed how many new TV shows from the US feature "Logical and controlling woman" vs "Intuitive and freewheeling man"? And, yes, the very cute feature film "The Ugly Truth" is on that theme too.

And even cartoons are doing it!

But here's why this causes me concern. This theme is not new. And the three times before in history when this theme became popular and widespread in the arts, the whole thing ended in tears.

The first time was during the tail end of Ancient Greek theatre, just before the Greeks gave up Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, as their God of War and instituted Ares, God of Havoc and Mayhem in her place, and suddenly the Greeks went all stupidly and illogically Militaristic, and wars broke out everyplace and Greece fell ... well, didn't actually fall, but just became very poor and whittled itself down to third world status where it's remained ever since.

The second time was during during the 17th century in Europe when all the theatres and literature and arts adopted 'Logical Female; Intuitive Male" themes, as you can see for yourself with Comedie Francaise and England's Restoration Theatre, and we all know how this period lead to all sorts of civil wars and floundering and beheading of kings, and Puritans and the founding of America and other sorts of generally unacceptable ills.

And the third time was immediately before World War One.

So can we see a pattern emerging here? And what is actually happening to us at a subconscious level that this is what we're thematically producing in the Arts?

I'm thinking it has something to do with men feeling emasculated, which ALWAYS, so history teaches us, leads to a tidal wave of backlash, the rise of Vicious Militaristic-ality, Right Wing Puritanism and the glorifying of Havoc and Mayhem,which leads to the deaths of a great many young men and, worse, a general downgrading of Rights of Women!

So this new crop of US TV series may look all cute and innocent, folks, but it's EVIL I tell you! Downright EVIL! And if history teaches us anything at all, it is that THIS is all going to end in tears!

So that's what I'm choosing this week:

THREATDOWN
Men surrendering the definition
of themselves being "Logical and Controlling"

P.S. Knowing stuff like this, Val, is why we should ALL study history!

"This is It!"

Saw the Michael Jackson film "This is It" yesterday.

What did I think? Mmmmph! Starts out all ham-fisted and clumsy but then suddenly starts working and eventually explodes into total brilliance and you become awestruck at how incredibly talented and inspired and preternaturally wonderful MJ is ... but then it keeps going and going and going until you stop noticing the talent and start noticing how much he looks like Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King from "Nightmare Before Christmas", and you realise your bum is numb and you sooo want to be gone.

I wasn't the only one. After 75 minutes, more than half the audience walked out and after 100 minutes you begin to think you should join them, and after that all you can think is "Why don't you hurry up and DIE already!"

And I found it very disappointing that the incredibly beautiful "save the planet" footage came long after I'd lost interest. It should have been the focus of the entire film because it was THAT, apart from MJ's genius, that made the film so relevant and important, yet the entire message got swamped under ... I don't know, the film-maker's need to show his own brilliance? Wow, wasn't there zillions of hours of that Kenneth Ortega guy in there! WHY? I think if you got rid of most of the footage of him, the film may actually have a chance to WORK!

Yeah, yeah, I know this film was made in a great hurry but, in the final analysis, it wasn't yet ready to be released.

So that's my assessment: never has a film needed a more savage editing. And getting rid of the endless Kenneth Ortega would be a good place to start.

After that, it's just a pity MJ simply ends up looking like ...

A British Colonial Service Memory!

David's letter starting my brain ticking over all by itself and last night, just before I fell asleep, I had a sudden flash of memory:

I was about three years old, and at the Suva Sea Baths, eavesdropping on a loud angry conversation among a gaggle of British Colonial Service Wives! Same ol', same ol'! These ladies were perpetually loud and angry. Do you remember?

Mum used to call them "those ghastly women" and cast them as the arch villains in her life, which they were, weren't they! In all our lives? Remember how even sticking a frangipani in your hair would bring down their wrath: "The thin edge of the wedge!", "Going native!", "Bringing down civilisation as we know it!" I've read Indian writers' autobiographies where those woman are called "poison" and "the worst thing ever to happen to India", and "the husbands were all right, but those wives!" Yes, I can endorse that in every possible way. Ghastly, ghastly women!

These days, looking back with a more kindly eye, I think we should blame those stockings and corsets they always wore. They felt they always had to wear them because they represented "the Empire" and "Civilisation" and "the way things should be done!", but, gosh, in places like Fiji and India, it must have given them the most terrible heat rash. And maybe that perpetual sour-faced grimness and those bursts of insane rage were because they were desperately trying not to scratch.

But, anyway, I should save all that for another post, because I just want to talk about that single flash of memory.

That day at the pool, these ladies were all once again in the most monstrous rage and it was all "Filth!", "Disgusting!", "We should have it banned!", "How dare they play it!" "Pornography", "Encouraging filth and promiscuity!", "The thin edge of the wedge!", "It'll bring down civilisation as we know it!" "Filthy! Filthy! Filthy!"

