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I was teaching at Tupou Tertiary Institute in 2005, at the Fasi Mo Afi
campus which is right next to the downtown business district. This
is the area which was mostly burned down during the 'democracy riots'
of November 2006. I guess I'm glad that I was not there during that period,
as the riot mostly took place right next to my house! You can see the
Australian Army marching right in front of TTI in this news photo.
It was an odd time in Tonga, as the Tongans are usually quite reserved and
tend to keep all their feelings 'bottled up' rather than express themselves.
In ancient times, they were very good warriors, having conquered all of Samoa,
Uvea (Wallis and Futuna), and much of Fiji at one time. But this riot seemed
so uncharacteristic of Tongan behavior. The
initial outburst was caused by Parlimentary inaction on government reforms
that spurred a limited demonstration, which grew as some took advantage of
this opportunity to vent their revenge over personal and racial greviences.
Many hard working Indians and Chinese lost their businesses, and a rather
shady character's hotel bore the brunt of the locals pent up anger downtown.
The results left the central business district burned to the ground. Years later many
business returned to their old locations with shiny new
buildings along the main North to South road which is Taufa'ahau Rd.
This comparison
is not before the riot and after, but before the 2008 global financial
meltdown and after. In each comparison
we have the 2007 photo on the left and the 2014 photo on the right. Here is the
corner of Taufa'ahau Rd at Wellington from 2007 where the phone company had moved
into the old liquor store, and then the south end of that same block in 2014. Given that
the previous TCC location is now a huge brand new four story mostly-empty building,
the odd comparison emerges: there had been a lot of businesses that couldn't survive
through the financial recession from 2008 to 2014, thus many are boarded up
and some are now under construction. This could mean that financial times had
improved spurring this work, or that things had gotten so dilapidated that something had to
be done. There's no denying that the recent image looks a lot less appealing than
what one could see 6 months after the riot. When I went out to take the 2014 photos
this is not at all what I was going after, but it is what you see and I don't know
quite what to make of it. The traffic here is more horrendous than ever. Tongans
keep buying cars and drive them constantly, even just to run 200 yards to the store.
No one parks their car in an orderly fashion, just pull over and park anywhere.
During the morning rush hour it is bumper to bumper, stop and go, with no stop lights.
There are no traffic laws really, the police only get involved after an accident.
Here's
the little club I used to play at in 2005 along the waterfront. It looks to have
been closed for quite a while in 2007. Too bad as it was a cool place to hang out
back in 2005, unless the owner was drunk. The place is obviously beyond any hope of
restoration at this point. It seems that people have taken everything, even most of
the wood. I think this would have to be the only
place that had any American jazz since there was a nice jazz pianist at the Dateline
Hotel a number of years earlier. I enjoyed playing
here, had some good times and met some interesting people. Too bad the
jazz jam session with Tupou V did'nt happen (he played some jazz
piano from time to time). I know the Bounty Bar in Neiafu,
Vava'u hoped to have some jazz there, and then I heard they sold out too.
This is the downtown monument to the
HMS Dolphin. The smiling dolphins have always been a fixture of the downtown
waterfront, and their pool has always had this rediculous filthy appearance,
even before the riots. The Dolphin and her captain Wallis visited Tonga
in 1767, the third known European visitors to Tonga. I think that was
the last time anybody cleaned this fountain and it has never been seen
to be working by anyone I have met. Still, the dolphins seemed to be happy.
Now they are either scrap metal or an adornment to someone's backyard. I don't
know when they were taken, but it is a shame just like so many things in
Tonga. They don't have much of anything here and when they get something, well
they seem to give no respect at all and just destroy it. Then they are back to
having nothing again - a comfortable status quo?
Just
behind the Dolphin monument is the Vuna pier, where I used to go swimming.
The wharf has always had "the unsafe of the surface" problem
but it was'nt really much of a concern. Now, it seemed to have become a
concern as this sign indicates no swimming was allowed any more. In contrast
to the urban blight seen in most of these comparisons, there is a nice new
cruise ship pier funded by our friends the Chinese. We get about 16 cruise
ships per year coming in from Europe, USA, and Australia. The tourists come
into town and spend a little money here. Unfortunately sometimes they come
to Tonga on Sunday, and the Kingdom is 'closed'. The places
left to swim right in town would be much less desirable. There is the
one little spot down the way with the steps into a small protected
area where there are usually small kids playing, splashing, and crying
about having to leave and go home. I would think the addition of this
cruise ship dock would really make more of a difference than it has.
On the day one ship comes in all the local places hire musicians who
are playing to attract foot traffic, but there is also a band playing
on the dock so many people don't even leave the ship.
All
along Salote Road a new business district had sort of grown up
replacing the downtown. It came and went. Here is an EM Jones hardware business and a
Friendly Island bookstore warehouse that I think was funded by overseas
donations. Both businesses suffered a big loss during the riots, but came
back into business here along the Salote strip. There were quite a few
new businesses along this stretch of road as well. I had wondered if these
new locations were going to be a permanent expansion, or just temporary.
It turned out to be the latter. All of them have returned to the central
business area and these Salote Rd locations are mostly empty after that.
There
were half dozen new restaurants along the waterfront, the biggest one
this new sports bar called Shooters. Pretty nice, downright luxurious
by Tongan standards even. They had a nice menu and kitchen, with the
type of bar food that I know American's love. It was renamed into
Roadhouse and then went out of business. They were not alone. I had a
conversation with a longtime successful bar owner who explained how
most of these new places and many old ones did not survive the financial
meltdown of 2008. Things have stayed bad for about 5 years. The new
downtown area did get 4 new nightclubs, replacing the ultimate in seedy
waterfront bars, Wanda's. I kind of miss Wanda's, though. But the new
places make a nice people watching vantage point.
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