famous dump where many of Tahitiâs most celebrated expatriates stayed when they first arrived. I then spent a few days camping out in the offices of the Tahiti Journal . Finally, Jim Boyack offered me a place in the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs, just under the thatch roof of the house where he and Vera were staying.
My first night there, the Boyacks had to go out to dinner, and I stayed behind with their two young children and the babysitter, an achingly beautiful young Tahitian who later won a Tahitian beauty pageant. Having flown many time zones west, I was still suffering from jet lag and went to bed early. Iâd never slept under thatch before, and one of the tricks it plays is that the leaves amplify the wind, and until you get used to it, your body reacts to the sound they make by generating heat to compensate for the cooling suggested by their rustling. Consequently, I was shortly soaked with sweat under the sheets, but cold when I threw them off. After tossing and turning, I got up and groggily wandered to the landing at the top of the stairs. I looked down, and there was the future Miss Tahiti, looking up at me with a bold frankness that Iâd never before encountered in any girl. I didnât need Homer Morganâs chalk and slate to figure out that there for the taking was the image that had lured me to Tahiti in the first place.
So what did I do? Nothing. For one thing, I didnât know how old she was, and didnât relish spending the rest of my youth in a Tahitian jail (if they had such things). I also felt that accepting that invitation would somehow violate the hospitality of the Boyacks, who, after all, had assumed that they were only offering me a place to stay, and not the consummation of a rite de passage . In another sense, to have the dream so close at hand, and so soon after my arrival in Tahiti, was simply overwhelming. Oh, and I did have a girlfriend back in the United States.
Iâll never know what might have been. Had I accepted the unspoken invitation, I, too, might have succumbed to the succulent allure of the South Pacific, maybe even ending up like Ed Ehrich. (Although that was unlikely, since one undiscussed ingredient of his successful indolence was moneyâsomething I didnât have, not even a little bit.)
While my subsequent encounters with Tahitians were never so heavy with promise, I did get a firsthand look at some of the ways Tahitians incorporated the constant assault of modernity into their lives. For instance, one evening a group of us went to a show, ostensibly put on for the benefit of some French sailors. The promoters had unaccountably imported a stripper, and the most enthusiastic members of the audience were not the sailors but the Tahitian girls who came by out of curiosity and who with gusto and hilarity cheered on the somewhat startled performer. On another occasion I attended a dance where modern pop alternated with traditional Tahitian dance music. The Tahitians, both men and women, were amazing dancers, and the song that got everyone on the floor and engendered the most excitement was José Felicianoâs âFeliz Navidad,â with its refrain âI want to wish you a Merry Christmas.â The dance took place in August.
Since 1971, Iâve been back to Polynesia twice. I returned in 1976 when I was researching my book Affluence and Discontent (in which I used Tahiti to illustrate the point that there is much more to a consumer society than a simple desire for consumer goods). Then, in 1995, I returned again on assignment for Condé Nast Traveler . During these subsequent trips I was able to move away from the somewhat self-referential perspective on the elusiveness of the South Pacific dream, and looked a little deeper into Polynesian culture and how it was adapting to modernity.
To that end, for instance, my then-wife, Madelaine, and I went in 1976 to Bora Bora on the cheap and found lodging with a Tahitian
My first night there, the Boyacks had to go out to dinner, and I stayed behind with their two young children and the babysitter, an achingly beautiful young Tahitian who later won a Tahitian beauty pageant. Having flown many time zones west, I was still suffering from jet lag and went to bed early. Iâd never slept under thatch before, and one of the tricks it plays is that the leaves amplify the wind, and until you get used to it, your body reacts to the sound they make by generating heat to compensate for the cooling suggested by their rustling. Consequently, I was shortly soaked with sweat under the sheets, but cold when I threw them off. After tossing and turning, I got up and groggily wandered to the landing at the top of the stairs. I looked down, and there was the future Miss Tahiti, looking up at me with a bold frankness that Iâd never before encountered in any girl. I didnât need Homer Morganâs chalk and slate to figure out that there for the taking was the image that had lured me to Tahiti in the first place.
So what did I do? Nothing. For one thing, I didnât know how old she was, and didnât relish spending the rest of my youth in a Tahitian jail (if they had such things). I also felt that accepting that invitation would somehow violate the hospitality of the Boyacks, who, after all, had assumed that they were only offering me a place to stay, and not the consummation of a rite de passage . In another sense, to have the dream so close at hand, and so soon after my arrival in Tahiti, was simply overwhelming. Oh, and I did have a girlfriend back in the United States.
Iâll never know what might have been. Had I accepted the unspoken invitation, I, too, might have succumbed to the succulent allure of the South Pacific, maybe even ending up like Ed Ehrich. (Although that was unlikely, since one undiscussed ingredient of his successful indolence was moneyâsomething I didnât have, not even a little bit.)
While my subsequent encounters with Tahitians were never so heavy with promise, I did get a firsthand look at some of the ways Tahitians incorporated the constant assault of modernity into their lives. For instance, one evening a group of us went to a show, ostensibly put on for the benefit of some French sailors. The promoters had unaccountably imported a stripper, and the most enthusiastic members of the audience were not the sailors but the Tahitian girls who came by out of curiosity and who with gusto and hilarity cheered on the somewhat startled performer. On another occasion I attended a dance where modern pop alternated with traditional Tahitian dance music. The Tahitians, both men and women, were amazing dancers, and the song that got everyone on the floor and engendered the most excitement was José Felicianoâs âFeliz Navidad,â with its refrain âI want to wish you a Merry Christmas.â The dance took place in August.
Since 1971, Iâve been back to Polynesia twice. I returned in 1976 when I was researching my book Affluence and Discontent (in which I used Tahiti to illustrate the point that there is much more to a consumer society than a simple desire for consumer goods). Then, in 1995, I returned again on assignment for Condé Nast Traveler . During these subsequent trips I was able to move away from the somewhat self-referential perspective on the elusiveness of the South Pacific dream, and looked a little deeper into Polynesian culture and how it was adapting to modernity.
To that end, for instance, my then-wife, Madelaine, and I went in 1976 to Bora Bora on the cheap and found lodging with a Tahitian
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