Monday, November 20, 2006
At first glance, it might look like a Tsunami ravaged the country’s capital. Reports indicate that approximately 80% of the downtown area is destroyed, though it doesn’t require statistics for anyone living in Tongatapu to know that the destruction of their home is quite rampant. The old Nuku’alofa has risen in smoke and the remaining buildings struggle to uphold the faint image of their former selves.
The current images are harrowing and almost surreal; one moment you’re walking near white sanded beaches with a florid green landscape, then in another step you’re standing in what looks and feels like a war zone.
To add to the battlefield feel, there’s a joint military force from New Zealand and Australia surrounding the downtown area. Just the simple idea that there is a military in Tonga is a far stretch of the imagination. To give you a sense of how the country’s security force operates, police vehicles are mainly used to clear pigs off the dirt road and jails are nothing more than a two feet sheet of metal ‘gate’.
Currently forensic teams are digging through the damaged remains for hints as to what exactly happened. Despite the professional experience and expertise of the forensic teams, they’re limited to puzzling together the events that unfolded only during the past few days of the riot. What sparked the riot is still up to much speculation, whether it was the history of political dissatisfaction or if it was a pent up reaction to the thriving foreign businesses in Tonga.
There are usually many layers of reasoning and thought behind public displays of violence of this scale, many of which I can only guess. I cannot understand the way an entire culture thinks or come close to comprehending what a country has experienced just by being here for a few months or a few years. Nor will I pretend to understand this culture in its entirety.
What I do see is that government officials and foreign businesses are caught in the middle of this ravaged war zone. To give a little background, Tonga is a constitutional monarchy teetering on the brink of democracy. As with any struggle for power, violence is always quick to ensue. No one simply hands down the political power they wield unless they absolutely have to. This helps explain the tipping of vehicles wearing the license plates that begin with PM (Prime Minister – symbolizing a government automobile).
Now that makes me wonder, how did the idea of democracy get instilled into an island group in the South Pacific?
I think it’s in part due to the sweet tasting Coca-Cola’s. It’s the classic blue jeans. It’s the Hollywood movies starring absurdly paid actors. They’re all signs of the American society permeating into a developing country thousands of miles away. You’ll find these random bits and pieces of America everywhere you go. Even when escaping to the remotest outer islands in the South Pacific, you’ll find posters of the latest hit releases appearing on the windows of stores accessible only through boat and dirt trails. It seems like American democracy and capitalism has reached the furthest ends of this globe. Upon closer inspection, if you glance past the fancy marketing labels, it makes you wonder if people see it as tangible evidence supporting the prosperity of democracy and capitalism.
The push for democracy is loud, albeit there are more suitable manners than a full scale riot. But the riot wasn’t just about a change of government. Apparently the Tongan rioters didn’t want to emulate America in all aspects, especially the idea of capitalism. Foreign businesses were targeted as well, mainly the Chinese community.
Here, we have to go into more history that involves the Tongan government, much of which I cannot get into if I still want to keep my job as a volunteer. Let’s just say that the Chinese community established numerous stores and through shrewd business ventures, became identified in Tonga as the place to shop for their cheap prices and consequently, their even cheaper quality products.
The abhorrence of foreign business by a select few was apparent when foreign shopkeepers were dragged out of their stores and beat during the riot. The effects of that are now shown as hundreds of Chinese stand crowded about the embassy, desperately waiting for the next available international flight. Currently, all international flights are closed. Even in the outer islands, the Chinese stores were robbed, which is a much more dangerous situation here because some people live in their ‘stores’.
That led me to wonder about the grim reality of the situation. My jog yesterday was down an ideal road towards my old home stay. For miles, I had run into familiar and even unfamiliar people who greeted me with friendly smiles and waves. Now that the jog is over, I’m left wondering what happens if I (or someone I know) strays from the ideal situation and comes across the same blatant racism. Where will it lead us then?
It’s funny in a sad kind of way on how certain people react to a different skin tone or to some other minor racial feature such as squinty eyes. So far my encounters have been that if I help people out, people assume I’m Japanese. If I don’t help people out, I’m assumed to be Chinese. Every other Asian race is sadly nonexistent in many of the people’s minds here.
