Chinese As A
p. 23 · Read in the full issue
Barometer
Left Papeete En Masse in December :: Return in July
PAPEETE, August 10.
ALL along the Broom Road now, from Papeete on through the formerly fabulous districts of Punaauia and Paea. out to Papara, 20 miles from town, Tahiti’s Chinese population is moving out of its rented houses and filing in order back to the squalid stores and shops of Papeete.
From Beverly Hills estates they come, from the great houses filled with the memory of Americans that have gone; from ramshackle hovels that had known no occupants in this generation, the Chinese and their 5 or 10 or 15 children.
From the dry and pretty popaa districts they are emerging in orderly fashion, Chinese are moving bfck into town What we see here is the end of the picture. This Chinese return to normalcy represents onlv the final few strokes of the brush that now complete a larger canvas. For the beginning we must roll the months back to a quiet Sunday last December . . . back to Pearl Harbour.
It was early Sunday morning when the crime took place, and by Sunday evening Tahiti’s radios had blared it forth; and Tahiti was pandemonium.
Twenty-four hundred miles below Oahu was the little town of Papeete, where thousands of Chinese lived hud died in the backs of stores, or in fragile tropic houses, or in buildings built before bombs. They are strongly instinctive, for even before the eventful hour arrived,
some of them had P acked their goods.
But many were not ready, and there was mad confusion. They, best of all, knew the sly traits of their oldest enemy.
They knew that the wily Jap might strike at random across this broadest ocean.
PROM a quiet, tropical Sunday there JT slowly arose the mounting crescendo of a great exodus. Children were halted at evening play and delegated to many of the tasks that accompany fleeing. Belongings were snatched from here and there and thrown into baskets and boxes with no thought of packing.
Throughout the black night and far into the next day, every available vehicle and mode of transportation were rounded up and regimented by these Orientals, fleeing for their lives to the wide-open districts. Trucks, buses, battered automobiles running on their rims, bony horses without saddles, little children swaying and dragging a loaded cart, motor cycles that had to be pushed for lack of gasoline, bent and battered bicycles-all were regimented to the cause of safety. Some even rode cows.
One elderly Chinese was selling ice S ream on ,^?? y ornmg when he sud- ■iF SltTnnpn rcH S d^ a PPeared behind a dark building. Ten Sr n^QTp^t^ic he w^K S iv Po in all Sfc l^ riC fa SI X S ?JH a wking ebiekens, and a squealing pig 0 extricate itself from under a mattress.
For two days this great migration continued. And then a possible dire consequence of the great movement occurred to someone. Most of the fleeing Chinese owned markets and stores in Papeete. and they were carting their provisions with them. All the canned goods and
edibles, intended to feed the entire island, were being hauled away to the country and the hills. They were taking Japan’s declaration of a “ten years war’’ literally!
Chains were put across the Broom Road, leading out from town. Soldiers wearing the Cross of Lorraine searched every vehicle, every pedestrian No more canned goods or other food items could ? e taken ff 01 ? 1 Pa P^ ete - was all right to takf > that P rec J° us , ht . tle something FfiP 6 ? * or vwJr 6 S x. all , rignt to houses arounS the Sand that
had lone vacant becausl ofth^
dechne and fall oftourismwere sud denlv bursting with Chinese Bie houses and small houses shanties ’ and shacks and great country’places-every thing and anvthine thev could hes nr rent in fhc ] US h ereen auiet of Punaauia Paca Panare snrune: to life and beWan to dance a lie to Chinese music g The rents P-athcreri were’ evnrhitant From an average rental fee of 500 francs f month the nrice suddenl? zoomS tn 20S and 3 000 and even 4 000 francs a month But thev nSd thenriceand “ Pa,d PnC6 ’ and A ND there they have relaxed in their A new freedom since those dusky December days of Pearl Harbour, They have watched events transpire in their homeland, and on all the shores of the Paclfic , Perhaps thev are wise in their Orien tal way of evaluating an old enemy. They knew what they were doing, let us say, when they fled from possible bombs nearly a year ago. They know their old enemy. Perhaps they know what they are doing, now.
For all along the Broom Road, now, from Papeete out to Papara, 20 miles from town, Tahiti’s Chinese population is moving out of its rented houses and returning to the squalid stores and shops of Papeete.