Xasperating, Xcruciating - Xerrified of this Xorrible Xetter!

 

Spot the X. There are two, not one, but two in this photograph.

Okay....so we come finally to the most dreaded…

As I’ve mentioned before, Fijian does not use X in its alphabet, see for yourself how worthless this letter is – when the the Latin alphabet was adapted for Fijian, folks just gave X the chop completely. Find out how and who devised the Fijian alphabet by reading this article. So...There's no help to be found in the local milieu - no place names, no glib phrases, nope nothing. 

What I'm going to do therefore, is to tell you about some of my observations re the Xasperating and Xcruciating aspects of being an Xpat, some things true for Fiji, some true for the other places I've lived and some everywhere. 

One of the aspects I've found irksome are the banking regulations for foreigners, every country has its own restrictions - in Bahrain the bank issued us local credit cards but wouldn't give us any cheque book facility.  That wasn't a massive issue, we don't use too many cheques anyway. 

In Fiji we can't hold either credit cards or cheque books. Hobson's choice - either we use the Indian cards and pay extra due to the service charges to the Indian banks plus applicable taxes on foreign currency transactions, or pay the entire amounts upfront in cash. Additionally, most merchant establishments in Fiji charge some 2-3% extra on card transactions. So there's at least  a good 7-8% extra on the price one ends up paying if the credit cards are used. Good thing we didn't/don't need to buy any big ticket items! 

However, I still find it inconvenient and a bit uncomfortable to carry  paper money around by the bagful. Especially in those first days, when we needed to sort out the household stuff that's required at every relocation -  since I was told these horror stories of purse snatchings and break-ins the minute I landed. It just added an extra layer of unnecessary jitters. 

Next, there is what I call the currency commotion, which is funny till it isn't. If you're an expat, you'll  have to cope with juggling two kinds of money - one of your home base, the other wherever you live. That's learning a whole set of notes and coins in each country and making sure you're not handing over a note to the cabbie that's ten times more in value than your actual fare, because of course you've been gone for a couple of years, meanwhile new notes have been introduced none of which you know from Adam and the colours have been shuffled around and the fonts are more decorative than clearly legible. And of course you'll have to be able to earn in one currency, take care of your obligations, save and pay your taxes in another and do the arithmetic for both systems of money like it's a piece of cake. 

Now if you're an Indian expat, then you'll have to learn to hold in your brain and convert smoothly between three currencies - the Indian Rupee or INR, the currency of wherever you live and a 'hard currency,' now usually the USD. When I was a kid it was the Sterling Pound. You'll have to constantly decide which one is your own "real money" depending on how long you've been away from your homeland. 

So you go on home leave, look at a textile priced at say, INR 2,000 and think - 'heavens, that's only BHD 9, hand woven length of art, how is that even close to a decent price? How much does the weaver make after costs?'...Or you look at a scarf in your 'away' home and go 'gosh, that's 10,000 rupee right there for a piece of machine-made mass-produced flimsy trash, not even locally made, I'm not buying that, thank you.' You'll never have used a dollar bill to buy a single thing till your children grow up and go to uni in the USA, but you'll be required to calculate your income in that currency from time to time and report all the export markets you research in dollar value.

As soon as you get used to the currency of one country e.g. the Bahraini Dinar (BHD), the god of relocations will hatch a plan to shake things up because hey, this character here is getting too damn snug-settled, so off you go to another one! By now BHD has become your 'real money' in practical terms. Now you'll have the angry voices in your head chatting back to you in four different currencies - INR, BHD, USD and the new country's, say Egyptian Pounds. It'll get seriously crazy - total  cacophony in there!

The next issue is particular to Fiji. In the Middle East everywhere I've been, though government facilities may or may not be up to the mark, there has been no issues with availability of healthcare  - plenty good doctors and top quality medical care. At an extra price for foreigners of course, but it's there, I wouldn't have had to be airlifted home in case of a medical emergency, the sponsor would cover the cost so I didn't have to worry. I must point out though, the Gulf Countries including Bahrain and UAE where I've lived, have vast numbers of unskilled foreign workers who can't afford the pricey, private health care, are not covered for any substantial medical bills and so have to be sent home for treatment. I know of several cases, some of them truly excruciating. 