My computer center is doing quite well. Now what if it does too well? Do I fall under the same fate as the foreign businesses? If they find out that my computer center is the place to go for their technological needs, does that endanger me in any way? If there’s an angry anti-Chinese mob, will they care that we're operating at just enough to keep the place running or that I'm only here to help Tongan owned businesses? Will they care that I’m actually an American carrying a Peace Corps identification card or a California driver’s license?
I doubt any of it would make a difference and I doubt I can explain who I am to an angry mob if they so happened to look for me. Explaining to them probably wouldn’t do me much good anyways because they’d probably be heavily intoxicated. Even when sober, certain people here can’t differentiate between a Korean and Japanese; much less grasp the concept of what a Chinese-American is.
Whatever happens, I’m willing to take that kind of risk to help dispel a bit of the racism, as seems to be the general mindset of all the volunteers here. I just hope my friends are ok, especially the ones in the larger cities.
I feel safe in Ha’apai, where the community is just small enough for people to know who I am and what I do. For the other volunteers that were placed in the city, they’re the ones who will have to endure the majority of the racism. Nuku’alofa is just big enough so that the majority of the host country nationals don’t know who you are or what you’re doing there. It takes guts and courage to be a volunteer in Nuku’alofa at a time like now.
Monday, November 13, 2006
I just finished writing the rough draft script for my first episode! This’ll be fun!!!
Oh yeah, Ding!!! Level 22, err I mean I’m 22 years old now! Thanks everyone! <3 to all!
Sunday, November 12, 2006
The weather’s getting hotter so I’ve made more frequent visits to the beach. The snorkeling here is beautiful.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Saturday, November 4, 2006
The Seat less Wonder + Refrigerator High + Ice Cream Medic
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Duct Tape. If you've ever watched Star Wars, you might make the far off connection that duct tape has a few similarities with the 'Force'; they both have a light side, a dark side, and they both hold the world together.
Ok, maybe duct tape can't hold the fabric of the space-time continuum together as well as the 'Force', but it was an essential tool in solving the "Seatless Wonder". The "Seatless Wonder" is another Peace Corps volunteer's bike that I had brought down to Ha'apai.
Like its name implies, it has no seat. There's only a dangerous metallic stump where the seat should be attached. Since we had no wrenches to remove the stump, it only served as a shining warning to any rider that it was quite capable of tearing a new @-hole to anyone who dared sit down.
We never bothered to solve the problem until now, mainly because of our innate laziness and now only out of necessity; another volunteer and I needed a means of transportation to Sandy Beach, the only 'palangi' beach nearby. We had two bikes, one fully operational and the other being the 'Seatless Wonder'. We were too cheap to pay for a taxi and too lazy to run so we had to fix
the 'Seatless Wonder' with the only other wonder we had at hand, the wonder of duct tape.
To form the new seat, I used leftover pieces of cardboard (from when I was making my Optimus Prime Halloween costume), the soft packaging that Nathan used to protect the CD's he sent over, a soft sandal that we found lying on the street, and the bubble wrap package (that a Tongatapu volunteer used to send me a can opener).
This was all combined and held together with enormous quantities of duct tape. I wish I could say that the project was a complete success. However, it was not. I realized this as soon as the bike went bumping into potholes after potholes. At that moment, I realized how I was going to die. It wouldn't be some random coconut that would fall on my head, or some tsunami that appears too quickly before I'd be able to follow the expert advice of my Safety and Security Officer to "climb a coconut tree."
No, my cause of death would be some form of internal bleeding. There were simply not enough cushions for the bumpy dirt roads of a developing country. My design was flawed in more ways than one though. The seat had been moved up a bit so as to be slightly awkward and very
uncomfortable.
It was as if I were riding a bicycle that was comically small, like one of the clowns performing their act with the traveling circus. The rider's knees are bent and arched slightly outwards. Each pedal works enough strange muscles that it finally makes you wonder if the bicycle is really causing more effort than simply walking.
We finally scrapped the plans to go to Sandy Beach because of our flawed engineering. Instead, we bought ice cream, got light-headed off the vapors of a now broken refrigerator, and made quesadillas.
Note: Do not clear the frozen ice in a refrigerator with a machete. We accidentally destroyed a pipe filled with coolant, which released a vapor that made us instantly light-headed.
