Celebrate your success the PNG way

LET us imagine you won two top prizes, one in English and another in social science.
How will you celebrate? Will you celebrate it the way our people in traditional times did?
Years ago, while chatting with some of my educated relatives (who have been successful in their school and work lives), a cousin said he did not understand why young people celebrate with the use of alcohol and noise.
“Why is that when they want to celebrate they walk around with sounds from boom boxes that you can hear from the other end of the village?”
The man said in the old days you had a cause to celebrate if you went out hunting and came back with a pig.
“The pig would be cut up by you and your relatives and that will be distributed to the houses in the village,” the cousin said
“Everyone who eats the pork will remember your success.”
Traditionally we were also taught the first pig you killed or the first big fish that you caught must be enjoyed by others – not just you or a small group.
They say that will guarantee you success in the future.
I said on Facebook that the real fruits of a person’s education come not when he or she graduates but when he or she brings home the first pay pac­ket.
If you want to be really Pa­pua New Guinean, let your first pay packet be used to buy food for all those who contributed to your success as a student or in winning a coveted job.
Celebrating in a pub is a foreign concept.
A few years ago when I was working in a Micronesian nation, I was invited to go on a fishing trip in a boat with an Australian friend and a local.
The local was a good teacher and taught us how to fish using a traditional method.
Within minutes we started hauling in tuna, rainbow runners and wahoo almost every 15 minutes during the four hours on that day. It was my first big fishing trip.
After the trip, the two told me to get as many fish from the pile in the boat. I took six.
When I arrived home, I gave all the fish away to my neighbours – ni-Vanuatu, Fijian and Papua New Guinean families.
Celebrate important occasions in your life in a more Papua New Guinean way – and make sure it is safe.