Nukulau!

Look what I've just found:

Instant grip on my heart.

That's the wharf on an island called Nukulau in Suva Harbour. And the reason this shot grabbed so instantly and deeply at me is that shot contains everything that is directly the reason why all we Murphys learned to swim at such early ages.

I still remember this all so clearly and that's because, when I was only about two years old, maybe younger, I fell off that wharf while playing with other toddlers there. It doesn't look much, does it, falling off this, but that's because the tide is out here.  I do think also that the wharf may have been, back then, much longer, so falling in was a big, big deal, especially for someone who couldn't swim. 

 

And to make it worse, this sand island was formed because there was a vicious current right from Rewa River which swept around this island and into the deep ocean passage just beyond where there was a tiger-shark breeding ground, full naturally of savage tiger sharks, and, yes, when I fell in I was immediately swept away in it, pulled fast right along that beach you can see right there. 

 

Terrible memory, but what makes it so very odd is that, while being whizzed along at a rate of knots into a tiger-shark breeding ground, my primary thought as "This is sooo embarrassing. I hope no one sees me."  Gosh, I was such a little Aspergic, wasn't I!

 

It was because I really hated adults laughing at me so there was no way on earth I was going to call out for help and even decided I preferred to die than to be seen by any grown-up in such a predicament. 

 

Luckily my big brother saw me whizz past and dived in to save me which was particularly brave of him because he certainly couldn't swim back then either.

It could have ended very badly but fortunately mum saw him struggling to get back to shore with me, and waded out to grab the pair of us.

The upshot of all this was the very next day, a Monday, she took the whole pack of us down to Paul Kraus at the Suva Sea Baths to sign us up for his learn-to-swim classes.  Most of us were actually too young for him to take on but she was insistent that she wanted us water-proofed so something like that wouldn't happen again, and thus he conceded.

 

I should also tell you that the legend began that Monday because while Paul Kraus was teaching the littlies in the baby pool, Bob Kennedy, Fiji's Swimming Coach, had the Fiji swimming squad doing laps in the big pool, and Julia, only about three or four, spent the first five minutes of her swimming lesson hanging over the wall watching them.  I guess couldn't stand being stuck with the kiddies or maybe something gelled with her because she suddenly took a deep interest in what Paul Kraus was teaching, took only about ten minutes to learn how to swim and then leaped over the wall of the baby pool to join in with them.  Yup, a tiny little girl who'd only had 10 minutes of swimming lessons dived in with the Fiji Training Squad and began doing laps.

 

Luckily Bob, a wonderful human being, thought it was hilarious and said to mum "If she can do it, let her stay." and yup, she did the length of the pool, so Bob took her on, but only in the Juniors, however the legend still stands that Julia joined the Fiji Swimming Squad when she was barely four.

But this is meant to be about Nukulau, Suva's picnic island. I have so many other stories - like the time we found the skeletons on the beach - but while this heat-wave continues I think I'll save those for another time.

"Living Museum"

Something we've been talking about recently:  how we from Fiji all represent "a living museum" of chopstick use because for over a century no one in China has used chopsticks the way we do.

Anyway, I've been asked by Fiji Chinese, who have indeed lived in Fiji for over a century, to show how chopsticks are used these days in China because they simply can't visualise it, so here are some shots I've taken for them:

If these photos don't make it clear, I'll take more, however, here's a more representative shot of modern Chinese dining:

Hey, do you too reckon they're both texting each other?  Maybe this is how young folks all communicate these days?

My OTHER Wainibokasi Story!

While writing the previous post, I remembered something else; something which still rankles with me even after all these years.

What happened? Well, I mentioned the enormous cyclone that wiped out Rewa delta ... but I didn't tell you that the copious amount of rain dumped in the mountains also made the Wainibokasi River flow like a cascade with endless eddies and brown roiling water, full of trees and logs and other debris, all of which made kayaking down its length the subsequent Sunday afternoon even more fun than usual.

However that day a certain unnamed family member was in a huff with me ... and, never gifted with an ability to see the Big Picture, and with exceptionally poor impulse control, at the first opportunity I was tossed out of our shared kayak and into that brown swirling water. She then rowed away fast.