And what they were talking about? Let me see if I can find it:




Isn't it nice to know that these days, all those ghastly ladies would be dead. We can all breathe again, folks ... although I must add I frequently hear those enraged voices again in conversations with "the politically correct"!

Another letter from David!

South Stropshire!
So beautiful I've had to show it twice.

David, from South Stropshire, in England, spent a number of years in Fiji as a child. He got in touch recently and so kindly sent me a photo of Lomeri Cathedral. He wrote again after reading my post on growing up in Fiji and wants to contribute his memories:

So very interesting for me to read that analysis of yours of the influences of your Fijian environment upon your formative years. I certainly think the exposure to the natural colours of the island and the colours revelled in by both the Fijians and Indians, particularly, in their clothes and wares, had an extraordinary influence upon my development. And no doubt, as you have suggested of yourself, the influence of the house-girls must have been strong upon me too - as indeed must have been the influence of their husbands or boyfriends.

Also for me must come the extraordinary influence of the other boys, my peers. Before Gerald left for England he and I were the only whites in our very large class: all the rest, the Fijian lads, the Indians, the Chinese, the Samoans, and the Tongans, must all have had quite an influence, equally. It was concentrated and true Pacific exposure, sans the whites of Australia and New Zealand. Though at the time I wondered if I was missing out, I'm glad now that I didn't go to one of the all-white schools like the children of most of the other European families.

My head is PACKED with hundreds of absolutely VIVID memories of Fiji. I guess Gerald must have done something of a double-take when he received that map I drew him of your house - from memory after a gap of 47 years. It's all there to this day, photographic and exact. And not only the sights, but the smells and sounds. Anyway, to conclude, here's another favourite image of mine for you from back then: those extraordinary Flame Trees:

They were all around our house. I have never since seen trees as utterly almost blindingly dazzling and vivid in bloom!

Very best wishes,

David.

Are they SERIOUS?

Was sent this link and I am shocked, appalled, horrified and gobsmacked. Please, can someone tell me if this is a comedy skit? I cannot believe it can be anything else. I mean, if this is serious, is this a world any one of us wants to live in?




Who ARE these people?

Later: Ryan writes: "Haha... Denise, "the Onion" is a Mock Newspaper. They recently started doing spoofs for youtube too."

Whew, thank heavens for that. Ha ha! You got me!

Even Later: Several folk are having a huge laugh at my expense, but only Talei thought to send me the link:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/the_beijing_olympics_are_they_a

HK Fightback!

Have you seen what we smarty-pant Hong Kongers have done?



Yup, we've come up with our very own electric car. And they are just so cute too. Look at them:

Don't you love?

They cost HK$97,000.00 each but I think I'll have to see how owners like them before I'll consider it.

Mind you, it's all about doing something to get rid of our pollution problem ... but since the pollution is being pumped down from the Pearl River Delta and we can't do anything about what's happening with our Northern Brethren, in any final analysis our electric car will be about as much use as our smoking ban!

Gorgeous Things!

Must show you some recent things I've seen on my travels that I've been most loving:

Photo Exhibition

Our friend Luisa's photographs are part of an up-coming exhibition 30th October. Here are the details:

Ancient Mysteries!

Had a few letters from folk asking about Walshe's Pyramid outside Cairns in Northern Australia and The Hapgood Hypothesis of that supposed 10000-6000BC world-wide Egyptian Empire, and I have to say I'm sorry but I totally DON'T want to go there. For one thing, I'm simply your average Ancient History teacher. For another thing, the whole subject is just so bloody stupid.

However, I do know of there is an extremely good book that has a chapter on this subject. It's called "Ancient Mysteries" in which serious scholars and historians look into past mysteries and legends, attempting to incontrovertibly answer these puzzles from the past. I will hunt out publishing details and eventually post them in here:

Title:	Ancient mysteries / Peter James & Nick Thorpe.
Edition:	1st ed.
Publisher:	New York : Ballantine, 1999.
Collation:	xvi, 651 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.

No promises, but I think this could be the one!

It's an amazing book and I can't recommend it highly enough, because it's a scholarly look through all the evidence. A lot of ancient mysteries/legends are discounted, but there's also other stuff that they prove to be true, like, yes, the Chinese city of Li-Xian was founded by ancient Romans, and they trace through the written evidence from Roman, Persian and Chinese history to prove it as such. And, yes, there was a tribe of women called Amazons who lived near the Black Sea. And yes, the Phoenicians did round Africa three times during Ancient Times. And, yes, there was a Suez Canal 4000 years ago, and thus the ancient Egyptians were trading down through that region.

Could they have reached Australia? Who knows? However, you can be pretty well assured they did NOT have an outpost in North Queensland. There's that whole Great Barrier Reef that tells us it isn't so. And have you any idea how difficult it is to get through the Torres Straits. No, the entire subject is ridiculous.

