Tag: oceania

How a Tongan Pageant Queen Reclaimed Her True Self (A Life Snippet)

(This week’s Life Snippet is about a Tongan woman who used to travel around in beauty pageants across the Pacific before having a mental health breakdown from the stress. Now, she is rebuilding her life back home with the support of her family. She explains what the world of beauty pageantry was like for her, why it led to a breakdown, and how she got out of it.) 

Mele (not her real name) stopped doing beauty pageants seven months ago. She started when she was 17 and ended by the time was 21. 

Being from Tonga in Polynesia, she competed in different competitions throughout the Pacific, but many would treat her differently as a Polynesian woman. For example, in a competition in Manila, Philippines, the pageantry set aside her and all other Polynesian women, treating them as second class competitors from the get-go. Filipino beauty standards tend to favor lighter-skinned women. She got so frustrated she quit the pageant early. Similarly, people in Hong Kong could be rude to her because of how she looked. 

She said that she used to cry every single day and experience frequent panic attacks when she did the pageants. This culminated in a mental health breakdown, which was when she realized it wasn’t worth it anymore and she needed to get out. She quit pageantry altogether. 

She decided to head back home for seven months and is staying with her family while she rebuilds her life. She is doing a lot better now. She gained back some weight, and she has been dealing with the emotional and spiritual burnout from her ordeal. She no longer has panic attacks or crying episodes nor does she feel randomly agitated by little things like she did when she performed in beauty pageants. Her family has been supportive of her during this time and given her the space to figure out who she is. At the moment, she prefers staying home and being with them relationally to working or doing any other activity. 

At the same time, family pressure may be slowly creeping in. She is the eldest daughter of seven kids with many obligations to take care of her younger siblings. In particular, her youngest sister is three years-old, and she acts as a second mother to her. This can be a lot of pressure, but being the eldest taught her how to take care of things and to lead. 

She also seems to be experiencing pressure to marry. She said, in Tonga, despite the fact that people cannot legally marry until they are at least 18, many (especially girls) still marry between 15 and 20. There are some changes to this, but as someone in her early twenties, she seems to face pressure to get married and through that transition to a new life. This may disrupt her current respite, and she seems hesitant to do so until she’s ready. How to juggle between her own healing while rebuilding her life and facing family pressure to marry seem to be the biggest question she faces in her life right now. 

How to Speak to a Stray: Treating the “Dangerous Other” with Respect

One day, when I was walking down the street in Suva, the capital and biggest city in Fiji, there was a dog crying in extreme distress. He was a hairless dog with only a small strand of hair on the ridge of his back. The indifferent way the other people responded to him made me think he was a stray: no one took responsibility for him or decided to help him when he was clearly shouting in pain. 

He was sitting on the edge of a hill on a concrete staircase. He tried to simply sit on the hill but could not keep his balance. He would topple down the stairs, slamming into the concrete on the way down. Each time he fell, he would try to burrow into the crevice of the stair he was on, only to lose his balance and fall again until he crashed into the gutter below. There he cried chest deep in the water, seemingly disoriented, unsure what was happening. 

I tried to approach the dog, but the dog who lived in the house did not like me and barked territorially at me. So instead, I called soothing words to this dog as he lay there frantic in the water. The soothing tone of my voice – or at least the fact that he had stopped falling – seemed to calm him down, and he lay there panting like he was still processing where he was. I still don’t know what was wrong. The way he was twitching on the one side made me think he was having a stroke. I will never know since the other dog wouldn’t let me approach, so eventually I left. 

The people who lived nearby came out, but they seemed indifferent to this dog as if he wasn’t their problem. A few hours later, the boy living there told me that the dog had scurried away, and they didn’t know where he was now. They didn’t seem to care much for this stray dog; I guess it’s just one of many to them in the neighborhood. I just hope that however long this dog has left to live, he has as little suffering as possible. 

Here’s another example. One night, when I was walking into a store to buy some water in American Samoa, I saw two dogs lying there. A staff member exited the little shop carrying a large, empty cardboard box, and one of the dogs followed him. He looked excited walking next to him wanting to say hello. The guy whacked the dog with the empty box harshly as a way to tell him to get away. 

When I left the store a few minutes later with my water, right as the staff member was walking back into the store, the dog seemed noticeably more distressed. He was barking erratically like he was emotionally distraught. From the barks’ tone, I thought he was a mixture of scared and angry. He didn’t approach me as I walked by a few feet away, and he didn’t seem interested. He was just barking his distress to the world. 

These islands are full of stray, semi-domesticated, and pet dogs who roam the yards and streets. Roaming dogs are common in many countries around the world. What feels weird is the extent to which humans in Oceania only seemed to interact with hostility with the dogs. 

In response, the dogs in this part of the world feel noticeably more aggressive. When I was walking to my Airbnb, several dogs came after me growling, showing their teeth, and trying to signal that they would attack me. That is the default response many dogs have to any human they do not know. A neighbor recommended I carry some rocks when I walk to throw them when they barked at me, and I have seen others carry a big stick for a similar purpose. 

I do not doubt the practical wisdom in having a weapon in case of a specific dog who seems intent on biting you. I have had dogs there come within a yard of me biting meanly like they are about to jump me. Interestingly, they never do; they seem to only try to warn me, not actually come after me. A weapon, though, just in case the dog changes its mind does sound nice in a situation like this.

At the same time, I feel like this kind of hostile response to dogs, in general, just leads to an arms race. Dogs become more aggressive, and in turn the humans become more violent in response. It just escalates the response necessary to handle a dog. Dogs in this part of the world seem noticeably less friendly. Even if they think you are safe, they will stop at about a yard/meter away. This is not normal for dogs, who are often very eager for pets. I suspect because so many humans have lounged themselves at them, that they have learned to feel afraid when a human is nearby. There has to be a better way. 

Some of this may be cultural. Not every culture or individual likes dogs, for example. At the same time, I wonder if there is a broader pattern for how to deal with others we perceive as threats. During the heat of an attack, we may need to defend ourselves, sure, but in my experience, how we respond to others influences how they in turn respond to us. 

But if we treat another (whether a dog, another animal, or a fellow human) as a threat that we need to stave off, they will pick up on that energy and respond to us accordingly. Maybe we should cultivate creative ways to nonviolently engage with others around us rather than cajoling those we see as threats to our wellbeing. This may take innovation but leads to more wholesome relationships.