It was frankly terrifying, trying to keep my head above that brown swirling water, in a current so strong that I - only about six years old - had no way of fighting it to reach shore.

Fortunately shortly afterwards the current changed direction as it came to a bend in the river and I was pulled towards shore. And even more fortunately a tree had toppled into the water and, still in a blind panic, I was able to grab at a branch and pull myself along to the trunk.

After I'd caught my breath I decided to make towards the shore. Still hanging on to the trunk, pulling my way along its length, fighting against the cascade of water over the top and the current pulling underneath, I was flailing around with my bare feet trying to find the bottom, when finally my toes got purchase on something.

It took me only seconds to realise something was wrong  ...

... I couldn't see a thing in the brown water, but I could feel it. Whatever I was walking on felt so very odd that I ran my feet over it: Was it a very large cloth bag filled with mud? But why would anyone fill a cloth bag with mud?  But, but ... were those buttons?  Why would someone put buttons on a cloth bag? Really and genuinely curious, right?

So I put my foot on it very hard ... and ... well, that's when it happened.

I first thought it was an enormous snake ... but then I saw what it really was. A large, grey, water-sodden hand rearing out of the water before flopping back again.

I screamed and leapt away from it, only to be pulled back into the current and, again panicking furiously, was again swept downstream.

It might have ended very badly but that's when a crystal clear thought entered my head:  I wasn't wearing shoes.  That meant if I reached the shore, I'd have a very long walk to the bridge several miles downriver. On a very hot day too. And, hey, on land there was only the choice of walking on the sensitive grass-ridden embankment or along the rough gravel of the road and neither of those made for pleasant prospects.  And then the second thought: what was so wrong with the water anyway?: it was taking me exactly where I wanted to go and, hey, my feet would thank me for it. 

And that's when I grabbed a passing log, hung on and rode down the river that way. It was very pleasant indeed and it was only when the bridge was finally in sight that I threw myself back into the water and struggled towards shore.

I made it ... and immediately wished I hadn't because, honestly, there was such a kerfuffle.  The story went that I'd dived overboard of my own volition and Mum was furious with me. "Don't you realise how dangerous that was?" she shouted at me ... but I didn't care ...

"There's a dead man trapped in that tree back there on that river bend." I told her.

"Don't be silly!" she snapped.

I really did try to convince her, but she must have been very worried because she was in no mood to listen. And all the way home I constantly interrupted her rant about my irresponsibility and stupidity with "There's a dead man trapped in that tree back there on that river bend."which just made it all the worse. But I didn't care.  I really thought my news was the most important issue and it made me very cross that I remained unheard.

It was only that night when, on the Radio One news, there came an announcement that a Fijian policeman had been swept away while trying to save four children in the upper reaches of the Wainibokasi River.  That's when she looked at me hard ... and then went off to make a phone call.

But I never got an apology. Not from her, and not from the other one either.  And that still, after all this time, rankles.

Gosh, how on earth did this all become about me?

My Strange Wainibokasi Story!

This is such an odd story I often wonder that if I understood what happened I'd know a great deal more about how the world works.  It also makes me think of Freud and how he charged a thousand pounds per session for psychoanalysis because he said that such a high price would force his patients to take it all very seriously and so get better.

When I was a child growing up in Fiji, for a long while we Murphy kids loved our kayaks more than anything.

And our very best adventure in them was always racing each other down the Wainibokasi, a large, fast-moving river in the isolated and heavily jungled mountains in an area called Rewa, outside Suva. Fun like you wouldn't believe and we could never get enough, so every Sunday afternoon our mum would dive us up into the mountains of Wainibokasi, off-load us and our kayaks at the upper reaches of the river, then drive down to Wainibokasi Bridge to read a book and await our arrival.

However on our very first trip up the mountain, we came across the strangest sight. Just beside the winding narrow dusty road, and next to a waterfall and lake, was an enormous column of water that rose straight out of the ground. You have to imagine how strange it was: exactly like a Greek ionic column, about seven feet tall and silver-coloured yet glistening like an opal, sparking off these tiny little rainbows. No, seriously, it looked like it was made of pure silver yet it was entirely water.