However, if you want to go all jiggy with these stupid subjects, there's a remnant population of Israeli olive trees up in the north of Western Australia that appears to once have been an olive plantation they think is about 2000 years old that totally demands a look-in by archeologists. And there's a series of Javanese style rice paddy structures deep in the jungled mountains of Papua New Guinea that also could do with some serious answers.

Also, the Hittite Tribe from Northern Papua New Guinea could do with some serious research too. The members I've met are jet-black Helenic types who don't bear any resemblance to your average Papuan. However, I should warn you in advance that those members I've met are seriously and dangerously insane - most likely from in-breeding - and investigating them could end up getting you dead. And the three genuine surviving members of Australia's Kalkadoon tribe - who were the only Aboriginals who organised a proper fight-back - don't look Aboriginal at all; although a LOT of Aboriginals claim to be of Kalkadoon descent, the three real ones look like jet black Malays.

Oh, and I know of a LOT of other seriously strange and mysterious things in other parts of Australia and the Pacific, but, either because I was told in confidence, or because I was shown them by people who don't want their rights violated, I don't have permission to talk about them, so won't.

However, from what I know, I do believe that there was much more whizzing around the globe in ancient times than we currently give credence to (like those Roman coins found in Siam Reap in Cambodia, or that thousands of years old "Celt" statue they found in Macau. Or that carved stone arch in Tonga, that proves to be a calender, that was there when the Polynesians arrived in Tonga around 3000 years ago.) but Egyptians in North Queensland?

Nah! Nothing whatsoever behind this Ancient Mystery!

Letter from David!

David's valley in South Shropshire Hills.
"England's Green and Pleasant Land"

David Cannon from the South Shropshire Hills in England very sweetly has just sent me a photograph of Lomeri Mission in Deuba. You will recall the post "A Father's Life" where I say I couldn't find one anywhere? Who would have guessed that there'd be one in the remotest part of England.

In fact, why don't I simply quote from the letter.

Read your Father Jack story. Interesting for me, particularly because of your descriptions of the beauties that can be beheld in Fiji. I know those beauties had such an effect upon my childhood development, and therefore upon who I am. And they probably explain why I will never feel at home in even this most beautiful of British countryside.

You talk about Lomeri Mission. I am not sure this is the mission near which we used to stay in Fiji. Perhaps you can tell me:

(Yes, David, this is indeed the
Cathedral at Lomeri Mission.)

I recall, if you stood on the beach with your back to the sea, there was a large concrete church on the site, perhaps a football pitch's distance from you. Over to the left were the priest's wooden quarters. Over to the right was a wooden hall. The priest who was in charge at the time (early 60s) put on films in the hall for the people in the village which was a little further along the coast to the left, i.e. to the west. He invited us to come round and enjoy these evening films.

The place we used to stay at was a wonderful spacious wooden bungalow, surrounded by trees and bush, and its front verandah was about 30 metres from the sand. If you walked across the lawn to the sand and then turned right, you would eventually come to the mission station, though I seem to remember there was a deep but narrow river that had to be crossed. Or maybe this river was further on, beyond the mission station and just before the village. Anyway, do you think it was Lomeri that we used to frequent for Mass and films?

My father and mother got on well with the priests - they always gravitated to the local clergy wherever we were, particularly if they happened to have a streak of Irish in them and liked a drink! When we lived in Laucala Bay some of the Irish Marist Brothers who had established a new boys' school a bit further along the east coast would come down for afternoons during which a kind of singing competition would erupt in the living-room. My father, who had a fine tenor voice, would stand up and hit the high notes, and then so would several of the Irish Brothers, and we would all clap at the outpouring of emotion and those long loud high notes. The songs were nearly always old sentimental Irish ballads from the John McCormack repertoire, eulogising old Irish scenes in a sentimental way.

There wasn't a lot to do in Suva back then, in the early 60s, and so driving over the hill from Laucala Bay "to say goodbye to the boats" was a regular after-dinner occurrence! The band would play "Isa Lei" and "Now Is The Hour" and my parents would weep as they watched the great liner embarking "for home", for England. (Even if it was heading on down south, to Australia, I think they liked to think it was going back to dear old England!) All of this tearful ritual over we would then drive back over the hill and by the time twilight was turning to darkness we would often see the same ship we had clapped off the quay pass along the horizon all aglow with hundreds of twinkling lights. And there always this strange sense of being left behind, of missing out on something!

David, so nice to hear from you. And thank you so much for the photographs.

Hey, and do you remember how tourists used to throw coins off the ship, and the little Fijian boys would dive in for them?

Glass Windows. For Lady R.

Thought you should see this:


Do you LOVE more than anything you've seen in years?

I sooo want to take down an entire wall of my house and do this instead. Makes me ache with its endless gorgeousness!

200 years of HK!

Do you always love series of prints/photographs taken from the same spot? Check out these ones: All gems from the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club collection.

And today:

What Kills Us Today!

Today we have a public holiday; the big one where we all sit back and watch Hong Kong burn.

Yup, it's the annual Ching Ming Festival, folks, where we're all meant to go out and enjoy the greenery of spring, only in Autumn, then burn it to hell.