Fiji is a different ball game entirely. First off, the basics are not there - Fiji has 2.0 hospital beds per 1000 population, which is substantially lower than the world mean at 2.9. There's a shortage of doctors - 0.84 per 1000 people, as compared to a global figure of 1.5 per 1000. Fiji spends 3.8 of its GDP on health care, again much lower than the world average.  (Btw, Kolkata where I come from has figures quite similar or worse than Fiji, but private care is accessible to those who can afford it, much like the ME.) However, figures tell  just half the story.

The other half - what I hear from people, not necessarily expats, is quite unnerving. Birth stories that are total horror shows, road accident victims dying due to lack of care, expats having to move back to their home country because some piffling but specialised problem couldn't be tackled on the island. A few days ago someone from a European country asked in an online expat forum about relocating to Fiji with his pregnant wife and a gazillion horrified people from all sides, both locals and expats,  jumped in and effectively yelled at him - are you nuts?! have the baby in your home country! I've myself had to consult a dermatologist, an experienced specialist, who diagnosed me and then recommended I get the necessary but totally minor surgery when I got home next. All this is not exactly confidence inducing. 

Finally, there are two other aspects - one personal and the other political, they come with the territory of being expat Indians. Political first - you'll not be able to participate in most political processes in the country of your residence, unless it is a democracy, which most countries I've lived in aren't. There are other laws in place that will limit your freedoms, what you can wear in public in Saudi or Iran for instance, whether you can swig beer on a beach or park, if you can watch or import porn into the country, whether you can proselytise, or even volunteer at an NGO.  UAE used to bar WhatsApp voice calls, it allowed texts only when I was in the ME - all those kinds of things. In short, when in Rome you'll have to follow the rules made by Caesar. This I have no issues with. Mildly xasperating, sure, but no biggie. If in some country there are laws I find absolutely xecrable, I'd just not go there (as in Saudi). 

Finally, the personal - the things you leave behind, small and big, each compartmentalised home with its complement of attachment points that can't be carried over. The lack of family support through your crises, the lack of your participation in those of the extended family back home. The births, weddings, funerals that you must celebrate/mourn alone at a remove - particularly the funerals, that's gut wrenching, but it's an integral part of split continent living and you've made the choice knowing the downsides. They'll still knock the breath out of you when they happen, there's no way to prepare for that beforehand. 

I'd originally thought I would write about Xenophilia today - the love for strangeness and novelty, a deep attraction for the unfamiliar. It's the  underlying driver of wanderlust - I wanted to write about some Xenophiliacs here in Fiji, the foreigners who came, who saw and who were conquered by its untouched beauty and its remoteness.  But I'm seriously out of wordcount and you must be out of all patience. We've already talked about  Raymond Burr earlier and David Gilmour yesterday. Here's the link to two more - Maria Rova and Roberta Harris. 

All this month I'm writing about Aspects of Fiji, which is where I'm at the mo. And where the sum of its xceptional parts is xquisitely greater than the whole!

What do you think - should X be part of the English alphabet? Can we give it the chop like the Fijians have done? Do you know of any other language that uses the Latin script but not X? 

~ Thank you for reading ~

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2023  

Water

 

My first contact with Fiji. Two products I was given on the flight
 in from Singapore. The motifs on the washbag fascinated me,
so I was anyway going to dig into their provenance. While at
it I thought I might as well do the water, too. :)

Just a few lines about the tap water here - that's supplied by Water Authority of Fiji which covers mostly urban areas. Their history and operations are available here. About 12% of the population do not have access to safe drinking water in the remote areas. Most tourist/expat guides to Fiji advise that the tap water in urban areas is safe to drink but out in the villages it is wise to boil your drinking water. I cannot vouch for this personally as I have not used tap water for drinking since I was a kid. My mother boiled and filtered the water ever since I can remember.  I got  used to  bottled water when I left India in the 90s for Bahrain (tap water there at that time was a tad too salty for drinking because the groundwater had been progressively contaminated by the sea). That system has stayed with us right through all the relocations. 

