Tonga

Tonga is a small country in South Pacific, not far from Vanuatu, Fiji, and Solomon Islands. The country is a kingdom and is not in a hurry to change its ways to resemble the western life-style. Things happen at a fairly leisurely pace, especially where travel is concerned.

Once you slow down and accept the fact that one can only do half of what seemed to be reasonable at home, Tonga becomes a very pleasant and somewhat quirky place. I have not spent enough time in Tonga to write a coherent description of it, so just I wrote down some random impressions.

Tonga is a very religious country, but the way religion is practiced is absolutely hilarious. Sunday is a mandatory praying day; no one is allowed to work, shops and restaurants are closed, planes do not fly, contracts signed on Sunday are null and void (though I do not know why anyone in their right mind would want to be signing anything outside of nominal working hours in this climate). While practicing religion is mandatory, the type of religion is not mandated - one can pray to any god one likes. We've seen Christian, Catholic, Mormon, Church of Latter Day Saints, and First Wesleyan Church - I am sure there are many more. Tonga averages 50 people per church - around 1500 churches for a country with population of 100,000. The picture of the sleeping girls was taken on our last Sunday in Tonga.

Mormons are supposed to pray on Saturday rather than on Sunday. They get around this problem by not recognising the International Date Line on Sunday and claiming that it is in fact Saturday. I did not investigate the issue enough to understand how they deal with the problem of having two Saturdays in a week (and not having a Sunday). Mind boggles...

Locals gradually adopt some elements of Western culture, but the choice of elements seems to be almost random and as a consequence is quite funny. Local nightclubs play primarily western music (top 100 of 1970s), but locals did not adopt western dancing. They still do Tongan folk dancing, which consists mostly of rather complex hand movements (I understand that they are supposed to tell a story with their hands), and that style of dancing done to "Beach Boys" looks weird to say the least.

Cemeteries are arena for competition in post-mortem kitsch. The graves are decorated with beer bottles, plastic flowers, and quilts. Graves with the loudest and nastiest decoration show most respect for the deceased.

Tongans are huge - an average person is about twice my size (both boys and girls). Just as well they are very friendly ;-)

All in all, an interesting place to visit - just allocate twice as much time as you think you would need ;-)