Feature Article on Yap by Joe Sinisi in the Denver Post
So here is the first published article about my home island, Yap, from my friend and houseguest, Joe. And here is his e-mail announcement:
<<<<<<
Readers of the "Yap Chronicles:"
It took me five months after finishing work from Yap, But I finally got something about Yap published in the real world, on newsprint with a circulation of 400,000. Check out the December 12, 2004 Denver Post Sunday travel section. Here is the link:
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~77~2582924,00.html
I am currently back in China sitting in a smoky internet cafe full of young men playing the same carnage filled swords and sorcery fantasy game where warrors dismember monsters. It was a bit of a cyber thrill to pull up the Denevr Post in Beijing and see my work published. They say the first one is always the hardest, hopefully I can publish some more travel articels about the places I visited in 2004: Philippines, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Palau, Chuuk, Japan, Egypt, Jordan and of course China. OK -- I get back to Denver before Christmas, hope all is going well with you and yours.
Joe
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For a link to the "Yap Chronicles," see my "user info" page. I'm copying the whole article here anyway . . .
Paradise: "Pay" spelled backward
Micronesia's isolated Yap island rich in culture, exotic diversions
By Joe Sinisi Jr. Special to The Denver Post
Yap, Federated States of Micronesia - The world has no shortage of tropical places where you can scuba dive and snorkel among kaleidoscopic-colored coral reefs in aquamarine waters.
But how about swimming among manta rays in 84-degree, crystal-clear sea waters? Or, hiking along ancient stone paths through lush rainforest? Or watching a traditional dance of topless men and women chanting and gyrating in front of huge discs of stone money?
You can do all this in a former U.S. trust territory where dollars are the currency, everyone speaks English, and visitors aren't hassled by vendors or hawkers.
Most Americans never have heard of this tiny Western Pacific island that lies southwest of Guam, east of the Philippines and just north of the equator. Yap and its 20 or so inhabited outer islands are on no major trade or tourist routes, but this isolation is just what allows Yap to be so exotic and unique. You won't find fast-food chains, golf courses and strip malls on Yap, but you will find a place that has maintained its ancient heritage.
From the moment you get off the plane and a young woman welcomes you to Yap by placing a nunu (flower headband) on your head, you realize you have come to a very special place indeed.
Yap is one of the four states of the relatively new nation of the Federated States of Micronesia. In addition to having a climate that averages 86 degrees year-round, Yap perhaps is the place in the Pacific that best preserves the ancient culture and traditions of Micronesia. Yap and its islands have no more than 14,000 inhabitants, yet at least four distinct language groups thrive, along with traditional dress, architecture, weaving and carving.
Yap has been inhabited by Micronesians (a race and culture distinct from Polynesians and Melanesians) for at least 3,000 years and almost was
untouched by foreign incursion until the 1860s. Not having whales or mineral deposits, Yap was spared the usual calamities of colonization and religious conversion that befell most Pacific islands in the 1800s.
Since Yap's independence from the United States in 1986, vestiges of the modern world inevitably have incurred, thus making Yap a land of contrasts. Men from Yap's outer islands still wear their traditional loincloths to work in air-conditioned offices and women clad only in brightly colored lava-lava skirts drive Japanese sedans on Yap's roads utterly free of traffic lights.
Yap's 38 square miles are dotted with majestic pebays, open-air meeting houses with huge palm thatch-covered sloping roofs and intricate carved beams fastened with woven coconut fiber rope. Many people still live in traditional thatched-roof dwellings, eschewing the concrete and corrugated tin structures that litter most of the Pacific today.
No meeting house would be complete without its stone money bank.
Yap calls itself the "Island of Stone Money," an appropriate moniker for a small island that has more than 7,000 discs of crystallized limestone carved in quarries in the Palau islands 250 miles away and brought to Yap by outrigger canoe. The discs always have a hole in them like a doughnut and can range in diameter from 2 to 10 feet. To this day Yapese use the stone money as a type of currency that is exchanged only in special ceremonies.
The largest piece of stone money rests in the forbidden island of Rumung, the northernmost island in Yap that has isolated itself from modernity and allows no electricity, phones, vehicles or visitors without tough-to-get permission. No one is allowed to photograph the largest piece of stone money, said to be 13 feet wide. On the other islands of Yap, visitors may take pictures as long as they ask the nearest Yapese person for permission, which always is granted.
Yap also is known as a scuba-diving mecca. With pristine reefs and clear waters that feature some of the best intact marine ecosystems in the world.
Manta rays, graceful creatures with 12-foot wingspans that resemble spaceships, glide over coral "cleaning stations." At the stations small fish called wrasses enter the mantas' mouths and gills and eat away parasites and bacteria.