Actually, it's meant to be when entire families gather together and everyone goes out en masse to attend ancestor graves, pulling out weeds, sweeping and polishing, giving all the annual once-over. In China they do it in Spring, but here we do it in Autumn, after a long hot summer, and I cannot believe that all over our wonderful SAR, graveside candles innocently fall over, as perpetrators always claim, setting the entire surrounding countryside alight. And since it happens on every hillside, mountain, island and forest, year after year, Ching Ming Festival is always endless screaming fire-trucks and those "Elvis Helicopters" with their dangling water buckets trying to douse the flaming hillsides.

Mmm, those are some wobbly candles we have in HK.

Personally, I think what happens is that folks these days are too lazy to simply pull out weeds so instead douse them with petrol and WHOOSH!, set them alight, but then they have trouble controlling the flames. Makes more sense than hundreds of wobbly candles, yes?

Different sets of friends are out hiking today. Having no ancestor graves in HK to attend, every year they instead go up into the mountains to enjoy the greenery. And, yes, most years they get caught in a fire. So far they've been very lucky and always there's some last minute something that's saved their lives, most usually the Wind Gods protecting them with a sudden shift in wind direction or whatever, but isn't the definition of insanity something about repeating things expecting different outcomes. Something like that, anyway! We were asked by various groups if we wanted to join them this year. "Umm, NO!"

Oh, a cute story from last night. We were on Lantau Island, at a village next to Pui-O Beach, enduring the noisy extended family gatherings at the communal barbecues downstairs, when there was this explosive burst of mass terrified screaming. Ran over to see what the matter was, and there was an enormous water buffalo eating everything off the salad buffet table. Seems Pui-O village water buffalo enjoy Ching Ming Festival as much as everyone else, and escape their paddocks to attack the barbecue areas to take whatever's on offer.

Buffalo On The Prowl.

That's how it must be for water buffalo: smell barbecue, think salad bar!

Tomorrow I'll download into here any great fire photographs from the newspapers so you too can enjoy HK's Ching Ming Festival.

Later: There were only 28 fires and, thanks to the entire Fire Department's well-distributed stand-by fleet of fire trucks and helicopters, and thousands of volunteers handing out gallons of water all day, they were all put out by 8pm. All in all, a great day and it just goes to show that sometimes Hong Kong's constant "Chicken Little-ing" comes in very handy.

Big Brother is Greeting You!

Big Brother just sent me some amazing photos of his recent trip to Lord Howe Island:


Oops, sorry, wrong download. Those are the photos he sent me of Australia's recent dust storm rolling in. THESE are his photos of Lord Howe Island:


Spectacular shots, huh! He uses a Nikon with a polarising filter, and swears by it ... although that's all boy-talk and I always switch off so don't expect me to give you names and numbers and all that gunk.

But, you know, that dust storm is much more exciting, isn't it. All "Gunga Din" and stalwart and holding steadfast in the face of the on-coming hordes. Mind you, undoubtedly he did as much damage to his lungs braving that storm for those photos, as I've done with my many decades of smoking, but still, dear Big Brother, "You're a better man than I am, Dunga Din!", so let's go back to those shots:



But the Lord Howe Island shots are great too, Big Brother, so let's have another one of those as well:

Mango Madness!

Today, here in HK, the weather is beautiful. No blue skies, sure, but it's finally cool. At last!

In fact, now that I notice it, that sky is the strangest mother-of-pearl/ opal-esque colour ...



... which usually means there's a cyclone somewhere in the region ...

... let me check this out:

Ah, the poor Philippines again I see. They are so taking a battering lately, aren't they! And I read yesterday that they're back on the list of "Poorest of the Poor" Nations, thanks to their recent series of run-ins with the capricious Weather Gods!

But here in HK, the Weather Gods appear to have taken pity on us and our months of intense and insane heat appear to be finally over. Mother Nature has turned down the thermostat and it appears, yaayyy, Autumn has finally arrived.

Touch wood!

It's been six months of hell-on-earth, with a daily 35 degrees centigrade (95 degrees Fahrenheit), and although I've known worse, when you factor in the pollution and how your sweat feels all greasy and gritty, it's just its own special kind of vileness. And, sure, we were away for one month of it but that just made it worse when we got back.

Remember how we used to complain in Fiji on those rare occasions when the Tradewinds stopped blowing and heat reached above 28 (82 Fahrenheit)? Seldom happened for more than two weeks a year. Gosh, those Weather Gods spoiled us. Happy days!

But the worst heat I've known would definitely be in the Australian Outback. There'd be days when the temperature topped 50 and there was even one day when it reached 55 (that's an incredible 131 fahrinheit) in the classroom. And we had no air-conditioning. Politicians said we didn't need it because the school was designed to catch sea breezes but with the nearest sea 1000 km to the north, good luck with that! And the breezes we did get were always burning eddies of searing grit, and it would feel like you were being simultaneously sand-blasted and blow-torched; so unpleasant we had to keep the windows shut.

