Chinese Stores

As Social Centres Reflection Upon Pacific Missionaries

AS one travels about the Islands of French Oceania (and Polynesia generally) he finds everywhere—at cross-roads and here and there beside the highway—the little shops of Chinese merchants.

They are- all of them- much alike— square, whitewashed wooden build ings with a narrow verandah across one side. Within, some shelves of tinned foodstuffs, bolts of bright coloured dresswares, cigarettes, pac kets of matches and, in a little show case (crowded at one end of the counter against the high, fenced top desk, where the owner keeps the books and abacus of his accountings), soap, perfumes of Paris, mouth organs and odds and ends of mercery, compose the stock-in-trade.

Nearby, on a stand, a big copper samovar (in which coffee is continu ally brewing) and some benches and tables scattered about, complete the furnishings.

The Chinese proprietor does not, however, exhaust his energies in store keeping. In an outbuilding is a brick oven where, nightly, he bakes the loaves of bread he delivers at dawn about the district, from his ancient two-wheeled cart, drawn by a decrepit horse; announcing his coming with blasts from a conch-shell trumpet. In addition, he buys and cures vanilla beans, and most—if not all—of the copra of the district passes through his hands.

His shop is frequented at all hours.

The women gather daily, to buy bread and coffee for the household, chaffer with the merchant over lengths of cotton print and, most of all, to ex change the gossip of the district; the men, to sit about tables before steam ing bowls of coffee and to talk of Ash ing, wild-pig hunting in the hills, the price of copra, the affairs of the island world, and the district gossip.

Outside the young people drape themselves along the edge of the verandah and sing and chatter and laugh to the accompaniment of gui tars, accordions and mouth organs.

The shop of the Chinaman has be come, not only the economic, but also the social centre of the community.

This latter distinction, not so very long ago, was held by the fare putu puturaa (the meeting houses attached to the Protestant church of the dis trict), until the edict went forth that the singing of Bible verse to native music—a custom since the memory of man knoweth not the contrary—would no longer be tolerated in the churches.

We were most sorry to hear of this edict, for we knew it would eventuate in the breaking up and Anal disap pearance of those meeting places.

Years ago, when the fare putu

puturaa were in their prime, we fre quently went to hear really fine ora tory (spoken in the pure language of the islands then, as now, rarely heard outside those precincts), and to listen to the beautiful, joyous, unique native choruses and the singing of quaint old hymn-tunes chosen for the beauty of their melody and the dignity of their rhythm.

Remembering a message sent by a venerable pastor from his place of re tirement in France, to the fare putu puturaa of the islands—“E Himene A, E Himene A” (Sing on, sing on), we ventured to ask our friends who direct the Mission, why they had done this thing. They smilingly replied that It was in keeping with the March of Progress.

We grant that we should have been duly impressed by this ponderous pro nouncement; but we were not.

For some time we have been

examining this thing called Progress, which latterly has compelled and is still continuing to compel us to dance to some very strange tunes. Standing on our place of observation in the tangled forest of established custom we hear the blare of trumpets, the thumping of many drums and see multitudes of our fellow beings trip ping—with ever-increasing momentum —along a highway which, to our myopic vision, seems dangerously in clined ad tenebarum. Moreover, from our far past school days comes a Cumean warning: “Facilis Descensus Averno”, which constrains us to tether ourselves to the nearest trees lest the siren sounds draw us, against our will, to follow in their train.

After many years in the Islands we know something of the native mind.

The Tahitian does not like to cavil with white men; especially reverend white men. He will conceal his inner thought and openly conform. But, as

time passes, he will progressively be come flu (fed up), and one day the place of his abiding will know him no more.

The “Duff” missionaries started off with some pretty dismal hymnology; but they learned better, later on. They awoke in time to appreciate that the native Tahitian—whose every act and thought is intertwined with song and laughter—could not be led “O’er the gloomy hills of darkness” to murky valleys of harmonic despair.

We have been moved to cite eccles iastical history; of how the Early Fathers took ancestral ceremonies, festivals and usages; exorcised their excesses; expurgated the pagan al lusions of their symbolism; adapted, moulded and sanctified them to con

form to the New Faith; and on such foundations erected the stately edifice which has endured the storms, the lightnings, the earthquakes of two milleniums.

But, alas, in our efforts through the years to preserve this priceless jewel of unique music, we have been a lone voice crying in a wilderness where there is not even locusts and wild honey to give us comfort.

Meanwhile the Chinese merchant has been waxing fat; and in due time will inherit the earth.—A.C.R.

Mr. and Mrs. L. I. Howell, of the Seventh Day Adventist Mission at Vaila la, Papua, reached Australia from Port Moresby by the “Bulolo” at the end of December.