My Ignorance - PNG Experience

PNG men in Singsing Costume

I was driving to drop my hair stylist to work this morning. We talked about PNG ways.  I told him one of the experiences I had in my early years in PNG. Allow me to share it with you too.

It was in 1992, I was in training business.  I had a culture shock the first day I landed in Port Moresby.  The dress up, the hair, the names were all... UNIQUE! My dad already briefed me about a lot of things and I know that their language is called Pidgin.  It was derived from the word pigeon. According to him it was because they have a lot of languages and most sound like birds.   I was slowly learning PNG words and ways.   

Where I used to work, I was given a training assistant.  She dressed up really nicely. On her first day in the office, she came wearing a nice top and skit suitable for ladies working in Makati. You can imagine that her "get-up" is so business type. In one of our conversations she mentioned to me that all her clothes came from Manila. Her aunt, a flight stewardess, used to buy nice office clothes for her in Manila.  The only thing that I got shock about was the old, big, slippers she was wearing. It didn't match her outfit.  I was about to ask her why she is not wearing proper shoes, but she opened her bag while telling me about why she was late.  From her bag, she took out a pair of decent 1-inch-heeled black shoe, put it on, took her slippers and kept it inside her nice shoulder bag.  My mouth dropped in surprise. Anyway, when she was introduced to me, I was so amazed.  I know that Pidgin is their language and they derived it from birds.  But I could not believe their names will again be related to birds. Her name was "Egg Nest".  I wanted to laugh but I just kept it to myself.

After few weeks, I came to learn more about PNG. The slang that they use, their pronunciations, their favourite words.  They cannot pronounce the letter "r". Brother is pronounced as brotha, year is yia, four is foa.  They use a long "a"; fax which we pronounce with short "a" is pronounced as fax (fex) with long "a".  A sack of rice is pronounced as a "sek" of rice .  I then worked out, I was so ignorant. My assistant's name is not "Egg Nest".  Her name is Agnes (pronounced with a long "a" - 'Egnes'). LOL!

From that time on, I do not look at them as too remote, or too backward. I regard myself as too ignorant, sometimes too stupid too.  That is my first PNG experience, am still learning a lot and continuing to forgive myself for my ignorance. :)