Tropicalities

Magazine Section

It Can Be Risky Supping

In Suva

I WILL not easily forget my first cafe supper in Suva.

My friend, Joe, and I dined at the Grand Pacific Hotel, then sat in the lounge quietly talking. Joe had a bright idea:.“Let’s go somewhere for supper.”

Now, Suva is a city of 30,000 in habitants, but you could search for a week of quiet evenings and not find even one cosy little coffee-bar or snack place.

So we went to a Chinese cafe.

Following my usual custom, I sat with my back to a wall, so that I could see people coming and going.

Our position proved strategically sound, as the evening developed.

The cafe was fairly full. A third of the place was occupied by Indians; while a group of Europeans sat at a table near the centre of the room.

I’m not sure how it started. The place was noisy when we went in.

But, just as I raised my third spoonful of short soup, there was a sudden flurry—there seemed to be dozens of people milling around in the corner.

Voices were raised, fists thudded brutally into flesh. An Indian cried, “Leave us alone, you white s.”

The brawlers eddied apart, re vealing an Indian in a state of fanatical protest.

“We just came in for a quiet meal,” he shouted, “and you dam’ white s set on us and make trouble.” Then the battle was on again.

A stolid Fijian policeman pushed

his way among the fighters.

Patiently, firmly, he clasped the arms of one man, then another, and drew them back.

But the situation was well past explosion point. Racial hatred was ablaze.

A European was kicked in the ribs. (Later, he was sent to hospital).

An Indian was knocked down.

Then a police-sergeant arrived and batons were drawn. Some young Indians were hustled down the narrow stairs and thrust into the waiting police waggon.

Still the Indian cry was raised: “We didn’t start it. Why take us to gaol?”

Later, the Chinese waitress told me that the Indians were making a lot of noise, and she asked them to be a little quieter. An inflam matory remark was made, which the young Europeans resented. From such small beginnings can major conflicts arise.

Joe remarked: “Well, that just proves it. There isn’t a place in Suva that’s fit to take a lady to for supper*”—GM. (It has more to it than that. These incidents are not uncommon. There is a racial problem in Fiji which in creasingly calls for mutual toler ance; and, perhaps, for more under standing on the part of men in authority in all communities. —Ed.)

Behind Puk-Puk

AROUND the P-NG Territory they . are now offering the Pidgin equivalent of the rather silly Eodgie saying: “See you later, alli

gator!”

It is: “Behind me lookim you puk puk!”—RWß. p

Half A Bag Of Milk, Please!

NOT all Islands centres are as fortunate in the matter of a milk supply as Lae, New Guinea, which is served by three dairies {PIM, p. 127, June), but within the past decade in practically all the main towns private enterprise has established dairy herds.

Fiji is probably the best served of all in this respect, and it has been claimed that Navua has the world’s largest dairy farm—a claim that our American cousins are ready to dispute at the twitch of a teat!

But the luxury of fresh milk in tea and on cereal is not for those on the out of the way plantation or the official on the isolated atoll.

There, they have to fall back on condensed milk (it is said nowadays that some Sydney agents actually do send both the sweetened and the unsweetened varieties or powdered milk). The latter can be a dis astrous thing in the hands of a not properly tutored “boy”—l well recall the only time I saw J , in New Ireland, really lose his temper and almost slap his cook-boy. It was on steamer day, when a few of us were resting on the verandah after the climb to his bungalow. Cookie brought my wife a cup of luke-warm tea, on which the milk powder floated like pumice dust. Me, I always stick to beer!

Science, however, is coming to the rescue. The UK National Institute for Research in Dairying recently made public a discovery whereby milk can be stored for at least a year without turning sour. Pasteur ised milk is treated with ultra sonic waves, poured into plastic bags, and quickly frozen in a brine bath.

Already two British companies have been licensed to go into pro duction and an Australian firm now is experimenting with the idea with a view to supplying the Pacific

Islands and the Far East, where good fresh milk is unobtainable. It also has an eye on the possibilities of making fresh milk available for ships’ passengers.—“ Dee”. tt AmTrD . r p

Farmer A L Bea

LYING at Voco Point, Lae, New Guinea, was a well-known coaster with a well-known skipper, and the latter entertained the select few in the Cecil bar with some stories of recent events.

He had a cadet in his ship, to whom he was rather hopelessly trying to impart the principles of navigation.

One morning, at Lae, he said to the cadet: “Here, take these letters up to the Post Office. And, while there, you’d better see if there is any mail. Here is the key of our mail-box—number so-and-so.”

That evening, the skipper himself went uptown, and looked in at the PO for mail. There was none—but in his box were the several letters he had given the cadet to be posted. in

n?i^r ed

experienced you ng naan, having or.nfnS S f 1^ Ul tFp d Sv S w^ t

KLw LrliSS S'fSm

kave removed him from thesea and sent him wool-gathenng. R.

The Miracle Of Modern

Medicine

SOMETHING that most people called Asian Flu—a foul, feverish, coughing, phlegm-spitting sick-

ness—swept across the New Guinea mainland in late July, during a period of almost constant rain, Only amusing thing about it is that the first victims—and they suf fered a good deal—were the hard boiled Qantas pilots, who were the first to get the limited inoculations available.

There was very little trouble in the drier places, like Port Moresby and Rabaul.—P. ATT T _, ATrA A ,, A

Just Call It Ava Ava

QOME months ago PIM drew 7 at- O tention to the publicity stunt then being launched in America by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and a firm of baggage manufacturers aided and abetted by the Fiji Visitors’

Bureau.