Duct Tape. If you've ever watched Star Wars, you might make the far off connection that duct tape has a few similarities with the 'Force'; they both have a light side, a dark side, and they both hold the world together.
Ok, maybe duct tape can't hold the fabric of the space-time continuum together as well as the 'Force', but it was an essential tool in solving the "Seatless Wonder". The "Seatless Wonder" is another Peace Corps volunteer's bike that I had brought down to Ha'apai.
Like its name implies, it has no seat. There's only a dangerous metallic stump where the seat should be attached. Since we had no wrenches to remove the stump, it only served as a shining warning to any rider that it was quite capable of tearing a new @-hole to anyone who dared sit down.
We never bothered to solve the problem until now, mainly because of our innate laziness and now only out of necessity; another volunteer and I needed a means of transportation to Sandy Beach, the only 'palangi' beach nearby. We had two bikes, one fully operational and the other being the 'Seatless Wonder'. We were too cheap to pay for a taxi and too lazy to run so we had to fix
the 'Seatless Wonder' with the only other wonder we had at hand, the wonder of duct tape.
To form the new seat, I used leftover pieces of cardboard (from when I was making my Optimus Prime Halloween costume), the soft packaging that Nathan used to protect the CD's he sent over, a soft sandal that we found lying on the street, and the bubble wrap package (that a Tongatapu volunteer used to send me a can opener).
This was all combined and held together with enormous quantities of duct tape. I wish I could say that the project was a complete success. However, it was not. I realized this as soon as the bike went bumping into potholes after potholes. At that moment, I realized how I was going to die. It wouldn't be some random coconut that would fall on my head, or some tsunami that appears too quickly before I'd be able to follow the expert advice of my Safety and Security Officer to "climb a coconut tree."
No, my cause of death would be some form of internal bleeding. There were simply not enough cushions for the bumpy dirt roads of a developing country. My design was flawed in more ways than one though. The seat had been moved up a bit so as to be slightly awkward and very
uncomfortable.
It was as if I were riding a bicycle that was comically small, like one of the clowns performing their act with the traveling circus. The rider's knees are bent and arched slightly outwards. Each pedal works enough strange muscles that it finally makes you wonder if the bicycle is really causing more effort than simply walking.
We finally scrapped the plans to go to Sandy Beach because of our flawed engineering. Instead, we bought ice cream, got light-headed off the vapors of a now broken refrigerator, and made quesadillas.
Note: Do not clear the frozen ice in a refrigerator with a machete. We accidentally destroyed a pipe filled with coolant, which released a vapor that made us instantly light-headed.
Thursday, November 2, 2006
Packages
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Good day.
I walked up to the post office for about the 6th time in the last two weeks. The post office employees were probably sick of seeing me so frequently. Today was the day that my package would come; I could feel it in the air! Jim, however, wasn't quite as optimistic about the Tongan mail system. Well, he did have a valid point since I had been hopelessly optimistic for the past week to no avail.
The mail system in Ha'apai seems to be even more faulty than in the rest of Tonga. Our mail comes once a week on the boat, and the last time the boat arrived, the mail wasn't retrieved. I questioned one of the locals, who replied in a surprisingly casual manner. "Oh yeah, no mail.
The guy who was supposed to get the mail was asleep. You might want to try next week."
Umm... ok
My parents had informed me about a package that they sent a while ago. For those that don't know, packages and mail in the Peace Corps are priceless to volunteers.
Here, in some weird way, it means a bit more when it comes to receiving things. Maybe it's because we have so much more time to go back through letters and reread them. Maybe it's because of how long it actually takes to send and receive items. Maybe it's because the material possessions that we are accustomed to are so hard to get here. Or maybe it's the knowledge that you're not just a four-hour drive away on the 5 from the place you grew up.
Whatever the reason, my eyes gleamed with renewed vigor when I saw that there was a fresh pile of boxes and mail. The pile wasn't very impressive by any standards; it was just a disheveled stack of maybe 50 envelopes and 4 boxes lying on the table, but it was a bright ray of hope for me.
My heart started to race as I asked the now familiar Tongan sitting at the front counter if there were any packages for the Peace Corps volunteers. She waited a few seconds before giving me a reply (or before doing anything for that matter). It seemed as if she was relishing every
moment that I was waiting in anticipation. Then she said a quick "No, sorry, maybe next time".