Using fans didn't work either since that would just circulate blocks of hot air. I'm not kidding. You could actually be hit by the edges of these blocks and it felt genuinely physical and burned too, so on the hottest days we preferred the fans off.

It was madness. Heat like you wouldn't believe and yet they wouldn't permit air-conditioning. We'd complain and petition, and the politicians would turn up in The Outback in August, in mid-winter, and go through the schools and say "This is very pleasant.  I don't know what you're complaining about!" however they did strike a deal with teachers that we didn't have to teach when the temperature in the classrooms reached 50c, and frequently the union rep would come running through the school saying "It's 50. All out! All out!" and we'd all go "We are NOT going outside in that!" and "Would you consider us OUT if we just lie here on the floor and DIE!"

OK, definitely NOTHING tops that for the worst heat I've ever known.

Although, there was that time in Townsville! The legendary four months (1999?) when temperatures reached 45 (113 Fahrinheit) every single day, and everyone went barking mad! Truly! Psychiatrists termed it "Mango Madness" and actually registered it as a Seasonal Affective Disorder. Keith started a Ukulele and Banjo Band and they actually got gigs, and you don't need more than that to demonstrate how crazy everyone got. And my two rottweillers spent entire days in the fishpond with only their noses above the water, like hippos. So then, yeah, yeah, came the long months of treating them for eye infections, so I guess being a hippo isn't natural for dogs.

Me? After two months I finally broke and went "OK. OK. We can get air-conditioning." Before that, I was forever quoting mum that you didn't need air-conditioning in the tropics; that everything could be done with cross-ventilation and fans. But two months into Mango Madness and I was done! But then came the hunt for an air-conditioner because the town had completely sold out and there were waiting lists for every unit to be shipped in for the next two years. Finally, after two weeks of pleading every place, we got a call from one of the shops saying someone had brought one back because they'd privately shipped in a much bigger unit, and  "We'll take it!"

With such a small unit, we could only do one bedroom, but that was enough. Especially for our rottweilers! They instantly grasped the concept, and instantly gave up being hippos, and so that unit ran day-and-night and we'd barely see them, lying in there, thankfully on the floor, behind shut doors, growling dangerously if you ever tried to toss them out.

If you've ever had rottweilers - and I highly recommend it - you'll know that it's a constant war for dominance. They are natural bullies, so, because they generally weigh more than you do and can take you down any time they choose, it's imperative to stay Alpha. Since I wasn't prepared to beat them or be cruel to them, I read a great many books about "Dog Whispering" and thus could Alpha them like crazy ... and knew that the main strategy was to never let them into your bedroom. Keep your bedroom as Alpha-land, and they know who's boss!

So this bedroom-thing was a real problem. But the alternative was 'hippo-ing' and that horrible recurring eye infection and all the constant fussing and vetting and wiping and creaming. Yuck!

And, yeah, another dog-whisperer trick is to put your forehead on their forehead, and if they don't rip your face off, you're the boss. And you have to do this regularly to reassert your authority, but with those infected eyes, I wasn't prepared to put my face anywhere near theirs, so ... yes, they started threatening us ... so ...

... with that constantly there rehearsing Ukulele and Banjo Band and a pair of truly scary dogs, if I ever had to nominate the worst heat I've known in my life, it would be that legendary four months in Townsville of Mango Madness!

So Hong Kong, even at it's worst - and these past six months have been it's worst - doesn't even come close!

Samoan Relief Concert.

Te Vaka wants everyone to know:

... just a matter of weeks ago an undersea earthquake generated four tsunamis which crashed into Tonga, Samoa and American Samoa, laying to waste whole villages in minutes. In addition to the Auckland Relief Concert in November, there will be a Pacific Tsunami Relief Concert at the Sydney Showgrounds on the 31st of October to raise money for those affected by this tragedy.

The venue has capacity for 30,000 people, there is a power packed lineup of top performers and we are expecting to make more than one million dollars which will go directly towards the needs of those who have lost everything.

In order to put our efforts where most money could be raised quickly, Te Vaka will headline this massive relief concert in Australia. For more information visit the website www.pacifictsunamirelief.com where you can register to buy tickets or donate to help rebuild.

These are the ways you can help:

1/ Buy tickets to the concert http://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=TSUNAMIC09

2/ Make a donation on the website http://www.pacifictsunamirelief.com

3/ Help out with getting three of the Te Vaka members based in New Zealand to Sydney by donating on any of the Te Vaka order forms https://www.tevaka.com/NZ_SP_order.html or sending a payment through paypal to juliefoai@tevaka.com

Sapphia-Sofala!

I've decided to remove this post about my Great Great Grandmother, Sapphia-Sofala, because it contains wayyy too much intimate information about my family. I've kept it, however, for any family members who want to read the stories my mother's Great Aunts told me about their mother. Just let me know, family, and I'll send it to you.