Besides mantas, other aquatic creatures include sea turtles, harmless reef sharks, giant clams, barracudas, giant bumphead parrot fish, octopuses, moray eels and sting rays. Inside the panoply of multi-colored coral you might spot the tiny paisley pastel Mandarin fish, bizarre but beautiful.
You don't have to be a scuba diver to enjoy Yap's magical underwater gardens. A snorkeler can observe and touch vividly colored coral and fish in waters no deeper than 5 feet. If you don't want to get completely wet, a peaceful kayak paddle though the mazes of lush mangroves is an unforgettable experience in the wetlands.
For those who prefer land exploration, Yap is covered with rain forestd and has tropical flowers in bloom year round. From sweet-smelling plumeria to vivid red and pink hibiscus to delicate spider lilies, Yap is a botanical treasure-trove. Before roads and vehicles, Yapese traversed their island on well- maintained stone paths through the jungles, many of which still exist.
Visitors will feel like they have entered the Jurassic Period as they encounter lush fern plants and trees.
Most Yapese, from the governor down to the banana seller, carry a traditional basket woven from palm tree fronds. Inside is their precious cache of betel nuts and the chewing accouterments of powdered lime and pepper vine leaf. Chewing the mildly narcotic betel nut is a national tradition and obsession. The green nuts, about the size of a small walnut, grow freely on thin betel nut palm trees. These days, more often than not, their baskets also will contain a cellphone.
James Lukan, director of the Yap Historic Preservation Office, is working on constructing a museum of Yapese art and culture. "Yapese people," he says in between spits of red betel nut juice, "have always been willing to adapt to the modern world in our own way. We know we have a culture worth saving."
The myths and legends of Yap are most beautifully depicted in "storyboards," carvings made from mahogany. Men traditionally are the wood carvers while women create intricate weavings of clothing and baskets.
Some Denverites have discovered Yap. On his dental office wall in Cherry Creek, Dr. Carl Brownd has an enlarged photo of a manta ray that he took in Yapese waters. Brownd dives the Caymans, as well as the Solomon and Galapagos islands in the Pacific. But he likes Yap for its abundance of manta rays "with more off Yap than anywhere else in the world," he said. "The Caymans have great diving, and so does Yap. But Yap has more charm because, there, you get undiluted Micronesia."
During an island tour, he visited a traditional meeting house, lined with wheels of stone money, Brownd recalled. "We chewed some betel nut, and my wife and I both got a nice buzz."
Ceremonial dances help Yapese maintain their traditions. The dances feature men and women wearing only grass skirts or loin cloths, festooned with flowers and palm fronds, their bodies rubbed with golden turmeric. No two dances are alike. The bamboo stick dances are the most exciting to watch, but the tranquil sitting dances also have a haunting beauty of their own. Many dances tell ancient stories of navigational feats in almost forgotten words no longer used in modern Yapese speech. Some dances recount newer tales such as the suffering inflicted on the Yapese during Japanese occupation of 1914-45.
The highlight of the dancing season occurs during Yap Day, an annual three-day festival near March 1. More than a dozen villages present their dances and other traditional arts, such as coconut husking, spear throwing, juggling and weaving.
Yap doesn't have a lot of nightlife, Yapese generally enjoy quiet evenings in their villages with their families.
O'Keefe's Canteen is a nice period-piece bar built in memory of "His Majesty" David O'Keefe, an American trader who first came to Yap in 1871 and made a fortune bringing stone money to Yap from Palau.
Even though Yap has few bars and clubs to offer nocturnal diversions, all you have to do is look up at the brilliant night sky for all the entertainment you could want. With no island lights or smog, Yap's night skies offer unparalleled views of stars and constellations city dwellers never get to see. Here you can see both the North Star and the Southern Cross. More than 1,000 years ago Yapese men used these same stars to navigate their outrigger canoes as far as the Philippines and Japan.
Yap has a few adequate restaurants where diners can find local fish, lobster and crab. If you want to catch your own dinner, try fishing for tuna, wahoo and mahi mahi by trolling in a boat across the coastal waters that glow every hue between turquoise and azure.
Watching a sunset over the silvery-blue waters of the Philippine sea while sipping a chilled coconut and eating the freshest tuna sashimi a Coloradan ever will taste is an experience that should not be missed. And if you really want to get into the local culture, chew yourself a betel nut for dessert.
Denverite Joe Sinisi Jr. worked in Yap as the assistant attorney general for the past two years.
The details
Getting there: From Denver, Continental Airlines operates daily flights to Guam via Houston. From there, Continental Micronesia flies three times a week to Yap.
www.continental.com
Information: Yap Visitors Bureau, www.visityap.org
Diving: Two main diving companies operate on Yap: Beyond the Reef, www.diveyap.com; and Yap Divers, www.mantaray.com
Lodging: Traders Ridge is by far the nicest, www.tradersridge.com Other hotels include Manta Ray, www.mantaray.com; Pathways, www.pathwayshotel.com; and ESA, www.visit-fsm.org/yap/accommodation.html.