Fiji has substantial groundwater aquifers which have been tapped and developed for bottling. Bottled water is a major export product for Fiji. In 2021, out of total exports of roughly FJD 1 billion, bottled water accounted for a 24% share of the basket (click here to read more). It is far and away the single most dominant product, because the next group, Wood, comes in at around 7%, less than a third. Mineral water exports have been growing at 5-6% p.a. and according to most estimates will continue to a significant export earner. There are several companies supplying the local market, but in this post I'm focussing on the most well known, extensively exported and marketed on a luxe platform - Fiji Water. 

David Gilmour (not the famous PF musician! a Canadian businessman) first invested in Fiji in the 1960s. Remember that in the 60s the tourism market took off here, a number of properties were developed and hotels set up?  Well, David Gilmour bought up property in Fiji with his then business partner Peter Munk and started a hotel chain, which they sold a decade later. Gilmour next bought a private island in the Lomaviti group  called Wakaya Island in 1973 and carried out some major development work there - over 20 kms of road, a church, gym, school, water reservoir, jetty, airstrip, marina and what have you. He also set up an exclusive  luxury resort called Wakaya Club. Over the years, many celebrities have visited and stayed there. In 2016, majority share of the property was sold to  the Seagrams heiress Clare Bronfman, later to be convicted for human trafficking (some creepy-crawlies always manage to find their way in to paradise!) 

Gilmour founded Fiji Water in 1996 after the aquifer at Yaqara Valley was discovered. He sold the operations to Lynda and Stewart Resnick, husband and wife owners of the Wonderful group of California, in 2004. Lynda developed a brand strategy based on the water's exoticness and purity - Earth's Finest Water. By 2008, Fiji Water had become the number 1  in the US bottled water market, ahead of all other brands including Evian. In keeping with its luxury positioning, it uses celebrity endorsements and brand embedding in films like 'Bullet Train,'  TV shows such as 'The Sopranos' and product placement in glam, hi-visibility events.

Source. Fiji Water product placement at the 2019 Golden
Globes Award function. Being seen at high profile locations
and being sipped by high profile celebrities is the route Fiji
Water has taken rather than regular TV commercials. 

There have been myriad controversies about Fiji Water from time to time, some of which can be found here in this article. However, Fiji Water's own website refutes some of these allegations with claims of sustainability, community development and its various CSR initiatives through the Fiji Water Foundation. Lynda and Stewart have faced criticism for their intensive water use in drought prone California for their other projects as well. Read more about that here.

PS I do not use Fiji Water, too expensive to use by the gallon. I might buy a bottle on the road somewhere if I need a drink desperately and no other brand is available. :) 

However, for the life of me I can't see why there is this accusatory tone and finger pointing at Fiji Water because there's a 12% segment of the Fijian population which can't access safe/tap water. Firstly, it's a bit naive to expect a private corporation to take care of sanitation and drinking water needs. Development of infrastructure and basic facilities should be the purview of the government, they can of course get into private-public partnerships, but that's a different discussion altogether.

Does it make sense,  in a plastic-inundated world to encourage the use of millions of single use bottles? Does it make sense to buy bottled water from halfway across the globe instead of using locally bottled water - not to me it doesn't, but then I am not the one who's buying the product, the US market is.  The company is simply catering to a demand, like all corporations do. It is the lawmakers' jobs to see that they do so in a way that benefits the consumers and economy in Fiji as well as US. It is also for the consumers to wake up to the mountains of plastic pollution and demand recyclable, ecofriendly, sustainable packaging alternatives. Unless we are more discerning, it is beyond naive to expect corporations to change. 

All this month I'm writing about Aspects of Fiji, which is where I'm at the mo. And where the sum of its winsome parts is wonderfully greater than the whole!

Did you know that there are twelve species of whales and dolphins native to Fiji? And hundreds of coral species? Also quite a few species of sharks. They all make Fiji one of the most stunning dive sites in the world. Read more here. 

~ Thank you for reading ~

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2023  

Verbose

After that attack of economy-size verbosity yesterday, I’m just going to stick to some photographs of Viseisei today. Yeah, that’ll do very well. 

On the Queens Road, there was a vivid rainbow that day. On an impulse I asked
the gentleman who was driving me home if he'd turn off towards the sea and
he very graciously obliged.

Viseisei was one of the first places I visited in Fiji. The screenshot shows its
exact position on the route back from the Lautoka library to Denarau. I may be
 impulsive but I'm not vague :) 

Viseisei is a village located on a headland called Vuda Point. 

