Tonga, love of my life

(NOT my picture)

(NOT my picture, wish it was)

I thought I'd share a little piece of my heart with you...

Tonga means so much to me. I tend to romanticize Tonga quite a bit but it does have a lot of flaws. I started talking yesterday to a guy who goes to BYU-Hawaii and served on an island of Madagascar. I asked him to tell me all the things he disliked about Polynesians. It was good for me to remember that they are not perfect - often I find myself telling people about how amazing Tonga is and at the end adding “oh, but they have their problems.” What’s funny is I’ve already started forgetting what those problems are, so it was good for me to listen to this guy talk a little “trash” about Polynesians. : )

This is a link to the article I recently read, the pictures are not amazing but they do portray Tonga correctly.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/11/tonga/teague-text.html

The reason for the rioting seemed very twisted to fit the writers purposes. One of the main reasons for the rioting was discussed earlier in the article (but the connection was not made) it was because the royal family was selling Tongan Passports to the Chinese and the Chinese are pretty much taking over the island. The great majority of the rioting was focused on them and on their shops. One building was set on fire and the whole block went up (including the only movie theater on the island). *sigh

You don't have to read the article or look at the pictures or whatever but I wanted to share some pieces with you.

Some of my favorite lines came from the authors and photographers field notes (the article itself just upset me (towards the royal family)):

"Roni [Tongan] knew I lived in Philadelphia, and he had been very quiet during the ride, but at one point he said in a very slow and serious way, “I like Rocky.” We both laughed about it: Even at the ends of the earth, you can’t escape the reach of Rocky Balboa. And it was touching because Roni was really telling me, ‘I know something about the town where you’re from.’"

That’s really what they all were saying and until now I didn't know it. He just put into words something I've thought about for quite a while. Isn’t it a beautiful thing how with simple words humans can connect to one another?

Another favorite part:
"They’d be considered poor by our standards because they don’t have a lot of money. But the lives I witnessed were far from poor, as I never saw anyone who was hungry or destitute. Families and neighbors take care of each other in Tonga. Everyone has food and a roof over their head."

*sigh. I feel like crying for Tonga.