But as for how she got the name Sapphia-Sofala. Guess I can tell that here:

Seems the family was traveling from some place in Australia to someplace else in Australia, when the jolting sent our Great Great Great Grandmother into premature labour. They were too far from any town, on a track called Sofala Road, so they took her out into a field near the road to have the baby. Seems all through the delivery, she kept complaining that there was a very uncomfortable rock immediately beneath her so her husband, just as the baby was coming, reached under the blanket to get it out.

Turned out the rock was the most enormous sapphire imaginable. Perfect too; completely unflawed and the most amazingly deep blue. He insisted the baby be called Sapphire. However, because her mother always intended this baby, if a girl, to be named Sophia, there was a big argument. But in the end they reached a compromise: Sapphia. And the Sofala tag-on came from the name of the area, obviously, as a tribute and a thank you.

Anyway, they kept the sapphire for her dowry, and when she married she sold it and built herself her dream-house, atop that hill, from which she watched over her kingdom like an eagle or a dragon, till the fire destroyed her lair and she didn't want to live anymore!

But those are all family stories so ...

The Angel in the Tree!

Telling the story below reminded me of a very similar incident from my past, only vastly sillier:


When I was living in Brisbane, many years ago, I had a neighbour, Barbara, who was living a life of the utmost awfulness, with one hideous disaster after another. In the space of the six months I lived next door, her eldest son was killed in a motor-bike accident, her grieving husband pulled every single thing out of the house into the garden, doused it with petrol, set it alight, and then shot himself, her eldest daughter ran off with a bunch of street kids and became a junky-prostitute, then Barbara, one of the strongest women I've ever known, living day-by-day, barely holding the rest of her family together, discovered she had cancer.

My heart bled for her.

She was in hospital, dealing with it, when I woke in the middle of the night. There was a huge moon shining through the bathroom window so I didn't turn on the light. Was sitting there when I noticed a young man shimmying up Babara's drainpipe to a small louvered second-floor window. Leaning forward, just inside my window, I said "I'm watching you." It had that wonderful bathroom echo and sounded wonderfully creepy.

The young man screamed, fell, and was lying down on the ground, dazed, so, still just inside the window, I said "Please don't rob Barbara's house. She has enough troubles without you adding to them."

The young man screamed again, and started shouting "I'm sorry, Angel, I'm sorry."

Angel? Then I noticed that he was looking up at an enormous staghorn fern up a tree that had the moon shining through the branches, several feet to the left of me.

It tickled my funny bone so I pushed it wayyy further. "I've been watching you for a while now" I said in my most epic voice. "because you have fallen off your true path. This is not the life god wants for you."

"Yes. Yes." the young man shouts at the tree, so, desperately trying not to laugh, I say "God told me to tell you he wants you to go back to school and find your true calling."

"Yes, Angel, I promise, Angel."

"So go now and tell all your friends that god is watching them too and doesn't want them doing what they're doing. He wants them to go back and find their true path."

"Yes, Angel, I promise, Angel."

"So leave now, knowing that all is forgiven and your life starts again tonight."

"Thank you, Angel, thank you." and he starts to run off.

"And tell everyone to leave Barbara's house alone because I'm guarding it!" I shout after him.

Well, it couldn't have been better because I was then working on a project looking at self-esteem levels of runaway girls who joined street gangs in the area, so ... well, for the next few weeks, I was there, in among them, handing out questionnaires and interviewing, gathering stories, so had the wonderful privilege of listening to the story grow: Tony saw an angel. An actual angel. Golden hair. Enormous white wings. Beautiful face. Halo. White robes. Just like all those angels you see in church. Stood right in front of him. Tony said that the angel told him he had to return to his true path. They all had to return to their true path. Tony was returning home so he could go back to school. Tony had found religion!

Ruhe! Totenstille! Schwrigend zu horen! Sometimes the truth is better off remaining untold. Yes?

Sapphia-Sofala's bottles!

We seem to be developing a "co-incidence theme" with the stories here, so here's another one.

I love nothing better than coloured glass bottles in windows:

The Collection of my Dreams!
Not mine, but what I aspire to!

Anyway, the story of Sapphia-Sofala's bottles: When I was a child of about 8, I was visiting my mother's family in Australia, and one day my lovely cousins took me on a trek up the big hill to the burned-out ruin that once was my Great Great Grandmother's house. Sapphia-Sofala of Merton. What had once, a century earlier, been a rather grand house was now simply a set of large carved granite steps leading to nowhere, but standing atop them and looking out at the view? It was a mighty connection with the past and with who these ancestors were. How powerful they must have felt, standing there atop that hill and knowing they owned everything they could see. Then, after long minutes 'feeling their vibe', we dived into the burned-out remains to explore.

Cousin Russell, my age exactly but already in Mensa and with a twisty entrepreneurial brain, regularly came up here to treasure hunt because he had his own company that had business dealings with the global antique market, so he knew the place very well, and before he let us touch anything, he told us that, since his company owned the prospecting rights to this place, he owned any discoveries we made.