Children from the village playing in the waters. Vuda Point is where, according to
the local oral traditions, the ancestral Melanesians had landed 3500 years ago.

As per that mythical tradition, a vessel called Kaunitoni carrying the chiefly
Gods - Degei and Lutunasobasoba, sailed from the ancient homelands and
landed here on the north west coast of Viti Levu. 

Local man taking a stroll, he grew up around these parts but works in Suva now,
can't come as often as he'd like. He told me some of the traditions. The legend 
says that the ancestors built the first village at Vuda but then it was abandoned
and they moved further inland.

Viseisei is believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited  settlement in Viti
Levu. Ratu Josefa Iloilo, a former President of Fiji, was from Visesei. Both
QEII and Prince Charles have been received at this village during
royal visits to Fiji. 

Viseisei is a tourist attraction, there are buildings that go back to the 19th
century, a Saturday craft bazaar, a guided tour if you want one. I opted to
walk on the beach instead that day - no regrets, then and now. 

All this month I'm writing about Aspects of Fiji, which is where I'm at the mo. And where the sum of its verdant parts is verifiably greater than the whole!

Did you know that Fiji has 1171 villages in all? Of this 1151 are demarcated, 657 are gazetted. Read about how villages go through the process here.

And just on the off chance that you'll want to know some random, irreleVant facts about this series - the font used throughout is Verdana 12 point, the only other choice would be V for Vrinda. However, that seemed more suitable for fine-printey type of text, something you want hidden rather than read. 

~ Thank you for reading ~

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2023  

Ultimately...

Understanding a country takes time, it’s not something that’s done and dusted in a year. It’s never done actually, no matter how long one spends embedded in it, even a trailing spouse with no work pressures and all the time in the world to nose around. A country and its culture don’t necessarily end at its borders, its history is always being made and an iceberg, its trajectory in all aspects, cultural, socio-economic, political, geographical, its own unique but evolving fingerprint. There’s no question of getting to know it exhaustively.

 

To know it does require a certain acceptance on an as-is-where-is basis – to start with a clean slate, to suspend judgement and disbelief, perhaps an additional tendency to a fascination with/abhorrence of  the unfamiliar. Above all, it requires the suspension of this secret sense of mini-superiority most expats seem to have about how things are always  ‘better back there.’ With ‘there’ being defined as the homeland, or some aspirational nation that they want to migrate to, or even the last posting. And an attitude of 'but-for-so-and-so(insert preferred stereotypical group here)-this-place-would-fall-apart-in-two-days-tops.' I used to think that only Indian expats behaved this way till my non-Indian friends in Bahrain emphatically said that some of their compatriots were the exact same. Ghastliness, just like its opposite, doesn't end at borders either.

An expat is an outsider, albeit a massively privileged one. An outsider with an insider view, a perspective that is denied to most tourists. This can be an advantage as well as a handicap depending on the way it's leveraged. Finally, there are the individual biases playing into the whole thing also. In short, there’s a lot of baggage to shed and no one is ever sure that s/he has been able to do that, be dispassionate and evenhanded with everything. Ultimately, it's not the place/culture but one’s individual reactions to it that determine the experience and the takeaways from it. 

Sheesh, why on earth am I subjecting you to this massive harangue? Sorry, let me tell you instead about the Universal Meditation Centre here just outside Nadi. It is part of a complex run by the Ramakrisha Mission, a mammoth Indian NGO and spiritual organisation, based just outside Calcutta with a worldwide presence, as can be seen from the screengrab below. Read more about the parent organisation by clicking here. 

Source. They're present in all continents except Antarctica. In some places they
are present as Ramakrishna Mission and in others as The Vedanta Society. 

In India, they run a humongous number of schools, medical facilities from small village clinics to huge hospitals, institutes of higher learning, orphanages, women's help centres and block level social welfare services like well digging, mobile clinics and solar power installations in remote areas. They work with marginalised sections of the society for economic upliftment and restoration of dignity. In many cases, their monks go to the remotest, most inaccessible, lawless and violence prone areas where others fear to tread, and the criminals on both the warring sides know what's good for them and leave the monks alone. They are one of the foremost NGOs associated with disaster relief everywhere in India. In other words, they have a unflappable, unswerving finger in every social welfare service pie you can imagine.  Maybe pie is not the right term, because there's a smell of commercialisation about it - RKM doesn't have a commercial agenda. 