<<<<<<
Readers of the "Yap Chronicles:"
It took me five months after finishing work from Yap, But I finally got something about Yap published in the real world, on newsprint with a circulation of 400,000. Check out the December 12, 2004 Denver Post Sunday travel section. Here is the link:
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~77~2582924,00.html
I am currently back in China sitting in a smoky internet cafe full of young men playing the same carnage filled swords and sorcery fantasy game where warrors dismember monsters. It was a bit of a cyber thrill to pull up the Denevr Post in Beijing and see my work published. They say the first one is always the hardest, hopefully I can publish some more travel articels about the places I visited in 2004: Philippines, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Palau, Chuuk, Japan, Egypt, Jordan and of course China. OK -- I get back to Denver before Christmas, hope all is going well with you and yours.
Joe
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For a link to the "Yap Chronicles," see my "user info" page. I'm copying the whole article here anyway . . .
Paradise: "Pay" spelled backward
Micronesia's isolated Yap island rich in culture, exotic diversions
By Joe Sinisi Jr. Special to The Denver Post
Yap, Federated States of Micronesia - The world has no shortage of tropical places where you can scuba dive and snorkel among kaleidoscopic-colored coral reefs in aquamarine waters.
But how about swimming among manta rays in 84-degree, crystal-clear sea waters? Or, hiking along ancient stone paths through lush rainforest? Or watching a traditional dance of topless men and women chanting and gyrating in front of huge discs of stone money?
You can do all this in a former U.S. trust territory where dollars are the currency, everyone speaks English, and visitors aren't hassled by vendors or hawkers.
Most Americans never have heard of this tiny Western Pacific island that lies southwest of Guam, east of the Philippines and just north of the equator. Yap and its 20 or so inhabited outer islands are on no major trade or tourist routes, but this isolation is just what allows Yap to be so exotic and unique. You won't find fast-food chains, golf courses and strip malls on Yap, but you will find a place that has maintained its ancient heritage.
From the moment you get off the plane and a young woman welcomes you to Yap by placing a nunu (flower headband) on your head, you realize you have come to a very special place indeed.
Yap is one of the four states of the relatively new nation of the Federated States of Micronesia. In addition to having a climate that averages 86 degrees year-round, Yap perhaps is the place in the Pacific that best preserves the ancient culture and traditions of Micronesia. Yap and its islands have no more than 14,000 inhabitants, yet at least four distinct language groups thrive, along with traditional dress, architecture, weaving and carving.
Yap has been inhabited by Micronesians (a race and culture distinct from Polynesians and Melanesians) for at least 3,000 years and almost was
untouched by foreign incursion until the 1860s. Not having whales or mineral deposits, Yap was spared the usual calamities of colonization and religious conversion that befell most Pacific islands in the 1800s.
Since Yap's independence from the United States in 1986, vestiges of the modern world inevitably have incurred, thus making Yap a land of contrasts. Men from Yap's outer islands still wear their traditional loincloths to work in air-conditioned offices and women clad only in brightly colored lava-lava skirts drive Japanese sedans on Yap's roads utterly free of traffic lights.
Yap's 38 square miles are dotted with majestic pebays, open-air meeting houses with huge palm thatch-covered sloping roofs and intricate carved beams fastened with woven coconut fiber rope. Many people still live in traditional thatched-roof dwellings, eschewing the concrete and corrugated tin structures that litter most of the Pacific today.
No meeting house would be complete without its stone money bank.
Yap calls itself the "Island of Stone Money," an appropriate moniker for a small island that has more than 7,000 discs of crystallized limestone carved in quarries in the Palau islands 250 miles away and brought to Yap by outrigger canoe. The discs always have a hole in them like a doughnut and can range in diameter from 2 to 10 feet. To this day Yapese use the stone money as a type of currency that is exchanged only in special ceremonies.
The largest piece of stone money rests in the forbidden island of Rumung, the northernmost island in Yap that has isolated itself from modernity and allows no electricity, phones, vehicles or visitors without tough-to-get permission. No one is allowed to photograph the largest piece of stone money, said to be 13 feet wide. On the other islands of Yap, visitors may take pictures as long as they ask the nearest Yapese person for permission, which always is granted.
Yap also is known as a scuba-diving mecca. With pristine reefs and clear waters that feature some of the best intact marine ecosystems in the world.
Manta rays, graceful creatures with 12-foot wingspans that resemble spaceships, glide over coral "cleaning stations." At the stations small fish called wrasses enter the mantas' mouths and gills and eat away parasites and bacteria.
Besides mantas, other aquatic creatures include sea turtles, harmless reef sharks, giant clams, barracudas, giant bumphead parrot fish, octopuses, moray eels and sting rays. Inside the panoply of multi-colored coral you might spot the tiny paisley pastel Mandarin fish, bizarre but beautiful.
