"In a Mana of Speaking"

Last week, an Old Fiji Friend, Tony, sent me a poem he'd written about the fall-out in his life from growing up in Fiji; as one of "the children of paradise" he calls us! I posted it below.

In it, he doesn't do more than suggest a few possible reasons for why we're all kinda different from folk in the rest of the world - and he's right, we are - so I thought I'd cast my mind around our shared past and try to work out how and why we would be this way!

Here are my thoughts and I'd love other Kai Viti Loma to add to it:

Influence 1) We grew up messing around in boats. We did this from, gosh, the age of two or three? Very young, anyway! How many of us had our own little dingy with our own little one-stroke outboard motor, shared with siblings? Or our own little yacht? Remember our P-Class? I've never come across anyone anywhere else who's heard of P-Class yachts! Was it a Fiji-thing? Or, if we didn't have a shop-bought boat, we'd make our own little canoe out of a folded sheet of corrugated iron? Or a bilibili made from roped-up bamboo? So much fun! And we used to be out there on the sea or on rivers all day, everyday, messing about, always unsupervised ... except for the formal yacht races each Sunday at the Royal Suva Yacht Club, when we were forever giving the duty-boat adults a rough time.

Possible Fall-Out: we all share a confidence in our physical presence in the world. It's not exactly a fearlessness, although others may see it that way. It's more that we know our physical limits and what we can actually accomplish, and we do what we know we can without asking permission. Also, we have no expectation that we won't get hurt but know that getting hurt is just part of the process and so we mostly just shrug it off. And maybe we have a faster reaction time, and when something goes wrong, we probably know how to fix it. And we can usually work out how to rescue ourselves when we get in trouble.

Influence 2) We grew up diving on reefs with sharks and moray eels and other killer sea-life from a very early age. No adult supervision there either, although I remember dad used to always be near-by fishing off the boat, and he'd always come and get us if we saw an especially big shark that looked especially interested in us. Although I recall he never hurried!

Possible Fall-Out: these experiences would definitely make us different from everyone else, but how? Mmmm, maybe this explains why we all have a different alertness. Our eyes constantly move across scenes looking for things that may cause us harm. But we don't do it in a frightened panicky way. It's more just a cool-eyed assessment at all times and in all situations, except when we're comfortably on home ground.

Influence 3) Our parents were enormously admirable and busy folk who did great humanitarian or community-spirit things, which meant we were usually left behind with the house-girls. Gosh, there's nothing nicer than being looked after by an older Fijian women! That almost-preternatural calmness! Remember that? And all that deep-seated, to-the-core kindness? That goodness? That outright sensibleness? And remember those wise eyes and how it was like they could look into your soul and know exactly what you needed at any time?

Possible Fall-Out: Is it that we know how to access an inner peacefulness? Or that we all know the enormous pleasures of being at peace? Or being around people who are at peace? But what is definite is that we all love being around older Fijian women! And we always want to know what they think about things because, yes, they really are wise! To this day, I notice how they always know what really matters in every situation and what they think about things is always - always! - exactly the right way to think about things! (Ah, the stories I could tell you!)

Influence 4) Our housegirls told us Fijian stories and passed on Fijian wisdom, and so, through their wise direction and guidance, shaped us on so many levels into functional-Fijians! What Fijians are, we are! Kinda!

Possible Fall-Out: We read and judge people by their Mana! If you don't already know, this is a Pacific Island concept about the energy people give off; the belief that people carry their own history, their ancestors' history, their own deeds around in their energy. You can see it and you can very definitely feel it. And reading Mana is definitely a trait we Fiji-Folk all have in common, although we definitely, definitely can't do it as well as the Fijians can.

On this subject, let me tell you one story to illustrate: when we lived in Australia, I was telling our Fijian neighbour, Clara, how I couldn't stand the teenage boy who was briefly staying with us - we took in at-risk children for a while - because he had such bad energy.

"Be nice to him, Denise. His dad's in jail!'
"How do you know that?"
"You can see it. Just use your eyes."
"OK, Miss Smarty-pants - and know that I'll be checking up on this - you tell me what his dad in jail for?"
"Mmmm, from his Mana I'd say domestic violence. I think his dad stabbed his mum repeatedly in a fight."

And what do you know! I checked! Clara nailed it!

