ANTI-CHINESE FERVOUR IN THE SAMOAS

ANTI-CHINESE FERVOUR IN THE SAMOASThe great and the good turned out the day Samoa buried old Chan Mow. He had been the last “coolie” before owning a significant chunk of downtown Apia.Bought to Samoa by the Germans before World War One, Mow prospered despite a hostile New Zealand regime which even made it illegal for Chinese and Samoans to have sex. “Even now with indentured coolies, there is a very considerable mixture of races.“It appears to me that the complete destruction of the Samoan race would be the lamentable result of British occupation,” the first administrator, Robert Logan, said.Mow's 13 children, 37 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren testified to the potency of legal sex control. Ultimately, Samoans ended up swallowing the Chinese community which barely survives today in some of the names-and even that disappears as part Chinese Samoans assume chiefly title names.Anti-Chinese feeling remains though, as opposition politician A'eau Peniamina questioned China's “real motives” and warned “to be careful of the Chinese, they could run you out of business as seen elsewhere.”Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi took issue: “That is racist and I will not stand for any racism in this Parliament.”In neighbouring American Samoa earlier this year, anti-Asian feeling arose at the inauguration of Governor Togiola Tulafono where the Assemblies of God superintendent Siaosi Mageo urged the deportation of Koreans.“In the 1980s, Samoans took care of the African snail problem by using these strong brooms. Today, we seem to not be able to do anything about the new threat-the Korean snail.”One day Samoans would wake up to find they had Korean politicians and a Korean governor.“Our people will be reduced to nothing. Wake up Samoa, you are still sleeping. It is shameful, utter shameful, that foreigners come here and rule over us.”He overlooked the fact that he lived in “American” Samoa.