Mum stopped the car and we all got out to walk around it, gazing in awestruck silence. Never in our lives had we even heard about such a thing.  And here was this miracle right before our eyes, a true wonder so close to home and yet no one had ever mentioned it to us.

"How is this even possible?" mum was asking, then we all got back into the car and went home to fetch dad - who always knew everything - before returning to again gaze in wonder at it.

"It's physics." said dad.  "This lake has been formed because that road has cut off this stream's outlet into the river. And notice that the cliff is granite, in fact this entire area is granite, so there must be a seam in the granite that comes out at this spot here, and the pressure of that waterfall over there is driving this column up and out and water viscosity is holding it into this column shape.  If you poked it with a stick, it would break the bond and so the water would spray out into a regular fountain."

That satisfied us all, and so we simply drove away, continuing up the mountain to find a spot suitable to launch our kayaks.

For the next few years, while our kayak obsession lasted, every trip we'd pass that miracle and eventually we even stopped noticing it.  And I'd like to point out that never once did we see another car on that mountain road ...

... until Fiji was hit by a massive cyclone that wiped out most of the Rewa area.

They were desperate times and no one had any money to repair. And up there in the Wainibokasi mountains, a village lost everything, including their church - the very worst blow - so they needed to fund-raise fast.

But how?

We know the answer because we saw them doing it: an entire village out there on the Wainibokasi road building an eight foot high bamboo fence around the column of water.

Naturally we stopped to ask what they were up to and were told that this village held many meetings to think long and hard on the knotty question "What do we have of value that we can sell to raise money to rebuild our church?" and that's when some bright spark came up with a rather brilliant idea:  we'll charge people to see our Marvel.

So that's what they did:  they wrapped a bamboo fence around their miraculous column of water and began charging a penny to see it. 

I thought they were idiots.  Like why would anyone PAY to see something that for so many years had been free to view and yet never ever visited ...

... but it worked.  No, seriously! Every single weekend we saw more and more cars on that road. And yes, they were all coming to pay-to-view. First there were dozens of people and then hundreds, and then, within months, it was literally thousands, with entire bus-loads coming from all over Viti Levu to see the Marvel.  Often they'd be many miles of cars parked there on the road so it was getting harder and harder to get up to our launch-spot higher in the mountains.

Yes, we'd always stop at The Marvel because it was always fun, with a rollicking party atmosphere and hundreds of ice-carts and food vendors and picnickers. And the line to pay-to-view was always very long and people would come out looking astonished and saying "How is that even possible?" but what was really astonishing was how often we'd ask mum for pennies so we too could go inside the fence to view The Marvel for ourselves.

So that's what happened for just over 18 months. Those many thousands all paying their penny to-view all added up until the village had more than enough money to rebuild their church, build themselves nice houses and put aside money to pay everyone's school fees for the next few decades, until the village decided "We don't need more than this!"  ... and so took down that fence and thus The Marvel was no longer pay-to-view ...

... AND NEVER AGAIN DID WE SEE ANOTHER CAR ON THAT MOUNTAIN ROAD!

The Marvel was still there, still as strange and astonishing and beautiful as it ever was, still glistening like opal and still sparking off those gorgeous little rainbows, but ... gosh, I don't know ... if you didn't have to pay to view it, it HAD to be too ordinary to bother with so no one ever bothered.  Is that the lesson learned here?

Is something only precious if you have to pay for it?   Freud certainly thought so.

Anyway, I don't know if The Wainibokasi Marvel is still there since, according to my father, stopping it was simply a matter of building a proper outlet into the river ... but - hint hint hint - wouldn't it be interesting to find out.

And so ... what happened?

For those who haven't been following this story, what happened was that the Chinese Communist Party - who, you will recall, signed that they would leave HK alone for 50 years, and that was only 15 years ago - decided we HKers did not know our place so insisted we introduce compulsory National Education into our education system. It was to begin last week ...

Here's how they do it up in China!

