How to Train Your Dragon (Part 2)

"I'm tired of the city life, Summer's on the run
People tell me I should stay, but I got to get my fun
So don't try to hold me back, there's nothing you can say
Snake eyes on the paradise, and we got to go today."- Dragon April Sun in Cuba 

A small number of Chinese traders had settled in Samoa prior to 1900. Like their European counterparts- stories varied widely and wildly in how and why they found themselves so far from home, at the Pacific frontier.

But it was the change to German jurisdiction in 1900 (after a dissolved marriage of English, American and German interests), that dramatically increased the Chinese population.

German agricultural interests, in particular the copra industry had expanded exponentially, to over 7500 acres of plantations in Savaii and Upolu. Unfortunately sufficient labour- willing, hard working, low cost, reliable labour- wasn’t readily available.

The first Chinese indentured labourers arrived in 1903. Coming from China & Hong Kong- single men, contracted and paid, and lured with both a promise of a better future, and the occasional flashy poster displaying a happy worker picking tropical fruit under the desirous gaze of a dusky (should have been husky) maiden.

Workers were worth their fare and more still- and between 1903 and 1913 almost 3900 were shipped across the world under the German administration. The population of indentured Chinese labour peaked in 1914 at 2184 men. 1914 however also ushered in NZ governance, at the outbreak of WW1.

The original contracts were always for a set period- usually of 3 years- with the intention of the workers being returned to their homeland. The NZ Administration initially expedited the return of workers to China, but quickly discovered the previously obvious labour issues, and so the practice of indenture began again, although the peak in Chinese nationals in Samoa had already been reached in 1914, and after 1922 would steadily decrease to a trickle.

Conditions of work varied from fair but hard- to not very fair at all and hard- to abusive. But for the most part, the lot of workers was acceptable enough for many to reapply and stay several terms. They were held in high regard for their diligence with landowners, and mutually beneficial relationships naturally formed

As happens, nature took her own course, and it eventuated that many of the single men who arrived neglected to remain so. Cunningly, the NZ administration attempted to overcome such relationships, and the assimilation of the Chinese- by outlawing marriage of immigrants “liable to repatriation”…to Samoan women.

Following is taken from Pacific Islands Monthly 15/7/1939

“On 21 June an extraordinary scene took place when 34 Chinese labourers from the New Zealand Repatriation Estates and the same number of Samoan women lined up to hear their sentence for co-habitating in violation of the law. The 3 men were sentenced to 3 months in prison and the women to 3 days in prison.”

It was 1961 before these laws were repealed and Chinese and Samoans could legally be entrapped in a matrimonial sense by the opposite sex…

Many Chinese-Samoan families went onto to “free” lives, moving from plantations into commerce and laying the foundations of many of today’s most successful commercial enterprises in Samoa. They became Samoans, taking up civil and village roles and responsibilities, becoming matai and other leaders.

Of note- shortly after achieving independence in 1962; as an acknowledgment of it’s minority groups and their standing outside of the aiga and matai system- Samoa incorporated in its constitution political rights for part-Europeans and Chinese to vote and be members of parliament by setting aside two seats to be elected by the independent voters. These seats remain a point of political debate.

Comments in some public forums reveal divisive minority attitudes to both Saino-Samoans, and European afa-kasi. Well over a century after the ancestors of these families were welcomed and worked to integrate themselves into Samoan society, weaving their lives from opposite ends of the social strata- through marriage, children and work, with Samoans of all ranks…there are still those who would distinguish between Samoans and the decendents of Chinese, German or English afa-kasi. But these voices represent a fraction, and a type which exist everywhere… deserving only of disregard.

On islands populated by 190,000 affable people- occasionally downright amorous people- arguments of race, in any sense, are laughable.

It’s also difficult to take seriously the objections of Australia and New Zealand in terms of Chinese “influence” in the Pacific.

Chinese influence in Samoa extends almost precisely as far back as that of the English and Americans. It’s also clear that while the Chinese initially had less control over the fate of their integration into Samoan society, time has found them in a remarkably similar standing to the families descended from German, English and American free settlers and land owners, The commonalities between the people of Samoa and China, the shared history, and the agreements reached today will always float upon the tide of the time- agreements are made between men on behalf of nations, not the other way around.