Darn. I turned around and started to leave, but then I remembered how 'specific' you have to be when asking Tongans anything. I reworded the question and asked if I had any mail (instead of
packages). Before she even so much as glances at the pile of letters, she says "Oh yes you do!"
Argh, she was one step away from letting me leave the post office, all the while knowing that I had mail!
She rummaged through the mail and took out a few pieces of mail. In turn I thanked her and headed back to the Peace Corps office, expecting the inevitable "I told you so" reply from Jim about the expected package. Before I could step out the door again, she quickly exclaimed... "Oh wait, Jim has a box." The post office didn't have my package, but they had one for Jim! Gee, what an ideal opportunity for him to rub it in.
I went back to the office to let Jim know that he had a package waiting for him. When I got there, the phone rang. He answered it and left the room for a moment. I wasn't sure if he was joking, but he walked in, and said that the lady from the post office called. The message was that I did have a box! WTF?! I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Oh well, this is Tonga after all and I had nothing better to do than to make another trip...
So I went in again to the post office really hoping that they had something else for me, more so now so that I didn't give the false impression that I was a crazy guy who keeps coming back for mail that never arrives. Low and behold, I didn't have a package, I didn't have mail, but instead I had a 'parcel'. Lesson learned; be particularly careful with wording
questions in Tonga...
This package... err, parcel, had 'Family Guy' episodes, lots of movies that my family and I used to watch, a couple of language books (so I could try to pick up a bit of Mandarin), a 230 Gigabyte hard drive (larger than all the hard drives in my computer center put together), and some cooking spices.
I had asked for my family to send me the DVD box of 'Family Guy' that we had lying around, although it was scattered about the house and would probably require the use of a shovel and treasure map to recover. My cousin went above and beyond my request; she downloaded the entire series and put it on the hard drive!! Woot! Thanks to everyone, especially Dora =)
Good day.
I walked up to the post office for about the 6th time in the last two weeks. The post office employees were probably sick of seeing me so frequently. Today was the day that my package would come; I could feel it in the air! Jim, however, wasn't quite as optimistic about the Tongan mail system. Well, he did have a valid point since I had been hopelessly optimistic for the past week to no avail.
The mail system in Ha'apai seems to be even more faulty than in the rest of Tonga. Our mail comes once a week on the boat, and the last time the boat arrived, the mail wasn't retrieved. I questioned one of the locals, who replied in a surprisingly casual manner. "Oh yeah, no mail.
The guy who was supposed to get the mail was asleep. You might want to try next week."
Umm... ok
My parents had informed me about a package that they sent a while ago. For those that don't know, packages and mail in the Peace Corps are priceless to volunteers.
Here, in some weird way, it means a bit more when it comes to receiving things. Maybe it's because we have so much more time to go back through letters and reread them. Maybe it's because of how long it actually takes to send and receive items. Maybe it's because the material possessions that we are accustomed to are so hard to get here. Or maybe it's the knowledge that you're not just a four-hour drive away on the 5 from the place you grew up.
Whatever the reason, my eyes gleamed with renewed vigor when I saw that there was a fresh pile of boxes and mail. The pile wasn't very impressive by any standards; it was just a disheveled stack of maybe 50 envelopes and 4 boxes lying on the table, but it was a bright ray of hope for me.
My heart started to race as I asked the now familiar Tongan sitting at the front counter if there were any packages for the Peace Corps volunteers. She waited a few seconds before giving me a reply (or before doing anything for that matter). It seemed as if she was relishing every
moment that I was waiting in anticipation. Then she said a quick "No, sorry, maybe next time".
Darn. I turned around and started to leave, but then I remembered how 'specific' you have to be when asking Tongans anything. I reworded the question and asked if I had any mail (instead of
packages). Before she even so much as glances at the pile of letters, she says "Oh yes you do!"
Argh, she was one step away from letting me leave the post office, all the while knowing that I had mail!
She rummaged through the mail and took out a few pieces of mail. In turn I thanked her and headed back to the Peace Corps office, expecting the inevitable "I told you so" reply from Jim about the expected package. Before I could step out the door again, she quickly exclaimed... "Oh wait, Jim has a box." The post office didn't have my package, but they had one for Jim! Gee, what an ideal opportunity for him to rub it in.