This was the “Win an Island” contest, in which entrants were asked to supply the last line of a limerick and win a Pacific island.

The island, which had been chosen f or this project, was four-acres Yawalo, off-shore from Lautoka, Fiji.

Now comes the pay-off: An Aus tralian women’s magazine, in June, advertised: “You can even win your own tropic island! Write the last line of a limerick—that’s all—and the winner gets palmy, half-mile long Ava Aya Island which lies just off shore from Fiji. It’s yours to live on, beachcomb, do-what-you will.

There is a perfectly furnished hut on the island.”

Elsewhere, it said that the island was named Ava Ava, after Ava

Gardner, the film star. Just now crazy can you get?

Like many others, I can scarcely wait to see who gets Ava Ava and goes there to beachcomb (or what you-will). One thing is certain, how ever—if Cakobau had known that this kind of namby-pamby nonsense was going to overtake the once virile islands of Fiji, he certainly would have waited and offered the place to the Indians.—M. McK.

As From One Cannibal Isle

To Another

RESIDENTS of New Guinea would have rocked in their sox recently if they had read the description of a drift down the New Guinea coast, given in the Fiji Times by one of the survivors from the Sea Pearl (see Shipping News, July).

The survivors came ashore at Suain, which is about half-way be tween Wewak and Aitape—and the sailor tells how, in their two days: drift, they twice approached the coast, and twice drew back be cause they sighted natives with, spears and feared that they might,

Be Cannibals!

This part of the world might regarded as Simogen’s country- Simogen, MLC, who has attended!

Royal Balls and Garden Parties,, and even travelled as far as Fiji..

And once I considered it my 1 country—or at any rate, my sea coast. If any of these natives havet had anything more lethal in their hands than a fishing spear for aj couple of generations I’ll be amazed..

And in any event, there is, sot far as I know, nothing to showt that they were ever very ardent! cannibals.

The Sepik River people were—and! some still are—head-hunters; and! in a few remote parts of the main land there is a remnant or two of; ritualistic cannibalism. But it iSe a long, long time (if ever) since the 5 natives of the NG north coast ates sailors.

The natives of P-NG are not as advanced as the Fijians—not;) by a long way—but on the other hand, they have never been suchr distinguished cannibals as thein Fijian cousins, either. —JT.

Link With Early Fiji Editor!

IVfY k wishes to you, in con— ifl nection with your investment in: The Fiji Times,” writes Mr. C.

Wager, a former resident of Fiji,,! and whose address now is Tugun,j in South Queensland.

“It may interest you and othersa to know that a grandson of oldb Griffiths—an early owner andc distinguished editor of The Fiji:] Times —is a near neighbour oft mine here. He runs a most); interesting establishment, in whichi he feeds wild birds no-ono travelling hereabouts should miss; it The National Geographic >j

Magazine of last October gave him no less than ten pages—eight of them beautifully coloured”.

And One For The Road

(Non-Tropical)

AVERY new recruit was strolling self-consciously through a nudist camp. Like all new nudists, he was trying to keep his mind firmly on the fact that people are created equal—that the differences which may trouble us are merely things of our own imagination.

He came abruptly around a corner, and there was a young lady quietly sleeping in the sunshine. Clearly, she was a full member of the nudist society.

The embarrassed young man seized a handy rug and threw it gently over the sleeping form.

She awoke immediately, gasped, and then yelled, “Help, help—l’ve been draped!” t The Lepers’ Trust Board is con structing additional buildings at Korovou, near Suva, to accommo date patients discharged from Makogai. The record number of 115 patients discharged in the last year has created some administrative problems for the medical and nurs ing staff at Korovou, and more buildings have become necessary. t The Australian Minister for Social Services, Mr. Hugh Robertson, re cently spent a holiday on Norfolk Island. While there he took time off to visit the school and the hos pital and also gave a talk to the Advisory Council on local Govern ment.

r Mr. Ivor Wood, a Western Aus tralian mining engineer, has been appointed Chief of the Mines Division of the Department of Lands, Surveys and Mines, Port Moresby. Mr. Wood, who was formerly in charge of mining at Kalgoorlie, was expected to arrive in Port Moresby in July. On his way through he made an inspection of uranium and beach mining on the Queensland coast.

If Mrs. Olga Blood, with attractive freckle-faced daughter, returned to Madang, New Guinea, by plane from Australia on July 25. Mr.

Nep. Blood now is manager of an agricultural station in that area.

On the same plane, also heading for Madang, was Mr. J. E. Gilmore, looking bright and well after an encounter with the medical fraternity down South. t About 120 people attended a meeting of the New Britain Historical Society held at the Kokopo Sports Club on June 29.

The Rev. Wesley Button gave an address on “The First Ten Years of the Methodist Overseas Mission in New Guinea, 1875-85”, This was followed by colour films shown by Dr. G. Randmae and Mr. F.

Holland. t Miss Mildred Mode, Pacific Travel ling Commissioner of the World Association of Girl Guides, will shortly pay a visit to Rarotonga, Cook Islands. She has spent the past two years travelling through Thailand, Korea, Japan and the Philippines. After visiting the Cook Islands, Miss Mode will travel to Brazil to attend a conference of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

“ In Auckland, NZ, in May, Malani Viliamua, Niue Islander, working in NZ, w T as sentenced to two years gaol for the manslaughter of a fellow Islander, Luitohi Japeth.