fijipina

thanks for dropping by

06 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment

by shallow in thoughts

someone left a comment on an entry nearly a year old:

A very well thought off blog, very personal but too critical in some areas, after all it is a Pacific pageant and that probably its own uniqueness.
I happen to know Miss SPP 2009 Mere, Miss Cook Islands 2009 Engra n Miss SPP 2008 personally and I believe they are all exceptional women in society. I am a final year medical student in Fiji and happen to have met Mere in a charity event in which we came to work together more closely. She embodies the true mark of a Fijian woman, beauty, elegance and a very well spoken individual. Later I found out that Mere had sufficient exposure to the international society and was well aware of her surroundings. She was definitely a person to be reckoned with.
I met Engra while I was a student in USP and we happen to join the same USP choir group that was then called Malaga now called Pacific voices. She has a very elegant style, beautiful inside and out and a very simple person to know. Even though I left a year later, Engra and I kept in contact since we basically had the same group of friends.
I met Vanessa while I was a second year in FSM as she also played 1st touch and happen to be in the same dance group I was in. Nessa is a person with a cute character, she has a great personality, a joke often is exceptionally beautiful and my interest in marine environments has always been something that we both like to ponder on when we meet.
The costumes of each contests were all worth a prize, because all of it had a LOT of work done to it. For example the tapa dresses, from planting the tapa, to making the tapa and printing it and then trying to think of a design to hold it all together is quite a lot of work. Engra’s singing well maybe it didn’t sound as well but that was not the point the message of the song was the point and regardless of how well we are singing here in the Pacific Global warming continues!!
Again with the talent show since it’s a Pacific pageant, the contestants had to express their talents in song and dance because that how our ancestors did so. Chanting and drum beatings and each movement that a hand made in their talent meant something that was important and showcased culture.
It takes a lot of work organizing an event with this magnitude, I was a volunteer for Hibiscus Fiji in the years 2007 and 2008 and it is HECTIC. Yes there is room for improvement and just to remind you the event in for CHARITY and in case of SPP it’s for PRESERVING the culture of the Pacific. So as a Part Fijian, Samoan and Cook Islander I consider myself as a true Pacific woman. I understand if we are unable to purchase a noise free box! After all we rather use that money to save our turtles, prevent the Japanese from killing our whales and creating awareness about Global Warming. Need I say more?
With the last questions for the top five, being a contestant you should be ready with whatever gets thrown to you. There is no room for lack of self awareness, ignorance or ‘omg I didn’t go through that last night’, so with all due respect, reassess your blog because it lacks PACIFIC flavor. x x

thank you for your thoughts, but may point out a few things:

this is a personal blog. it is meant to have personal points of view, critical or otherwise. unless i say anything hateful, judgmental and intolerant against a whole lifestyle, race or system of belief, my views shall be nothing but opinions, which, as far as i know, are protected by our fundamental democratic rights to free expression. as are your opinions in the comment.

i am not originally from the pacific. neither is this a pacific-oriented blog. may i reiterate that this is a personal blog? thank you for the advice, but i do not think i have to reassess anything; there is no need to infuse my posts with “pacific flavor” because i don’t intend for any of them to have that. don’t get me wrong, lest you hand me more suggestions on how to voice my entries, i enjoy fiji immensely and love my family here, but my day-to-day activities are more mainstream than deeply cultural pacific.

i understand how hectic it might be to organize the festival, i myself have been involved in major events before, but i am not talking about where the money has been allocated (saving whales against the japanese and others) nor am i even remotely suggesting that it should rather be funneled to the pageant. i am talking about the viewing experience. and a lot of things based on what i saw on tv.

i am sure the contestants are all very nice and they are all special and beautiful in their own way as is everybody in the world. but i believe i emphasized that i like my pageants superficial? as in sashaying in swimsuits and evening gowns close to the body, interview portion with questions almost always answerable by hackneyed statements about society. the popular notion of how pageants should be. i didn’t say msp should conform to that popular notion. i’m sorry that my preference doesn’t sit well with you.

indulge me one more opinion, though: excuses are not necessary.

but i do appreciate you dropping by and taking time to write a comment, including a description of the contestants that you personally know. i didn’t even think anyone was reading my nondescript little spot in cyberspace. i am but a nobody after all, and anyone who bothers with my nonsensical thoughts ought to have better things to do.

(i am an even bigger loser for bothering to write an entry about the subject. but i’m on a “the batman” binge right now, and i think i’m hallucinating from an overdose of the dark knight and joker. i don’t even know how that is related to irrational behavior)