Let me clarify I'm neither their religious devotee nor a donor, to any spiritual organisation, I prefer my NGOs secular. Like most Bengalis and Indians, I'm a fan of the Upanishads (ooh, that too fits the letter of the day, how nifty!), whatever little I have read and understood, an admirer of Swami Vivekananda too. I am a great fan also of the poetry inherent in all religious texts and of the non-stop, wide ranging service the Ramakrishna Mission provides everywhere they go. However, I'm not here to amplify any spiritual message or to advocate any course of action. You have your karmayoga and I have mine, and I'm perfectly content if never the twain meet. The more they diverge, the more diverse the routes, the richer our combined worlds become, the greater the treat for the eyes and for the mind. 

At the gate. They've moved to this site recently,  7-8 years ago, as the previous
site inside Nadi town was prone to flooding. 

The Ramakrishna Mission has been operating in Fiji since 1937, the only Pacific small island nation where they've been working for nearly 90 years. Within the compound they have a high school (Yrs 9-13, the enrollment is around 1000), a medical clinic, a technical/vocational training centre and the star of the day, aforementioned meditation centre. All facilities, as per the RKM philosophy, is open to believers of all faiths. The student population in the school is majority Christian Methodist. The Universal Meditation Centre, in keeping with their broader philosophy of acceptance of all faiths, does not have any Hindu deities, only the images of the three main personalities behind the RK Movement - Ramakrishna Paramhansa, his wife Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda, this holds for all their ashrams and meditation centres globally. The one in Nadi also has the name of Allah and an image of Jesus which the meditators face. Here is a photo of students from the school come in to meditate at the centre.  

Students of the SVC meditating at the Universal Meditation Centre. Universalism is the guiding
principle  of RKM's core philosophy, adapted from the Vedanta. 

As with India, RKM in Fiji is actively involved in many social welfare schemes and is one of the leading NGOs to jump into disaster relief work after extreme weather events, which a  regular feature of Fiji.  To get an indication of their efforts after cyclone Winston click here and here. 

All this month I'm writing about Aspects of Fiji, which is where I'm at the mo. And where the sum of its untouched, pristine  parts is unimaginably greater than the whole!

Did you know that the Union Jack is part of the Fiji flag? 

Source. Read how the Fiji flag came to be by clicking on the link. 

~ Thank you for reading ~

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2023  

Tracks n trails

 

Tourist activities in the Mamanuca group.

Tourism is huge in Fiji. It contributes nearly 40% to the GDP and provides livelihood to around 118,000 people. It indirectly impacts many local industries in agriculture, fisheries, retail and others. Naturally the pandemic was a devastating blow, but with more than 75% of the population vaccinated and the loosening of restrictions, the sector has made a strong comeback. Take a look at the arrival figures over the years to see the importance of tourism on Fiji. Read about how the pandemic flattened it in 2020/21 here. 

Sources : Visitor Arrivals, Population. 

Before the pandemic hit, from 2017 onwards, Fiji welcomed tourists in numbers almost equal to its own population every year. In practical terms that means every 12th/13th person you encounter at any given time in Fiji is a tourist. In other words, you'll come across foreign travellers everywhere you go. 

Tourists swimming in Wailoaloa Beach in Nadi Bay.

Most tourists come to Fiji from Australia, New Zealand, USA and other Pacific Island nations. A small number of travellers come from UK and Continental Europe. Market development efforts have been going on lately in China, Japan and Canada to attract visitors from these countries. Fiji Airways has recently started a direct flight to Vancouver and Narita/Tokyo.  The Ministry of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport is currently in industry wide consultations to develop a National Sustainable Tourism Framework, a ten year developmental plan for the tourism sector in Fiji. Read more on that here and find the tracks and trails on offer at the Fiji Tourism site by clicking here.

The backstory and milestones

The history of Fiji tourism makes for interesting reading. As with many other things, we have to start with the coming of the Europeans. The foreign settlers established the modern town of Levuka in the 1820s for the trade of sea cucumbers. Levuka was on an island called the Ovalau, a much smaller island off the Eastern coast of Viti Levu. It soon became an important transport hub and a bustling commercial centre. By 1860s the Royal Hotel, the first hotel in the South Pacific islands, had opened its doors to guests. 

