Honolulu
September 18, 1969
Even more than other areas, it is a mistake to judge Micronesia by its capital. Saipan is important in a centralized government. But the firm administrative orders and unified legislative efforts displayed there can be deceptive. On Capitol Hill in Saipan one can see Micronesia as a unified whole. The concept at least still seems viable in the districts, but flying out to the limits, some 2, 700 miles across, is a sobering lesson in how difficult unity can be. The Palau, Yap and Marshall districts each say something very different about this diverse area. Each also has a special beauty that makes going there a memorable experience.
Progressive Palau
Palau has a deceptively backward look about it. These 200 islands are about 600 miles southwest of Saipan. The 12, 000 Palauans like all Micronesians are a complex racial mixture, but here they often reflect darker strains of nearby Melanesia to the south and the Philippines just a few hundred miles west.
From the air Palau offers a beautiful pattern of jungled islands, deep bays and overgrown islets. On this run, Air Micronesia has to fly an old DC-6 because the runways aren’t up to jets. You land on a dirt airstrip almost literally in the middle of nothing on the rolling savannah uplands of Babelthuap, the vast underdeveloped hulk of land that is Micronesia’s largest island. There is no terminal at the field, only a card table where local officials run through various immigration procedures. Then you drive over some of the Trust Territory’s worst roads to an old World War Two landing barge that serves as a ferry across a deep channel to the island of Koror, the Palau district’s administrative and population center. Koror is a rambling, often rutty town, built on hillsides that roll down to deep bays with small islands offshore.
Something must be said first of the Royal Palauan Hotel, for at times it does serve as a center of social contact for local officials and visitors. It was named by someone with a sense of humor when built back in the Navy administration days of the late 1940s. The guidebooks give it a “raffish charm.” In this case, raffish means an old rectangular Butler Hut type building divided into 17 rooms and communal baths notable for peeling paint, leaking ceilings, droning fans, numerous insects, and the occasional scurrying rat.
The charm comes much from the lounge and bar, an area of central location, old wicker chairs, overhead fans, mixed patrons, and long morning -to-night hours. During my stay, the clientele included a local chief given to scotch and milk, several American professors on research grants, administration officials exchanging headaches, numerous Palauans unshy when asked their critical views of the U.S., a team of Australian crocodile hunters there to thin out the nasty local breed, a fine outspoken priest, four top officials of Air Micronesia, a bearded Japanese artist of great enthusiasm and lesser talent, several benumbed and bemused tourists, a TV documentary crew, and a carefree staff headed by an unshaven Peace Corps volunteer, and highlighted by betel-chewing waitresses given to flashing cherry-red smiles as they mix vodka martinis with one-third gin.
To get the full impact one must be stranded there for several days by a mixture of a grounded airplane and the torrential rains and fringe winds of a passing typhoon. As rainy day rotates with convivial night one comes to feel one is caught in a road company playing a mixture of Somerset Maugham’s Samoa story “Rain” and the novel Ship of Fools. Sadie Thompson Lives! — somewhere between betel nut and that ginned-up vodka martini.
Patriotism, Palauan-Style
In some ways, Palau is like the rest of the Trust Territory. It was wrecked by the war and neglected by the ruling Americans. Now one sees signs of improvement, new schools, stores, etc., but remains more appalled at what needs to be done. Still, most agree there is something special about the Palauans as a people, something that includes a mixture of drive and talent. “They are the Chinese among Micronesians — or maybe the Indians,” says one scholar. “There are colonies of Palauans all over the area, even in the States, buying land and working hard in business and government. It was no accident that the Palauan team took the lion’s share of the medals at the first Micro Olympics in July; its members trained for a year and arrived exuding drive and confidence. Moreover, transplanted Palauans starred on the teams from other districts as well. More Palauans are said to volunteer for the U.S. armed forces than Micronesians from other districts. “This is not out of patriotism, “ a young Palauan said with pride. “In fact, we oppose bases more than the other areas. It’s just that our people see the military as a chance for education and travel. “
A variety of reasons are given for Palauan aggressiveness, including a culture that traditionally places high value on money, gives a place to women in community affairs, and has experience in dealing with western ways. Whatever, a young Palau official summed up the result this way:
“Palauans are an aggressive, pushing people. We work hard and scheme hard, even against each other. Americans taught us their way. You have freedom, but you also have to compete and push for yourselves. So we do. We have operators, good and bad, in politics and business.”
Elsewhere in Micronesia the visitor sometimes gets polite replies, but frank answers are more usual in Palau. When a visiting Hawaii State Senator suggested Palauans should be interested in being defended by the U.S., a young local land officer responded:
“The United States is not defending Micronesians; it is defending itself, and you should pay for the privilege. Nobody in Micronesia asked for you to come in and bomb in World War Two, not the chiefs here, in Truk or in the Marshalls. Now you want to make us a target again. I accept the idea of bases — but with a certain amount of money paid in compensation. “
There is a hostile side in Palau. Stones have been thrown at imported Filipino construction workers. Toughs mutter anti-American remarks outside some nightspots. Yet most attitudes reflect friendliness, a recognition there will be a permanent relationship, and a desire to be treated better in the process.