This is from China Daily, the CCP propaganda

English-language newspaper and is

clearly intended to show us

"Look, guys, it don't hurt a bit!"

... but as you can guess, HK did NOT want to introduce this hideous, compulsory ickiness into our education system and so got on it's FEISTY and went all out to battle:

Lead by Scholastics, a bunch of winsy cute high school kiddies, HK drew a line in the sand and shouted "Get back!" at the mighty CCP. Thousands upon thousands protested down at Tamar Offices (that's the CCP Offices down there at Admiralty) ...

CCP placed this number at 8000. 

Independent counters put it at over 100,000.

See, this is what happens when you 

spend all your lesson time

saluting flags and chanting slogans.

You never learn to count.

... and the city was littered with thousands of high school kiddies posters ...

 ... and everyone was asked to wear black to show you protested ...

... and so HK was a sea of black-clad angry people.

And if you double-click on this SCMP article below, it may be large enough for you to read everything that went down:

We won!  Yup, that's it for Patriotism Education in Hong Kong and here's the final word on the subject:

 Leung gets his!

And that schoolboy represents

that the campaign against Patriotism Ed

was led by a bunch of high school students! 

And here's my final image on the subject:

OK, I was trying to be all metaphoric.

Need to work on that, right!

What Kills Us This Week!

I know that when I began writing these "Chicken Little" posts all those years ago, I was laughing at HK's propensity to panic, but this week's Threatdown (the literal translation of Chinese word for panic) is over something that really needs vast amounts of agitation, alarm, cold feet, consternation, dismay, fear, hysteria, trepidation and every other synonym for panic you can drum up, so I'm only offering kudos:

 You can see for yourself that this is more 

than '8000' protesters as Beijing claims.

This parents, teachers and students sit-in started last Saturday when 40,000 took to the streets in protest against the Chinese Communist Party's Compulsory National Studies that were supposed to begin being taught in HK Primary Schools on Monday.

From everything I've read, I think it means HK schools are supposed to give up a 'real' subject each day so the children "learn Patriotism", wherein among other things they salute the Mainland Chinese flag and chant "We love China" for hours on end. Bizarre! And it just shows how little Mainland China understands HK that they didn't KNOW that our highly aspirational "Tiger Mothers" and "Wolf Fathers" would simply say "Hell no.  We ain't gonna."

And since Saturday the numbers have grown and yesterday The Goddess of Democracy (a copy of the one placed in Tienanmen Square up there in Beijing all those years ago) was delivered so she could stand in solidarity among the many tens of thousands of angry souls outside China's Tamar offices in Admiralty.

If you don't already know, The Goddess of Democracy is trundled out most every time HK stands firm-and-fiesty against Beijing Bullying ... and doesn't Beijing hate it.  I think youtube has some footage of the last time She was erected.  Let me check:



That's an old one, but it's such a great one I've chosen it from among many.  This one is taken from the news reports back in 2010 of the latest round of protests and I think it's from about 1.57 of the footage that you can see those fellows in the RED shirts take away The Goddess of Democracy statue and, yes, she was never to be seen again ... but not to worry because HK has many many more hidden away all over the place because we always knew we'd need multiples given the extent of Beijing Bullying.

However I think this latest outrage of forcing us to indoctrinate our children has genuinely crossed the line. It's not like we don't know what it's all really about since it's no secret that China hates the way we get firm-and-fiesty whenever the CCP tries to exert its will here and they actually said last time they tried it and we fought back "We will get HK's hearts and minds before we try again." and these Patriot Studies are clearly a clumsy and obvious attempt at doing so.

But what makes it so desperately ugly is that China can't see that we're not acting out of any lack of patriotism.  Every study done shows that 100% of HK Chinese LOVE being Chinese.  They also love China and its physical landscape and the culture and the material culture (don't we all!) but it's just that HK desperately hates the Mainland Chinese Government and really really hates that they're breaking their promise - their SIGNED promise - to leave us alone for 50 years and we still have 35 years of that to run and thus they really shouldn't be in here doing any of this to us.