When the modern nation of Fiji was established in 1871, Levuka was made its capital and the new Fijian King Cakobau was crowned there. The capital was moved to Suva in 1877 after the country was ceded to the British Crown in 1874, mostly because there was little space in Levuka to expand. The Royal Hotel, incidentally, is still in operation and Levuka has become a UNESCO heritage site.

Screenshot showing the relative positions of Nadi, Suva and Levuka. 

The next milestone came about because the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, at the time a major player in sea transport in the Southern hemisphere, wanted a some fancy accommodations for their steamship tourists enroute to Hawaii or Australia, who often made a stopover at Fiji. Enter the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva in 1914. It was designed with large French windows and great verandahs right next to the Suva harbour. Several famous personalities came to stay in the hotel, including Queen Elizabeth, twice - once on her first overseas trip after her coronation in 1953 and again 20 years later. 

In 1951 the first commercial flight of Fiji Airways took off. Followed by a building boom  in the 1960s -  many new hotels, including the Outrigger, Fijian, Tradewinds and others came up all over the capital and outside. In Nadi, the first of the Tanoa hotel chain was set up. Fiji Visitors Bureau, the precursor to Tourism Fiji, was established in 1969. 

Incidentally, Fiji Airways is one the pioneers in code share arrangements with other airlines. Tourist arrivals have jumped as and when the airlines has expanded its flight networks, either independently or through code share partners. 

Hospitality workers welcoming guests with traditional Fijian music.
Vunivadra Island, Fiji.

Meanwhile, the first private tour operators also set up shop - read about one of them here. Rosie Tours was started in 1974 by Rosie and Tony Whitton, a family owned business which has expanded from 4 to over 600 staff now. Other  farsighted individuals/ operators developed island properties, offered cruises and package tours. Read about some of the pioneers who laid the foundations for Fijian tourism here.  

Therefore, Fiji has a long history of market development in tourism and has now emerged as a popular destination in the South Pacific region. Even when it has been rocked by political turmoil and/or civil unrest, tourists arrivals have quickly normalised. It is considered a safe haven for tourists, unaffected by terrorism and the stresses of modern, urban lives. The Fijian tourism sector is hoping to build upon this and leverage its existing strengths for a sustainable future.

 

Tourists on the Natadola Beach on the Coral Coast. 

All this month I'm writing about Aspects of Fiji, which is where I'm at the mo. And where the sum of its terrific parts is totally greater than the whole!

Did you know that the sperm whale's tooth, called Tabua, were traditionally revered objects in Fijian culture, exchanged on significant occasions such as weddings and worn exclusively by the nobility? Sometimes the tooth was used singly, at others a number of teeth were strung together in a necklace called sisi. Both polished and unpolished whale ivory  were used. The material that strung the ivory together was derived from pandanus leaves, coconut fibres and/or bark cloth. Even today, whale ivory is considered extremely valuable by Fijians, although no whaling goes on in Fiji. What you see being sold in souvenir shops are replicas. Trade in Tabua is strictly controlled, only a specific small number are allowed for export/import, as is evident from this article. 

Whale's tooth. 'an important token of esteem and atonement in
Fijian culture. Normally presented to high ranking officials and
chiefs, their acceptance binds the receiver morally and spiritually
 to the giver.' Just one other thing I never had a clue about till I
touched down in Fiji...

Whale ivory necklace - sisi. Fiji Museum. 

~ Thank you for reading ~

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2023  

Shaped

 

Fiji has been shaped by sugarcane. This has been a seriously mixed blessing. Even now sugar and sugarcane continue to impact Fijian lives in ways small and big. And this holds not just for Fiji but across the world.

From cakes to chocolate mousse....

To understand how, it helps if we start at the beginning of sugar itself and summarise the main milestones:

Sugarcane probably originated in New Guinea and was domesticated around 8,000-10,000 BCE. The Ancient Papuans are thought to have chewed the canes directly. It was also used as animal fodder.  The cane spread to other island nations in the Pacific, including Fiji, through the movement of seafarers, carried by Austronesian and Polynesian peoples. By 3500 BCE sugarcane had reached India, where it interbred with other varieties and became the sugarcane species that is cultivated today. 