So, from that story, you can see for yourself that Fijians read Mana to astonishingly high degree, wayyyy better than anyone else can ever hope to do it, but, nonetheless we Fiji-Folk all read Mana. That means we don't judge or even notice what a person owns, we don't react to their status, we ignore their appearance: what we do see and judge people on is their Mana!

Influence 5) As Tony points out in his poem, we grew up surrounded by many different races all living in close quarters. We all played together from a young age and so ingrained into us is a knowledge of others' cultures. "A bride wears red!", "A bride is wrapped in tapa.", "A bride changes her clothes a dozen times during the wedding ceremony."; all are as fundamentally valid to us as "A bride wears white." Diwali and Ede, Chinese New Year, all are equally held along with Christmas and Easter because we celebrated all these along with everyone else ... although ... remember how much fun the Fijian contribution to those festivities always was: those bamboo cannons! That throwing flour and water over others! Remember how it would be dry by the time you got home and you'd have to scrub so hard to get it off? Yup, no matter what the festivity I'd usually end up playing with the Fijians. Fun, fun times!

Possible Fall-Out: Race doesn't faze us. We know and appreciate the deep underlying humanity of all people and that others think and feel the same things we do, only often expressed differently. This means we don't pussy-foot around the subject of race and talk about it frequently, often vigorously but never judgementally or assuming we're the ones in the right; we just see it as folks being different from other folks. And we have no expectation at any level that other folk should be like us. We also know that other races and other cultures are vigorous and unfragile, and that that's the way things should be. And we never ever would be apologists for our own race since we see ourselves as simply one race among many, all equally valid (although Banaban Island culture, mmmm!) and we all actually cringe when other western folk do this.

Influence 6) We frequently shared no language in common with the children we played with yet it never stopped us.

Possible Fall-Out: We all learned language wasn't important; just about everything can be conveyed in various forms of Meta-language! And I must say that nothing has stood me in better stead my whole life!

Influence 7) We grew up playing with Fijian kids which was definitely something different from playing with kids of other races. Fijians all possess that enormously adept physicality - probably as the result of at least three thousand years of breeding a race of warriors - and could always do everything and anything, usually on their first try. Oooh, that was annoying! But we would never let our side down and so would try anything and do anything, usually badly, in order to avoid being seen as "Savi and Vulaci!" (weak and white), which was the usual Fijian pronouncement on those new-comer western kids who weren't raised in Fiji!

Possible Fall-Out: Actually, I think this only left us with an enormous admiration for the Fijian people! Damn, they were so good at everything. Annoyingly so. The stories I could tell you!


So that's a start on my assessment on what we Fiji-Born, Fiji-Raised, Kai Viti Loma share in common and how and why we're kinda different from every one who wasn't lucky enough to be "Children in Paradise"!

Please feel free to add to it.

Influence 8) Keith points out that all of us tell stories! We all do, don't we! Guess that's another Fijian-thing we learned as children from when we went to stay with our housegirls at their village, sitting around the yaqona bowl with all the men-folk. Or just sitting on the laps of our housegirls! (Hey, remember how they always smelled of coconut mixed with mokasoi oil! Ylang Ylang, they call it in the west. Gosh, that was wonderful, that warm spicy smell, and to this day I always associate that aroma with a deep sense of peacefulness.)

Influence 9) Lyn sent the comment ... actually I'll post a copy of what she said up here:

"I think another thing we took away from our Fiji upbringing was a distaste and almost ennui for all things mediocre. Growing up in Fiji was almost an assault on the senses; sights, sounds, smells, tastes etc were so exaggerated and became an expectation and a comfort. I think it made us "passionate" about things as well as inquisitive and empathetic. It's almost as if we had been empowered rather than inhibited by our upbringing on our tiny little speck of an island and I know that, for me, "ordinariness" has always been hell boring!"

What Kills Us This Week!

OK, again with the "too early in the week" to do this but this week my pick is ...

America!

Did you see that speech John McCain gave two days ago? I tell you, it's up there with Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake!" or, as they say in China, referencing Emperor Hiu talking to his starving people "You have no vegetables? Meat congee is also nice"! Or indeed, Henry Tang when he was running for Hong Kong Head Honcho asking an impoverished old lady "And what do you do with your spare millions?" And when she said "I am one of the common folk. I have no spare millions.", he replied "What? Not even one or two!"