That's what everyone here is currently talking about. And it isn't happy talk.  Yup, the word on the street these days - and the word is spat out with genuine hatred - "China can't be trusted to keep its word on ANYTHING!" so rather than Patriot Studies winning hearts and minds, all it's doing is making everyone very cross and even people who normally simply "go along" with things, are learning to be First Order Resisters!

Oh, and I really must tell you that a whole bunch of students and teachers have gone on starvation diets to protest this and the CCP is roaring with rage and ordering them to eat, which really isn't something a government should ever do (remember all those starvation-protesting Suffragettes having their teeth knocked out so the police could force-feed 'em, and how that's gone down in British history as a very great atrocity?) is just another thing that makes us go "Hell no. It ain't gonna happen."

So this week, I'm definitely not laughing because this sit-in has my 100% approval. Already CCP has said (and you can read this in the article above) that "between having National Education and not having National Education, there is room for a great deal of discussion." - before adding that they won't actually meet with the protesters in person - however there's something very illogical at the very heart of that argument because, well, HK is saying "Hell no. It ain't gonna happen." because ...

... well, look at this logically:  HK is a vastly aspirational place where everyone is hugely into education and every parent is absolutely determined to get their kiddies into one of the best universities on the planet, and there is no way on earth that they will surrender any academic subject for something that is not just dangerous and stupid but also downright FLUFFY!

And China, if it's to show the slightest sign of winning hearts and minds in HK, really really REALLY has to learn that about us: NO ONE MESSES WITH OUR EDUCATION!

So that's this week's panic:

 THREATDOWN:

Stopping my kiddies getting into Oxford or Cambridge, 

Stanford, Princeton, Harvard or Yale!

Travels in Fiji!

Everyone is asking how Fiji looks these days after nearly six years of New Zealand and Australian boycotts and sanctions. As you know, since the 2006 Bainimarama Coup both of these countries have policies to drive our beloved nation into the ground and folks want to know if they're working.

Well, folks, the news is both good and bad and what makes it so paradoxical is that it's both the same news:  Fiji looks fabulous; very prosperous and thriving and everyone - apart from Nadi where they've just had those three devastating floods in a row - everyone seems very happy and affluent. 

The sanctions clearly haven't worked, so much so that I have to say both countries have been extraordinarily stupid trying to punish Fiji this way because all they've done is create a national friendships vacuum and thus driven Fiji deep into the clutches of China and none of us really want that, do we?

And the Chinese are in there with a vengeance if you must know and we have only our former Big Brother nations to thank for the situation.  Gosh, I'm cross with Australia and New Zealand.

And what makes it particularly inexcusable is that they continue to believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that Bainimarama is an evil tyrant. Rather than struggling under his "yoke of oppression", everyone at a grassroots level seems most fond of Our Humble Leader, without a bad word from anyone I talked to.

Most were even entirely impressed with him especially since he was so effective after the Nadi floods - although I did hear a grumble that he didn't get into the hinterland of Nadi where they'd had devastating landslides that wiped out a great many homes, plantations and villages, but he can hardly be held responsible for not going there because he didn't know and he can't be blamed for that since no one else knew about it either.  It wasn't until certain Rotary members heard rumours and went in on horseback to check it out that it was discovered just how bad everything was.

Since I've been traveling I haven't heard any news about what's happening there, but I will check it out and get back to you with details, if any, of the rescue efforts there.

As for those other three serious natural disasters Nadi had this year? Baby Jane and I talked to lots of people who'd really had it bad, however it looks like it's now become a talking point - and almost a competition - about who had the highest water in their house or business. And for some, it went: "This was the first." and they'd show a height around knee level, "This was the second." and the hand would hover around chest level, and "This was the third." and it would be over their heads and they'd have lots of stories about climbing up onto the roof, waiting for boats to come rescue them.  It really was a horrible business and if something isn't done, things are just going to get worse. 

And in the valleys behind Nadi, they are definitely expecting more of the same. We had to laugh when we saw what the poorest Indian farmers are doing to their houses.  Dotted over the landscape are now giant nine and 10 foot high poles with tiny little wooden houses perched on top. They're obviously expecting the worst but haven't thought it through much after that because it's clear that no one has yet figured out a permanent way to get in and out of those houses. Currently they're using ladders and we all decided they're going to find it becomes desperately inconvenient very quickly.

