Even with the risk of revealing
myself as a bit of a nerd – I am – birthdays in Tonga have an undeniable Middle
Earth feel to them. For those of you who are familiar with the Lord of the
Rings novels and movies, I am of course speaking of J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythical
world, Middle Earth, and specifically his hobbits that inhabit it. In Middle
Earth, hobbits do not celebrate their birthdays like we do in real life. Rather
than receive gifts on their birthdays, Hobbits in fact give them away. The
anniversary of your birth is less a celebration of self but instead an
acknowledgement of a communal achievement.
Birthdays are much the same in
Tonga. People rarely mention when their birthdays are and almost never do
anything to celebrate the day. A few months ago, I was trying to teach my
students the meaning of date of birth during a particular unit, and several of
them could not even tell me what day they were born. The closest they could get
was the month and the year. It just wasn’t a big deal for them.
One thing the Wesleyan Church
in my village does, and I have learned from the other volunteers that this is
unique, is acknowledge birthdays. Each Sunday at the 10 O’clock service, the
minister calls up everyone who had a birthday that week. The entire
congregation then commences to sing happy birthday in English, and even adds an
extra stanza of happy long life at the end. I still have no idea why we sing in
English, as most of the people in the village can’t speak more than a few words
of English and no other part of the service is conducted in English, but this
happens every week. I must suppose than that even Tongans understand the
greatness of the happy birthday song.
A perfect example of how
Tongans handle birthdays is evidenced by my neighbor’s actions. My neighbor,
Mana, has 3 kids, all of whom have birthdays around the month of August. At
great personal expense and rather than simply buying his kids gifts, Mana hosts
a feast every year in honor of his children and invites the entire village. The
feat is the same as always, except every single piece of food was paid for and
made by his family. In Tonga, this is a relatively obvious thing to do. There
is no reason to have a party or elevate a single individual, and instead Tongans
would rather celebrate with their entire community. The self is much less
important than the group.
posing in the garden
The morning tooth brushing
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