Forever joining this illustrious crowd, John McCain said, while commenting on Obama's plan to tax the rich, "America did not become the greatest nation on earth by freely distributing the country's wealth. America became the greatest nation on earth by giving the money to a handful of people and letting them hang onto it!" and the audience cheered.

Let me set this straight: America is meant to be the greatest nation on earth because it espouses certain values and those values are democratic and egalitarian. Yes, we all know that America forgot those values wayyy back but no one, to this date, has so freely demonstrated that those values are no more. And that audience cheered!

These ridiculous Republicans need to learn that there are certain RULES!; that there are over-riding rules for nations in general, and there are idiosyncratic rules peculiar to countries! Read your Joseph Campbell! At our most primal level, we are still doing the whole Fisher-King thing; it's hardwired into our DNA.

As for the over-riding rules, here's an example: do you remember when Australia was in that refugee stosh with Norway several years back? I was actually on Norway's side for that one until their Prime Minister looked straight into the cameras and lied. Yup, blatantly LIED! I thought "If Norway lets that one pass, I will forever more think they are a nation of liars and lowlife scum!" but, yaayyy, Norway wasn't OK with that one and within 5 days they'd called for an election and within five weeks that chap was GONE!!! That's the basis of the whole Fisher-King ethos: a nation's leader is a nation's voice when speaking to the rest of the world!

Or another example, much closer to home. I remember how I used to swell with pride when our own beloved leader, Ratu Mara, was dealing with the rest of the world. Do you remember his overwhelming dignity and chiefly mana? It helped too that he was six foot 10 inches tall and totally dwarfed every other nation's leader. Oooh, Fiji could hold it's head up high with a leader like that. Today? Mmmm, we have become a significantly smaller nation since, haven't we! (And I just love it that Fiji news photographers always try to pick out the Mara grandchildren in a crowd. It's so obvious that, at our deepest level, we are all looking for THE NEW MARA!!! We all crave to be BIG again!)

And the second part of the Fisher-King ethos is that a leader must also espouse the values that a nation is supposed to hold. Like, I LOVE that Australia is so "hands-off" regarding power. I love that they don't fuss over their leaders, I love that my naughty niece was able to go through the Prime Minister's drawers in his office looking for hidden copies of Playboy (there weren't any!). I adore that the Australian parliament is hidden under a hill and that the Australian Army is also hidden in the hills, wayyy away from anywhere.

And let me tell you something that happened several years back, in Townsville, that illustrates what I most love about that country: a group of Yank tourists asked me what all the "Driver Reviver" signs they'd seen meant. I said that the Australian Government provided free tea and biscuits to travelers every two hours apart on the highways. They were astonished. "The Government does that!" they kept saying. "It significantly reduces traffic accidents so it's cheaper for them to do it than not do it!" They were speechless. "It is incomprehensible to us that a government would do something like that!" was the slack-jawed upshot. Well, that's Australia!

But we're meant to be talking about America, and how the leader MUST espouse and represent the values of the people: like, months back, I was talking to a guy in American Army Intelligence and said "I don't care who America votes for as long as those uber-pig-men, Bush and Cheney, are swept off the world stage!" and he said "When McCain was taken prisoner in Vietnam, he spilled EVERYTHING to the enemy before they had even showed him the weapons of torture! I like to think my leader will hold out for at least one bout of torture before revealing secrets!"

So if McCain gets in, I'm going to think "So that's who America wants to be! A nation of snivelling cowards who uphold only the concerns of the rich!" They say that every nation gets the leader they deserve, but, honestly, please, please, please, America surely can't let this one happen. "Let them eat cake!" instead of "We hold these truths to be inviolate!"

McCain has revealed his true colours with this "don't spread the wealth" speech: "Let them eat cake!" "Meat congee is also nice!" and "What do you do with your spare millions?" Well, you know what happened to those other illustrious folk, don't you? Marie Antoinette was beheaded within weeks, Emperor Hiu was poisoned by his own family within days, and Henry Tang was immediately told he was no longer allowed to run for the Head Honcho post! They were instantly swept off the stage, as they should be! The Fisher-King, finally, MUST show they represent and care for the concerns of the Everyman!

And that's why I'm going to detest America if they elect that hideous cowardly LITTLE man as their leader! Obama is related to the royal family of Baganda, and they have a concept of The Great King who unites the people and leads everyone into a time of universal prosperity. I'm for that!