Palau’s High Chief Ibedul, who is also Mayor of Koror, recalls unpleasant experiences with the U.S. military at the end of the war. Asked why the local legislature passed a resolution opposing U.S. bases for Palau, he indicated the opposition was not absolute: “It was to tell the parties concerned we don’t want you if you use force. You have to get our permission. If you want to use our land you have to pay. “
Nor was he pleased with aspects of the U.S. -Japan agreement to pay Micronesia $10 million in war reparations, which gives the Japanese valuable fishing rights in the area: “It was wrong to mix fishing rights with war claims. We don’t mind Japanese fishing boats coming here to buy fuel, but we Micronesians should have been asked. “
The Old-New Japan
Japanese influence is one of the major facts of life in Palau, as it is in lesser degrees in other districts. It is an old-new influence. Koror was the administrative center of Micronesia when the Japanese held these islands between the two big wars. Then Koror’s population was over 30,000, five times greater than now, and the large majority was Japanese and Okinawan. It was a modern and comfortable community, built for the Japanese but offering Palauans some peripheral benefits in the form of basic education, appreciation of westernized progress, and various other matters.
“Do you realize that not only was this street paved, there were 11 geisha houses on it in Japanese days, “ a Palauan said with some pride.
Could he patronize the houses?
“No. Not unless you could pretend you were Japanese. But now not even the street is paved. Nothing.”
What remains of the Japanese era then is the ability of most people over 35 to speak that language, a few good buildings (U.S. justice is dispensed from a Japanese built courthouse), numerous ruins and rutted roads, and memories of a colonizer who while sometimes harsh provided more material progress than the Americans.
The new Japanese era blends with the old. Japanese music is appreciated on a par with American rock. There is a Cherry Blossom Club whose membership includes the few Japanese on the island and several dozen of the perhaps 500-mixed Palauan-Japanese in the district. Everybody drives Datsuns and Japanese goods are all over the stores. A Palauan-Japanese businessman saw the future this way: “I think Palau needs American-style government, but of necessity we will have to have most of our economic relations with Japan. This is because Japan is closer and because the U.S. is not as interested in what Palau has to offer.” He may have a point, for it is possible to envision a Micronesia that is American in politics but heavily influenced by Japan.
Palau In Pictures
Arrival: customs at left
U.S. justice, Japanese building
“Rain” in Royal Palauan lobby
Koror’s main street
A Rock Island playground…
for Japanese tourists
The Japanese are expected to provide many of the tourists who seem certain to become Palau’s biggest industry in a few short years. The area was not, as some have suggested, a sort of Japanese Riviera before the war because of the distance and cost factors for the average Japanese in those days of ship travel. But Koror was then a pleasant place, and that reputation plus its great natural beauty forecast popularity for Japanese sun seekers.
Palau’s greatest tourist attraction is not Koror itself or such off islands as Peleliu, scene of a great World War Two battle. Palau’s pride is the group called Rock Islands just south of Koror. Here are dozens of small limestone islets, some the size of a hut, thickly grown with trees and flowering plants, but undercut at the base by wave action and microscopic sea agents that prey on limestone. The effect is like scatterings of huge emerald mushrooms rising in the bright blue sea. Some rock islands are less worn and have coves and bright white sand beaches.
Around all is warm clear water falling off to coral beds of psychedelic color patterns, alive with clouds of fish, big lobsters, and giant clams. It is some of the world’s best diving for amateur and expert alike, maybe even a natural wonder of the world.
It’s possible (but not easy) to rent a rustic cabin to stay overnight on one of the rock islands. (The hope is to put most of them into a Micronesia National Park.) Air Micronesia plans to start building one of its first two hotels in Palau later this year, a $1.2 million, 50-room project on Koror overlooking Rock Islands.
Meanwhile, there’s still the Royal Palauan with its $4.50 a night rooms, occasional cockroaches, spirited Palauan opinions, and Sadie Thompson syndrome. An American lady tourist approached Air Micronesia’s president, Dominic Renda, and expressed the hope the new hotel would not change the old atmosphere. He allowed that the economics of travel and demands for comfort meant that changes, including in room rates, were inevitable. He’s right, but many will still be sad to look back at those good bad old days.
Yap’s Quiet Contrast
It says something about the Trust Territory’s diversity that Yap and Palau are only some 250 miles apart and yet so different in manner and outlook. Palauans move out and are eager for leadership and what the future may hold. Yapese stay at home and seem the least interested in Western “progress” of all of Micronesia’s main groups. They are conservative — or perhaps most “selective, “ as some would say. It is also the Trust Territory’s smallest district, with about 4,300 people on the four main islands that make Yap proper, and about 2, 600 others on 15 tiny outer islands and atolls scattered far to the east and south. Total land area is about 45 square miles.