However, isn't it mysterious that a city that didn't flood suddenly had three huge ones in a row, each worse than the last. Being me, naturally I asked around and apart from people who believe that, like New Orleans, Nadi's sinking, most people think it's caused by the land reclamation and mangrove removal at Denarau Resort Island ...

... and I rather suspect that Denarau thinks so too because all the resorts have clubbed together and selected 1000 children whose families were wiped out by the floods promising they will now pay for their entire education up to whatever level they reach.

The best way to ask for forgiveness in Fiji?  Obviously it's to pay for education, because schooling in Fiji isn't free after the first five years and EVERYONE is very aspirational.

But on a more personal level, the Nadi-ites I was most worried about during these floods were all fine, even Molly who lives right by the mangroves, and in fact everyone who lives behind where the mangroves remain intact were so little affected that most spent their days working in the Evacuation Centres, helping others who lived in areas without the protective shield of those mangrove swamps.

Nonetheless these environmental disasters haven't stopped them wiping out even more mangroves, as you can see here:

Another new resort goes up, 

and another stretch of mangroves comes down.

I really don't understand why everyone thinks it needs to be done and if you ask folks will say it's done on aesthetic grounds because mangroves are ugly, but it so isn't so. It just requires a new eye and a new way of thinking. Molly, who loves mangroves and wouldn't let them touch any outside her place, says that you can keep your mangroves and make them look like just another part of your garden if you plant rows of gardenia bushes in front of them.  The leaves of both are practically identical and the blending of the two, especially when the gardenias are in flower, is spectacular because visually it looks like you have a giant gardenia shrubbery.  

So how about it, resorts and other mangrove-killers?

Apart from the mangrove killing, the other heartbreaking sight was all those walls:

 Anyone got dynamite?

Yup, for a nation with the Constitutional Right for each individual to have a pathway to the sea, and all beaches and banuves (land beside the beach) held as Native Title under National Trust there are pig-dog-ugly foreign-owned walls cutting off all access for endless miles all along the highway between Nadi and Suva.  You really do have to ask who is responsible for this outrage.

But heartbreaking as this was, nothing could beat "the horror, the horror" of seeing our beachhouse in Deuba ...

 ... cut off from the beach where we'd grown up, romping there all our lives, and the very spot where our beloved mother ...

 Mum.

... died.

This photo may not look like much to you, but I'll tell you that taking it I had tears streaming down my face:

 "The horror. The horror."

A private property sign

and they placed it right there!

Look at it. That's the spot.  The very spot. 

See this old photo?

That's Little Brother (who doesn't want to be named in this blog) romping in the creek on Loloma Beach.  This photo is a very great treasure of mine and not just because Little Brother looks so happy.  It's because right behind him is the very spot where mum, walking the dogs on the beach at sunset with Little Brother, suddenly sat down, sitting for a short while before laying back and watching the sun go down.

So, as the sun went down in Deuba this holiday, naturally the wall and that horrendously wrong Private Property sign couldn't hold us back. In memory of our mother, we all got in behind that pig-dog-ugly wall and sat on OUR beach at that very spot and watched the sun go down too.  It was exceptionally lovely, knowing that this peaceful, silent scene is what she saw during her last moments on earth:

So that is the REAL private property!  That which is buried deep in your heart. And it's sickeningly wrong that some ugly-American property developer can take it away from us in this illegal and unconstitutional way.

So can you understand now why this sign makes me cry.  They really don't have the right and I just wish I could be angry rather than saddened by this outrage:

 TRUE EVIL!

Questions need to be asked, yes?  I know that Fiji's Constitution is currently down ... but there really needs to be some protection for all of us, something to stop these evil opportunists from taking it all away from us.  WHO is doing it, right?  But most importantly ... how do we stop it?

There is a great deal more I can say on this subject and also on the subject of Fiji in general, but not today.  HK is sweltering and I feel the need to get out of this desperately humid room.

But do watch this space?