Wongs

Wearing grey-black track pants, a bright red Nike-logo T-shirt, a red-and-white bucket hat, and colourful flip-flops, I attended the party of the Wongs' next door, as they celebrated Moli Wong's and her son Abe's birthdays around this time, the 27th of August of 2022. They both have Chinese and East Indian ancestries, as the daughter Sandra, whilst they all have a Fijian-nationality background. Also from Fiji, Moli's husband Leong is Chinese. Sandra's son, Moli's grandson, Darius, who has also the added Negro ancestry, a resulting quadriracial then of Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Australoid, has just got a job in a big boxing warehouse facility, thanks to connections with our Greek-Cypriot neighbour George, whose wife is the Japanese Chika. I talked mainly with Chika in the party in our encoded Japanese-English. The sashimi from Banzai restaurant were really "big." One of her daughters was there, whilst the other was "shopping in Metrotown." I know that they speak Japanese. I really enjoyed Moli's duck curry and chicken curry. It was a fabulous feast, here on our Lulu Island.

My neighbours, the Wongs, who are multiracial from Fiji, seem intimidated by, and simultaneously jealous of, Latinate culture. Once a British colony, Fiji was never a "donkey" as was my homeland, the Philippines. I suspect that many Anglophones with less than a university education still squirm at long acrolectal Greco-Latin words in English, and they try to settle in their basilectal Anglo-Saxon speech. Tangentially, I much admire French-influenced paradises like Tahiti and Mayotte. Maybe, the Wongs should learn Dutch.

The nature of the Germanic-Mediterranean dichotomy of English vocabulary seems still a novelty for many people, including my neighbours, the Wongs, who are multiracial from Fiji, once a British colony. The more educated an Anglophone is, the more acrolectal Mediterranean is the vocabulary. The less educated an Anglophone is, the more basilectal Germanic is the vocabulary. The late inventor, Buckminster Fuller, was very experimental in his English writing, as he concocted new-fangled words from Mediterranean and Germanic roots. He thought that using words only found in the dictionary was like living in a prison.

Native Fijians are Melanesians, a kind of Australoid people, but they speak a Malayo-Polynesian language, perhaps adopted anciently from islander neighbours who were not Melanesians. My neighbours, the Wongs, who are multiracial from Fiji, know a bit of Fijian. They like learning English, but I say to them, "Your Fijian is much more beautiful!"

Today the 6th of August of 2023 has been a fabulous day here on Lulu Island to do with my Fijian neighbours, the Wongs, who are partly Chinese and partly East Indian. Moli the grandma has given us about a dozen green figs from her backyard trees. (Incidentally, her name means "orange" in Fijian.) In return, Mama has me give them Swiss chard and three green poblanos, grown by my elder brother Fernando in Vancouver. Moli has given us her exotic cooking. In Moli's kitchen, her husband Leong and she are watching a Sunday church television show. I know that the Wongs are Catholic, but the show is not. In the corner of Moli's kitchen is fully decorated with Fijian masks, etc., which intrigue me, being an art collector myself. I talk with her grownup kids Sandra and Isaac. The Wongs resemble Japanese to me. Sandra and Isaac will be visiting Western Europe in September. Sandra and Moli have previously been to Greece. I recount my experience there with amazing whitewashed buildings with blue roofs. I say to them that some Japanese fantasize to live in a Mediterranean village. I say that some of my Greek-Jew ancestors from Greece settled in Panama, so I have relatives there today. My great-grandfather instead went to the Philippines. Sandra has visited Costa Rica. We agree that tourists should not be so "snooty" and should learn some of the local lingo. Such makes friendlier relations. I go home to make "horchata de arroz" or rice drink mix from El Salvador, given by my elder brother.