Lewd is Relative

Scene:  Juleigh and I walk into the vegetable market in the late morning.  The two regular female helpers are in their chairs gossiping as usual, and they greet us kindly.  While selecting cucumbers and carrots, we see, Kalisi, the market manager lying on a thin mat on the concrete floor. 

The following conversation proceeds in Tongan.

Me:  Hello Kalisi, I’m hungry for vegetables.

Kalisi:  Good, we have lots of them for you.

Me:  Hey Kalisi, how’s your bed? 

Kalisi (with a strong smirk):  Oh, it’s very hard.  I love sleeping with hard things. 

The thee ladies roar in laugher. 

Kalisi:  What about you Sione?

Me:  Me?  Oh I’m hard all the time.

The ladies are convulsing in pain from laughing so hard.  Juleigh facepalms in despair.

End Scene.

You can’t be this salacious while talking to employees in the vegetable section of your local Jewel-Osco; someone might slap you.  But in Tonga this type of conversation is the key to winning friends and a fun reputation.  Both men and women absolutely love it when you load your conversation with sexual innuendo.  It’s a bit surprising given how culturally conservative they are.

Both men and women speak this way.  It’s how I participate in kava circles with the boys; it’s how I joke with the nurses at the hospital and the ladies at the market; with Tevita, Sela, and Line at the bank; with Sione the Chinese storekeeper; most of my teachers; and with the employees at Mariner’s Café. 

Just to be sure of my appropriateness, I usually wait for Tongans to begin the innuendo.  Last week a surprise sunshower hit while I was biking the seven-mile trip to Matafonua on the northern tip of Foa so I pulled my bike over at a women’s weaving hall to keep dry.  What might have been an awkward fifteen minutes with me cross-legged on the floor with three strange Tongans became jovial once they started talking about dating in Tonga.  The things they said nearly made me blush, but I did my best to keep up with them.  They were disappointed when I left to continue my bike ride.

Juleigh said recently she’s nervous she’ll do something inappropriate in America that is completely appropriate and perhaps even encouraged in Tonga, like show up consistently late for work, become lax with deadlines, or procrastinate.  I share her anxiety, though I’m more worried that I’ll be so accustomed to lewd conversation that I’ll easily offend someone.  Though that might end with the first slap to the face.