I went back to the office to let Jim know that he had a package waiting for him. When I got there, the phone rang. He answered it and left the room for a moment. I wasn't sure if he was joking, but he walked in, and said that the lady from the post office called. The message was that I did have a box! WTF?! I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Oh well, this is Tonga after all and I had nothing better to do than to make another trip...
So I went in again to the post office really hoping that they had something else for me, more so now so that I didn't give the false impression that I was a crazy guy who keeps coming back for mail that never arrives. Low and behold, I didn't have a package, I didn't have mail, but instead I had a 'parcel'. Lesson learned; be particularly careful with wording
questions in Tonga...
This package... err, parcel, had 'Family Guy' episodes, lots of movies that my family and I used to watch, a couple of language books (so I could try to pick up a bit of Mandarin), a 230 Gigabyte hard drive (larger than all the hard drives in my computer center put together), and some cooking spices.
I had asked for my family to send me the DVD box of 'Family Guy' that we had lying around, although it was scattered about the house and would probably require the use of a shovel and treasure map to recover. My cousin went above and beyond my request; she downloaded the entire series and put it on the hard drive!! Woot! Thanks to everyone, especially Dora =)
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Happy Halloween
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
The van traveled a few more meters, and then came to an abrupt halt. I couldn't quite make out the exact details on the driver's face because it was the middle of the night. However, the contorted facial features of the driver revealed either a hint of hysteria or the expression of someone trying desperately to hold in their laughter.
Whichever it was, I couldn't blame her reaction. Imagine being in a developing country where pigs roam the streets freely, a place so conservative that religion dominates Sunday life, a place where the majority of the population have probably never stepped foot outside their island, and where the concept of Halloween is unbeknownst.
Then imagine seeing a masked cowboy with a pair of fake six shooters belted at the hip, a cardboard robot barely held together with duct tape, a molikau with pipe cleaner legs and a wicked stinger, plus an intimidating eye-patched pirate walking alongside one another in the middle of the island's main road.
We must have been quite the sight because not only did the vehicle stop; it literally peeled back in reverse for a closer inspection! There went the possibility of hysteria gripping the driver and her passengers.
They came back and we saw some very amused, yet confused faces. Our molikau representative stepped up and explained to them that it was Halloween. I'm not sure if the Tongans fully comprehended Halloween, but they all nodded in agreement that it looked fun, if not slightly
insane.
Afternote: Halloween was a blast!! The Ha'apai volunteers kick ass. Some of the pictures that we got are priceless. I try to explain everything with words, but this is one of those moments where I don't think any words would do it justice.
Needless to say, Optimus Prime is now my new roommate. Who else can say that they have the supreme commander of the Autobot forces living a room away from them?
The van traveled a few more meters, and then came to an abrupt halt. I couldn't quite make out the exact details on the driver's face because it was the middle of the night. However, the contorted facial features of the driver revealed either a hint of hysteria or the expression of someone trying desperately to hold in their laughter.
Whichever it was, I couldn't blame her reaction. Imagine being in a developing country where pigs roam the streets freely, a place so conservative that religion dominates Sunday life, a place where the majority of the population have probably never stepped foot outside their island, and where the concept of Halloween is unbeknownst.
Then imagine seeing a masked cowboy with a pair of fake six shooters belted at the hip, a cardboard robot barely held together with duct tape, a molikau with pipe cleaner legs and a wicked stinger, plus an intimidating eye-patched pirate walking alongside one another in the middle of the island's main road.
We must have been quite the sight because not only did the vehicle stop; it literally peeled back in reverse for a closer inspection! There went the possibility of hysteria gripping the driver and her passengers.
They came back and we saw some very amused, yet confused faces. Our molikau representative stepped up and explained to them that it was Halloween. I'm not sure if the Tongans fully comprehended Halloween, but they all nodded in agreement that it looked fun, if not slightly
insane.
Afternote: Halloween was a blast!! The Ha'apai volunteers kick ass. Some of the pictures that we got are priceless. I try to explain everything with words, but this is one of those moments where I don't think any words would do it justice.
Needless to say, Optimus Prime is now my new roommate. Who else can say that they have the supreme commander of the Autobot forces living a room away from them?
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