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| Frangipani (Photo taken by and copyright Maria Ngo) |
Thanks for popping by on my 7th post now on my series on Fiji. The aim of this series is to help you have a smoother more enjoyable holiday, be less stressed and make wiser decisions that could save you money and keep you safer. (For those who missed out on my post on marine dangers, you can check it out here.)
My post today is a brief introduction to some aspects of the Fijian language and culture that you can expect to encounter.
Music, fire and welcome!
I'd been told that Fijians are a very friendly people. Well, I had no idea how friendly and welcoming they were because my very first encounter was a very pleasant surprise.Right in the immigration customs hall in Nadi International Airport, even before I'd collected my luggage, we were greeted by a trio of singing Fijian men dressed in their sulu complete with white frangipanis behind their ears.
They were such a welcome sight and sound to my sleep deprived brain and body as we stepped off our 5 hour flight shortly after 6 a.m. that morning.
I was not sure if I was allowed to take photos, so, my apologies that this photo isn't the clearest one as I tried to take it surreptitiously. I tried not to stare but I could not take my eyes off this rather unusual welcome to the country. (Perhaps you'll take a better one and share it with me. *wink*) So right there and then was my introduction to the role that music played in their culture.
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| Welcome to Fiji! (Photo taken by and copyright Maria Ngo) |
I was to encounter their deep appreciation of music and the profound way in which it was used to capture their history and preserve it through role play and story-telling over and over and over again in the coming days.
Music was used to recount this people's journey from a land far away and their delight in a good catch of fish and even battles fought. There is even one about the boogey man and what happens to misbehaving children.
The guitar and ukele appear to be the main preferred instruments. I have no doubt that their transportability as well as tonal qualities that match the human voice so perfectly, have something to do with it.
Our first brush with the Fijian welcome was continued with more upon arrival at the resort we were staying in.
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| Wyndham serenade (Photo taken by and copyright Maria Ngo) |
This was soon to become a key feature of the day cruises/trips and another resort where we stayed for 4 nights. (By the way, I will write a more detailed account of these in future posts, so keep coming back.)
The crew on board PJ's fishing, snorkeling and sailing adventures included some contemporary and other well loved country western and pop classics. The stringed instruments were accompanied by skillful drumming with a plastic bucket and worn out snorkel.
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| Musical soiree with PJ's Fiji fishing, snorkeling and sailing adventures (Photo taken by and copyright Maria Ngo) |
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| A musical Bula welcome! (Photo taken by and copyright Maria Ngo) |
I was quite surprised at the length of this free musical performance and fire dancing. If I had known earlier about where the performance was going to take place, I would have timed our meal better to take advantage of this.
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| Dinner at Port Denarau (Photo taken by and copyright Maria Ngo) |
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| Fire dancing (Photo taken by and copyright Maria Ngo) |
Bula! Vinaka!
Now, don't be taken aback if someone suddenly calls out loudly to you, 'Bula!' It's just a very enthusiastic Hello and/or Welcome!Bula! is pronounced 'Mboo-lah!' although the 'm' is almost imperceptible, you could for all accounts get away with just saying 'Boo lah'.
This phrase is used morning, noon and night.
If you want to be more formal, you could say 'Ni sa yadra' (pronounced Nee sah yan drah) for Good Morning, and 'Ni sa Bula' (Nee sah mboo lah) for Good afternoon or Good evening. But generally, Bula covers just about every situation.
If you notice in the above, 'yadra', the 'd' is pronounced with an 'n' before it. Such that Nadi is actually pronounced as Nahn-dee.
The letter 'a' is pronounced like in 'ah' rather than 'ay'.
Another phrase that you'll hear a lot of is Vinaka! (Vee naka). This means, Thank you.
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| Another opportunity to practice saying Vinaka (Photo taken by and copyright Maria Ngo) |
And if you wanted to say, Thank you very much, you would say 'Vinaka vaka levu' (Vee naka vaka ley voo).
There are lots of other phrases that you could learn (which have been well documented elsewhere), but, with a cheery Bula! and grateful Vinaka, you'll soon feel quite at home among the Fijians. This is because while you'll hear them conversing with one another in a Fijian dialect, if you speak English, you'll have no problems being understood. English is after all one of the three official languages spoken in Fiji. The other two being Bauan Fijian and Hindi. There are many Fijian dialects but Bauan is the official one.
So with that, I shall bid you Vinaka for reading my post, and Vinaka Vaka Levu in anticipation of liking my blog page and sharing it.
Catch you soon at my next post.
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