We said we were OK with that.

Filthy and pulling through chunks of burnt wood, getting right into it, I came across a stash of old medicine bottles, all blues and greens and purples, and they were the most beautiful things I'd ever seen, especially the ones that had been burned the most and so were all iridescent and looked like they'd been carved from opal. From the moment I held them up to the light, I was hooked. Naturally, Russell was instantly there to take them off me but I pleaded with him and eventually he let me keep my three favourites: ones with lovely shapes; a little green one that had gone opalescent; a larger purple one that had also gone opalescent; and a deep blue one with a marble in the centre and a really interesting-looking plug.

So that's how I got my life's special treasures: Sapphia-Sofala's bottles. Loved them for their connection with my past but more-so because they looked so incredible with the light shining through, so I took them every place I've ever lived, and always stuck them in a window to catch the light. Over the years, I added more interesting antique bottles but none meant as much to me as my originals.

But one day ...

We were then living in Townsville, in North Queensland, and were asleep when woken by a series of loud smashes. And then, right outside our guest bedroom window, was the sound of someone choking. Instantly the lights were on and Keith and I were both grabbing things to be used as weapons, racing for that spare bedroom ready for a fight.

No one was there but the window was open and all over the floor were the shards of my bottle collection. We could also hear choking-coughing running through the garden and then the sound of the gate.

Rang the police. Obviously, since the burglars hadn't actually got in, when they eventually came around, they weren't much interested. But I was devastated, mainly because ... well, of my entire collection of antique bottles, only Sapphia-Sofala's purple bottle remained intact.

The next day, checking out the scene of the crime, we found a half-drunk can of coke, and guessed our burglars had been a gang of kids, and that one of them, drinking the coke, had been startled by the smash and choked. Yayyy!

But here comes the co-incidence: about five months later, I was asked to be supervising scriptwriter for a police initiative to help street kids become useful citizens by teaching them film-making. Nice in theory, huh? They were the vilest bunch of teenage hooligans imaginable, but I was there to do a job and did it, attempting to gently prise a film-script out of them.

And the story I got?: there's this gang of street-kids, not unlike themselves, who decide to do a murder so break into a house with the plan to beat the occupants to death. They're all armed but when they prise open the window and start to get in there's this loud smash, followed by other loud smashes. One of the number ... "Remember how you were drinking that can of coke and you choked!" one of them said to the other ...

... at that point I stopped listening as a scriptwriter and started listening as an evidence-collector, but then they spun off into fantasy and started on about how they beat this "elderly couple" (gee, thanks guys!) to death, so I immediately drew the line. "We are NOT making some sick snuff movie!" I snapped at them. "Let's find another story."

We did eventually come up with a workable script but, needless to say, given the awfulness and stupidity of this bunch, I did most of it, and, after that, my part done, I left them to it. Never heard anything more about the short film so I guess they didn't get much farther with it. But, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a nice idea in theory!

Anyway, I talked over my discovery with a policeman friend and he said there wasn't really anything they could do, so ...

... well, I went out and got myself a gorgeous pair of rottweillers.

So, today I only have one of Sapphia-Sofala's bottles. The others? I'm just grateful to them that they may, perhaps, have just saved our lives.

Kristina West Would Love? For Lady R.

Do you recall these?

OK, they don't have the simple 'homemade' quality you love, but they're multi-media Lakshmi goddess-style dolls, mining the same vein as Kristina.

And, just because I was in that "event" in i-photo, I decided to download these ones as well, for no good reason whatsoever:

Lau Brothers' very odd
"Asian Gods" installation.

And something that totally made me think of you:


Not the image. The frame! Fimo and buttons! Simple and 'homemade"!

What Kills Us This Week!

Forget what HK's in a tizzy about this week. This is what's worrying me:

There's a Dutch boy who's been begging down on Luard Road for three months tomorrow. He just sits there all day, every day, in this little Wan Chai alcove, with his begging cup out, and he's even sleeping nights there. Keith keeps saying "He's not our problem!" and "Don't get involved!" but very quickly he became seriously stinky, so I've been paying for him to go to the swimming pool every second day to use their free showers and wash his clothes, and twice a week I give him enough money for a cuppachino so he gets to use Pacific Coffee's complimentary free internet, so he can ... I don't know, contact folks back home to ask for help? Find someone to take him in? Do something, anything, to finally go away!

Yes, I gave him URL for the website for Couch-Surfing, and the URL, phone number and physical address of HK's Dutch Consulate, and even phoned the Netherlands Consulate myself several times to let them know he's there ... but he still continues to be down there in Luard Road every day, week after week after week, for three months tomorrow.

By week three, I HAD to know the story so I chatted with him and he's a perfectly nice fellow from Holland who has been working in New Zealand. His visa ran out there, so he had to leave but didn't have enough money to get home, so someone foolishly told him that he could get tickets cheaply in Hong Kong, so he flew here ... only to discover the tickets were still too expensive. So he's begging, he says, to raise the money he needs for that ticket. I've offered to buy him one but he says he won't accept my charity. (Mmmm, so what exactly is begging?)