It is thought that sugar remained a closely guarded secret of Asia for many centuries. However, sugar travelled west with Alexander's returning army to Greece and later, Pliny the Elder commented on the comparative merits of sugar obtained from the Arabs and India. Therefore, sugar was known to both Ancient Greece and Rome.

Sometime in the first centuries AD, crystalline sugar was made in India. From there it was carried west to Persia and the early Islamic nations by Arab traders. And Buddhist monk took the secrets of sugar to China. So that sugar diffused both east and west - it reached the Mediterranean where Sicily and Cyprus became major production hubs.  For all this time, it was considered a rare and exotic condiment, sometimes used as medicine, rather than an everyday sweetener. Only the most wealthy had access to it. 

The Europeans brought back sugar with them from the Crusades and it reached England in the 13th century. In 1390, a new sugarcane press was invented which increased juice yields from canes and this changed the sugar market dramatically. Madeira rose as a cultivation centre from where the canes were supplied to Belgium for processing and distribution. Thus there emerged a cheaper priced alternative for sugar in Europe compared to the existing sugar monopolies, Madeira  became the largest producer of sugarcane in Europe by the 15th century. 

Christopher Columbus introduced sugar to the New World in 1493. He took it to Hispaniola or modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic. Sugarcane was found eminently suitable for cultivation there, mills and refineries were soon set up and the islands became the largest producer in the New World by 1516. Sugar was also brought to Brazil at around the same time - the combined production grew so much that it exceeded the demand manifold. And because sugar was a hugely labour intensive crop, it created a sudden, massive spike in demand for cheap labour, thus laying the groundwork for the horrific trans-Atlantic slave trade. 

Between 1500 and 1860s, more than 12 million people were taken into slavery and transported in abysmal conditions to the sugarcane plantations in the Americas. Many thousands died during the long sea voyage, many perished at the destination due to overwork and poor conditions. Meanwhile, tea, coffee and cocoa were also imported into Europe creating an ever greater demand for sugar in turn  fuelling the demand for slaves. The forced mass migration of peoples in such huge numbers from Africa, and elsewhere in the world, continues to impact societies today nearly 200 years after the abolition of slavery. Read more here and here.

Sugarcane and Fiji

From coffee and tea to lemonade....we need sugar with a whole lot of things!

The importance of sugarcane to Fiji can be illustrated simply by the existence of the Ministry of Sugar. There was a time when raw sugar and sugar molasses were the top export earner of Fiji, accounting for 38-40% of export earnings. Even today, sugar remains among the top 5 items in the Fijian export basket, with a share of 4-5%. The sugar industry impacts and employs thousands of people - from the land owners, tenant farmers, cultivators, cane cutters and mill workers down to the transport/shipping staff. The production and export peaked in the late 90s, they have tapered and plateaued now due to a variety of factors including the end of trading agreements and climate vagaries. Have a shufti here for the trends. 

Sugarcane was found to grow in Fiji as an indigenous crop by the Europeans. The sugar industry in Fiji started formally in 1882, with Colonial Sugar Refining Co (CSR) setting up the first mill in Nausori. Within a year, cane cultivation had overtaken copra as the chief export crop. The plantations required  labour both plentiful and cheap, the solution to which was provided by shipping in indentured labourers, the Girmitiyas, from the traditional sugar growing regions in India. Most of them were put to work on sugar plantations forthwith, we've already seen their working and living conditions earlier in this series. Sugar thus quickly became the backbone of the Fijian economy. 

In 1972, Fiji Sugar Corporation (FSC) was created by an Act of Parliament and the operations of both CSR and the South Pacific Sugar Mills were consolidated under its umbrella. By this time Fiji had become independent, the indenture system had long been abandoned and many of the Girmitiyas were settled in Fiji, tenant farmers for sugarcane crops planted on leased farmlands. 