You don't have to be a scuba diver to enjoy Yap's magical underwater gardens. A snorkeler can observe and touch vividly colored coral and fish in waters no deeper than 5 feet. If you don't want to get completely wet, a peaceful kayak paddle though the mazes of lush mangroves is an unforgettable experience in the wetlands.
For those who prefer land exploration, Yap is covered with rain forestd and has tropical flowers in bloom year round. From sweet-smelling plumeria to vivid red and pink hibiscus to delicate spider lilies, Yap is a botanical treasure-trove. Before roads and vehicles, Yapese traversed their island on well- maintained stone paths through the jungles, many of which still exist.
Visitors will feel like they have entered the Jurassic Period as they encounter lush fern plants and trees.
Most Yapese, from the governor down to the banana seller, carry a traditional basket woven from palm tree fronds. Inside is their precious cache of betel nuts and the chewing accouterments of powdered lime and pepper vine leaf. Chewing the mildly narcotic betel nut is a national tradition and obsession. The green nuts, about the size of a small walnut, grow freely on thin betel nut palm trees. These days, more often than not, their baskets also will contain a cellphone.
James Lukan, director of the Yap Historic Preservation Office, is working on constructing a museum of Yapese art and culture. "Yapese people," he says in between spits of red betel nut juice, "have always been willing to adapt to the modern world in our own way. We know we have a culture worth saving."
The myths and legends of Yap are most beautifully depicted in "storyboards," carvings made from mahogany. Men traditionally are the wood carvers while women create intricate weavings of clothing and baskets.
Some Denverites have discovered Yap. On his dental office wall in Cherry Creek, Dr. Carl Brownd has an enlarged photo of a manta ray that he took in Yapese waters. Brownd dives the Caymans, as well as the Solomon and Galapagos islands in the Pacific. But he likes Yap for its abundance of manta rays "with more off Yap than anywhere else in the world," he said. "The Caymans have great diving, and so does Yap. But Yap has more charm because, there, you get undiluted Micronesia."
During an island tour, he visited a traditional meeting house, lined with wheels of stone money, Brownd recalled. "We chewed some betel nut, and my wife and I both got a nice buzz."
Ceremonial dances help Yapese maintain their traditions. The dances feature men and women wearing only grass skirts or loin cloths, festooned with flowers and palm fronds, their bodies rubbed with golden turmeric. No two dances are alike. The bamboo stick dances are the most exciting to watch, but the tranquil sitting dances also have a haunting beauty of their own. Many dances tell ancient stories of navigational feats in almost forgotten words no longer used in modern Yapese speech. Some dances recount newer tales such as the suffering inflicted on the Yapese during Japanese occupation of 1914-45.
The highlight of the dancing season occurs during Yap Day, an annual three-day festival near March 1. More than a dozen villages present their dances and other traditional arts, such as coconut husking, spear throwing, juggling and weaving.
Yap doesn't have a lot of nightlife, Yapese generally enjoy quiet evenings in their villages with their families.
O'Keefe's Canteen is a nice period-piece bar built in memory of "His Majesty" David O'Keefe, an American trader who first came to Yap in 1871 and made a fortune bringing stone money to Yap from Palau.
Even though Yap has few bars and clubs to offer nocturnal diversions, all you have to do is look up at the brilliant night sky for all the entertainment you could want. With no island lights or smog, Yap's night skies offer unparalleled views of stars and constellations city dwellers never get to see. Here you can see both the North Star and the Southern Cross. More than 1,000 years ago Yapese men used these same stars to navigate their outrigger canoes as far as the Philippines and Japan.
Yap has a few adequate restaurants where diners can find local fish, lobster and crab. If you want to catch your own dinner, try fishing for tuna, wahoo and mahi mahi by trolling in a boat across the coastal waters that glow every hue between turquoise and azure.
Watching a sunset over the silvery-blue waters of the Philippine sea while sipping a chilled coconut and eating the freshest tuna sashimi a Coloradan ever will taste is an experience that should not be missed. And if you really want to get into the local culture, chew yourself a betel nut for dessert.
Denverite Joe Sinisi Jr. worked in Yap as the assistant attorney general for the past two years.
The details
Getting there: From Denver, Continental Airlines operates daily flights to Guam via Houston. From there, Continental Micronesia flies three times a week to Yap.
www.continental.com
Information: Yap Visitors Bureau, www.visityap.org
Diving: Two main diving companies operate on Yap: Beyond the Reef, www.diveyap.com; and Yap Divers, www.mantaray.com
Lodging: Traders Ridge is by far the nicest, www.tradersridge.com Other hotels include Manta Ray, www.mantaray.com; Pathways, www.pathwayshotel.com; and ESA, www.visit-fsm.org/yap/accommodation.html.