Personally, I think, since he's sitting directly opposite a travel agency, it's really about "guilting out the travel agents" so they give him a cheaper ticket but doesn't realise he doesn't stand a chance. The Cantonese, both as good Buddhists and as followers of Confucius, have no remit to charity, so just IGNORE the plight of others. And this is obviously what's happened here. Although ...

... actually, it's all too weird for words. Although I've been forbidden to let him into our place, during the recent Typhoon 8, with endless hours of terrible thunderstorm, blinding rain and vicious wind, I couldn't stand the thought of him being out there without shelter so went down to get him.

He wouldn't come. Said being out in the storm was "thrilling" and that if he threw a can into the street, it would dance and fly back and forth for ages, and it was just amazing to watch. Odd, huh? I wasn't prepared to stand out in such a vicious storm arguing with him, so I gave him our address and told him to come if he changed his mind. He didn't!

Anyway, tomorrow is three months, and, since you can only get tourist visas for three months, I guess tomorrow means it'll become a police matter and there'll be all sorts of action about getting him deported and such! I told him this yesterday, and I guess I should go down now to find out what his plans are.

But please do note, he's been out on that street with all his belongings for three months, and he's never been attacked or robbed or had anything at all bad happen to him; sure, he's had nothing good happen, but 'nothing bad' is good too, I guess.

So that's my choice for this week:

THREATDOWN

Cantonese indifference to what's
happening to others.

And Consulates who don't give a damn!

A Week Later: For the entire last week:

Yup, he's gone! Guess I put the wind up him with my lecture on what would happen to him if he over-stayed his tourist visa. The alcove was empty by nightfall.

Dafen-ing Again.

Madly fell in love with a water colour Lady R. has on her wall ...

... so I'm getting my own.

I've ordered changes, like the artist here couldn't do hands - and Lady R's snappish retort about that comment is posted below - so simply glued on photocopies and painted over the top, but my guy in Dafen CAN do hands so I've asked him to do them properly in proportion.

Anyway, watch this space because soon I'll be able to post up my very own copy of this one.

Mind you, I barely have any wall space left. Bloody Dafen! Simply too much wonderful art up there that I simply MUST own!

Later: Yayyy! They have my copy done! Now ... do I like it as much? Mmmmm!

Happy Diwali!

Very Happy Diwali everyone!

Of all the world's festivals, this would have to be my favourite.

Diwali in Fiji is always HUGE. Truly a multiracial event because everyone gets into it, mainly because the lights are so pretty and even the poorest folk are able to do something spectacular, and also because the food is so totally yummy.

Hey, you remember our old trick for "The Festival of Light"? Sure, rich Indians would go all out with the Christmas lights and all, but we used to copy the poor people because we always liked that better: just get brown paper bags, fill the bottom with sand and stick a candle inside? Place them all along the driveway. Looks spectacular.

Or that other one where we'd put four sticks in the ground and wrap it with all different coloured crepe paper and stick a candle in the middle, and line the roads with 'em. Looked amazing.

And the Fijians always make all these bamboo cannons and the whole night reverberates with the booms! Yeah, and the Fijians throw water and flour on everyone passing, and you really have to get it off immediately or it sticks like glue, which is really is, and it's virtually impossible to get off.

And there was always the huge temple action. Remember all those miles of beggars sitting in the gutters around the temple and hordes of rich would walk along the line with massive bags of coins and drop a few in each begging bowl or outstretched hand. Oh yeah, and you remember that year ... we were in Suva for the day and the kids went missing so the mad hunt was on and ... well, passing Fijians, who we didn't even know but who absolutely knew what we were looking for, kept pointing our way up the hill to the temple ... and there they were, instant eye-magnets with their blond hair, sitting in the gutters along with the beggars, hands out, accepting the Hindu annual charity. We didn't want to cause a scene so it was all instant disavowing and disowning and pretending we'd never seen these little rats before in our lives, and when we finally got them away it was all "But they were handing out free money!" We made them give everything to the beggars and, boy, did we have a lot of explaining about how the world works to do!

Fun, fun times!

Oh, and I'll tell you a funny story that's only vaguely related to this. In Australia, decades back, one Diwali, I had a real hunger for Fiji-style "parcel curry-roti" and hunted high and low for 'sharps' to make the roti, and I couldn't find any anywhere, until finally I got a small packet in an Asian supermarket. But then, next time we were back in Fiji, I noticed all the Indians making roti with flour. "Why do you use flour these days instead of sharps?" I asked.

"Because back then we were so poor we couldn't afford flour, and sharps is simply the waste product from flour, so we used that instead. These days, we can afford real flour, so that what we now use."

I always thought sharps was some really exotic Indian grain! Mmmm, silly me, huh!