Three years later. a bill suggesting that the Girmitiyas and their descendants should be repatriated to India was tabled by a Fijian supremacist leader in the Parliament. It was defeated but it left the Indo-Fijian community (who had by then lost contacts with their country of origin completely) shaken and insecure about their place in Fiji and their rights as citizens. The same year that FSC was formed was also the year when Idi Amin of Uganda successfully expelled all Indians from Uganda at 90 days notice. Some people in Fiji clearly felt Fiji should take a leaf out of that book. In the decades following independence, the the tensions between the Indo-Fijians and iTaukei worsened and even spiralled into violence sometimes, the overarching cause for the four coups d'état and the attempts to bring in a supremacist constitution.  

Coupled with that is the land issue. Most of the sugarcane in Fiji is grown on land leased from the iTaukei owners. Decreasing yields, increasing costs of inputs and transportation, and most importantly, the non-renewal of the leases has led to a steady erosion of farmers' faith in the industry. This has in turn led to their migrations to urban centres and overseas for alternative livelihoods. Sugar export has been overtaken by other products - where it used to be the number one it is now the fourth/fifth. Read more here,  here and here.

All this month I'm writing about Aspects of Fiji, which is where I'm staying at the mo. And where the sum of its stunning parts is greater than the whole!

Did you know that Fiji has a sizeable amount of seafood in its export basket? The markets for Fijian seafood include USA, Australia, China, Japan, Vietnam and New Zealand. Some seafood is also exported to neighbouring Pacific Island nations. 

  

~ Thank you for reading ~

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2023  

Role

Village church in Sabeto area. Religion impacts
everyday life in Fiji.

Religion plays a significant role in Fijian culture. Based on the last census figures available, the majority share of the population, 65%, follows the Christian faith. The leading denomination is overwhelmingly Methodist, a sizeable community of RC, and some Anglicans, Assembly of God, Seventh Day Adventists and others. The Orthodox churches are present, though their congregations may be minuscule.  

Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple, Nadi. The largest Hindu temple in the South Pacific. 

Around 28% of the population are Hindu which is the largest minority religious group in Fiji. Muslims make up another 6%. There are  tiny communities of Sikhs, Buddhists, Bahais and Jews as well. 

By and large, the religious demography goes hand in hand with ethnicity. Indigenous Fijians (iTaukei) are Christian, while the Indo-Fijians are mostly Hindu with some Muslims. The ethnic Chinese community follow Christianity and Buddhism, while the Europeans are mostly Christians. 

Christianity came first to Fiji in the 1820s/30s and gradually spread across the islands after Cakobau was converted in 1854 by James Calvert. Read about him and his missionary work among the polytheistic Fijians here. Both Hinduism and Islam, the two main minority faiths, have come to Fiji with the Indo-Fijians in the late 19th century. 

The Methodist Church has a presence everywhere. The board reads  'Methodist
Church in Fiji. T/C Vakaivakatawa. Natalau, Fiji.' The Church is a focal point
for village life. On the Sunday that I passed this one, there was a big
group of men chatting on the back porch. Children were playing
 in the grounds of another church less than a mile on. 

The Methodist Church in Fiji has not been apolitical in  the past. It has protested against the eligibility of non-Christian candidates, endorsed Christian ones and to some extent has to be held responsible for inciting racial/communal disharmony. However, the recent leaders have moderated this nationalistic tone and promoted general harmony. 

According to a recent report by the US State Department, the Fijian constitution provides a framework for a secular state and protects freedom of worship and diversity of faith. The constitution also mandates for separation of religion and state. Pew Research Centre's Global Report on Religious Restrictions 2020 places Fiji at a low level with respect to social hostilities and moderate for government restrictions on religious freedoms.

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Suva, was built in the
 early 1900s.

This has not always been so historically as we have seen earlier in this series. The Church has conflated "Fijian-ness" with "Christianity" and has backed and opposed coups. Some leaders within the Methodist Church have advocated for establishment of a Christian state, which had lead to a confrontation with the previous government. The military has not been neutral either. However, the atmosphere of the early 21st century has eased off now after the 2014 and 2018 elections, according to a report by Freedom House. Read more here and here.

All this month I'll be writing about Aspects of Fiji, which is where I'm residing at the mo. And where the sum of its riveting parts is greater than the whole.

Did you know that Fiji is a rugby mad nation and fields one of the globally best teams in rugby 7? It has repeatedly won the world title - four times in fact, and is ranked at  number three. A special F$ 7 note has been introduced to celebrate the Men's and Women's Rugby 7 teams.

~ Thank you for reading ~

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2023