Tales of the Tikongs (Talanoa): 12 (Talanoa: Contemporary Pacific Literature)

Hau'ofa's selection of comic stories is a little gem. Easily readable at 98 pages and with each story no more than about ten, we're presented here with a selection of snapshots of life on the tiny island of Tiko in the Pacific.Each tale focuses on a different character and a different set of comic problems while juxtaposing traditional island life and customs with international development. So, we have the collector of regional oral histories, who seeks out international funding to enable him to type them up and instead ends up having to organise a committee and a newsletter to appease those allocating money. We have the farmers given cows and bulls from New Zealand, losing them to other islanders who feel they're due a feast. A man given no sick pay entitlement because he is evidently healthy etc.Each story is beautifully written, beautifully structured and quietly funny. To read it is to look at international development differently, to look at the arrogance and dominace of the West differently and to enjoy another side of the world for what it is. A great little read.

Each of the 12 discrete chapters in this book was dedicated to the story of an offbeat character, all of whom are male. The female characters amounted to a couple of grandmothers here, a wife there, some secretaries and a group of local gossips. I liked the humor to begin with, but the tone never changed, so it got old quite quickly.

The best description of life in Tonga - ever!

Tiko is a tiny island in the South Pacific and its inhabitants are known as the Tikongs. The Tikongs are a very pious bunch, working so hard praising God on Sundays that they need the next six days off to recover! Epeli Hau'ofa has mastered the art of bringing an ancient and honoured oral tradition of story telling to the page making it enchantingly accessible. Through 12 glimpses into the lives of both the everyday and the V.I.P. Tikongs, this tiny book unlocks humanity laying bare the government corruption and the individual idiosyncrasies. As a clown Hau'ofa is indiscriminate -he makes fun of us all. Although like all clowns he has his serious side, often presented in the character of Manu. Manu is an islander who follows his own rules without being seriously detrimental to everyone else's, despite this he is treated like the Tikong wise-man. On Tiko people tell half-truths, quarter-truths and one percent truths, only Manu tells whole truths so when everything else fails the Tikongs turn to Manu. This book had me smiling the whole way through, Hau'ofa has managed to lay thought provoking material just below the surface of some classic one-liners and it's a combination that works.Don't worry if your roads are like in Tiko either narrow and crooked or wide and straight, this is cyberspace! -Just make sure you get on the road to buying this book!