Yap proper is like a small oceanic Bali in its beauty of scene and people, an exotic living culture. Here the dances are not yet for tourists but part of everyday life. Men in bright-colored loincloths and women in heavy grass skirts stroll under palms in thatched villages. Some paths are lined with stone money. These doughnut-shaped stones retain considerable cultural and prestige value today depending on their history and the hardships in obtaining them. The most valuable were brought from Palau and Guam on rafts and canoes before European times. Others were carried on sailing ships by an opportunistic Irish-American adventurer, David O’Keefe.
The capital of Colonia is a clean relatively modern town, boasting utilities and such sophistications as a U-drive car agency and what is billed as the Trust Territory’s first laundromat. Yet one of my most vivid memories of Micronesia is on arrival in Colonia late one afternoon. The bell rang in the Catholic Church on a hillside and a procession of people wound up the road from the village of transplanted Ulithi islanders nearby. With great dignity these loin-clothed men and topless women in blue sarongs passed on their way to worship.
Such scenes are the exception in Colonia where the pressures of changing times and tourism have led women to adopt either western dress or incongruous cotton blouses over bulky grass skirts. In fact, these pressures are one of the most important questions about Yap today. For this is a delicate culture of few people and old ways, Christianized but not attuned to other concepts of change. In a way cameras seem a symbol of the conflict. Thousands of tourist pictures are taken in Yap every year, most successfully by those who have a guide or ask villagers permission first; most children here as everywhere love to have their picture taken. Yet anyone who points a camera at enough people on Yap is likely to note reactions ranging from shyness to hostility.
“ How do you think we feel? “ says one Yapese leader. “ People take pictures of our women as they dress without tops. We go to Guam and see these pictures on postcards on shelves next to dirty magazines. “
Quiet Yap
Colonia
Men’s meetinghouse
Shot-up Japanese planes dot airport
Camera shy kids pass stone money
Men walking to town
An American tourism expert adds: “How would you like it if you and your family are sitting in bathing suits on your patio and a bus drives up full of tourists who hop out, lean over your fence and start shooting pictures — even if they ask. That’s what has happened in Yap. “
One thought — heresy to shutterbugs, no doubt — is that Yap could become that one place where cameras might be banned, where visitors could see the culture other than through a reflex lens and later be given the chance to buy a wide variety of approved pictures sold by the Yapese people.
Tourism and Culture
But the question of tourism’s impact goes far beyond cameras, of course. With only 10 rooms in a simple government-run hotel, tourism does not loom as a major factor in Yap. Yet there was enough concern early last year for a Yap Tourism Commission to be formed — not to promote visitors at all but to meet the anticipated problems since tourism in some degree seems inevitable. Surveys showed little enthusiasm for the industry and little inclination among young people for hotel or related jobs. The district legislature passed a resolution opposing a tourist hotel. There the matter sits. Air Micronesia, which is committed by contract to building a hotel in all six districts, is concentrating its efforts elsewhere and not pressing the point.
Still, there is plenty of thought and concern about the future in relation to Yap’s conservative attitudes. A businessman-legislator who served on the tourism body said: “I think we need very few tourists. Maybe we have too many now. We can get the money we need the way we do now, from the government, copra and the sale of handicrafts, plus maybe from greater investment in agriculture and fisheries.”
His views carried over into the political field: “We have gone too far beyond our culture, too much into Westernized politics. Yap is slower than other districts. Rather than move faster in darkness we should go slower … We can’t really change back. But it is best for us to wait for the Western ways to come rather than rush into them. “
An active Yapese woman leader pictured change as already pressing on the society: “We need an adult education program to bring our older people along in the changes that are taking place. There may be what you call a generation gap. Our youngsters may wear Yapese clothes and chew betel nut but some are as westernized in their tastes as those on Saipan. “ She went on to describe how her daughter was asking for an allowance and her own room, things unheard of in the traditional culture.
It is hard to determine where Yap is or, more importantly, is not going. It is small enough and isolated enough for it to be free of much pressure from outsiders, if there is the will by outsiders to leave Yap alone; this is a case where the diversity of Micronesia is an advantage.
Yet there is the thought that no island is really an island anymore in such a situation. A sensitive American who spent two years on Yap put it this way: “Any Spanish effect is long gone. The Germans built a cable station that was significant but they ruled indirectly in the culture and kept people off. The same might be said of the Japanese who were busier elsewhere. It may be that the Americans in our plodding but patient way are having the real cultural impact with education and political development. “
It is a prospect one might view with mixed emotions.
Received in New York on October 6, 1969.
Mr. John Griffin is an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner on leave from the Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii. This article may be published with credit to Mr. Griffin, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Alicia Patterson Fund.
