The Samoan Smile

The Samoan people have a lovely smile. They need it because a lot of them have really grumpy, serious, sad and sometimes downright scary faces to start with!

One of the things I want to do with our inbound tours is to put a real scary dude in uniform as the tour guide/host. I want him to open his big beady white eyes, in the middle of that dark scary face, and scare the living daylights out of our guests for a second or two and then, beam that lovely big Samoan smile across his face and make them feel so loved and appreciated for the rest of the day that they don’t want to go home!

I spent a bit of time recently in Uafato, a lovely little beach village on the North East coast of Upolu. Doing the rounds (as I do), we were introduced to the chief Matai and his family of wooden bowl carvers. A quick journey at walking speed over roads that a 4WD struggle with gets you to the furtherest place from civilisation that you can find up here. We will be likely marketing this village online some day as The Ninth Heaven. But that’s another story!

While everybody else was at church (Sorry but to this Palagi, three hours of monotone in the Samoan language of which I can understand about six words after some 4 months of trying, reminds me more of a monastery than something godly), I snuck out and went wandering down the road. Two houses down from the church I saw the most serious of dudes sitting in his open fale house. That’s what they do over here most of the time, especially the older ones – just sit.

Knowing that a scary Samoan face was always the precursor to a Samoan smile, I waved at the guy and got the massive Samoan smile, a big “Malo” (that’s Samoan for Hello) and an invite to come in and sit down and make myself at home. Well, actually skip the invite part, I just took that liberty because I know they like it when you do just roll on up and say “Hi!”

I heard later that the guy was totally chuffed that this Palagi just wandered in and chatted away to him! See I told you! So anyway . . . back to that Samoan smile. This guy switched on his Samoan smile like we do a light. They all do that over here too. It’s like Click; Smile on. Click; smile off.

You can be walking down the street and see grumpy face after grumpy face just lightup like a lightbulb when you catch their eye and say “Malo!” or smile at them – no kidding it is almost like magic.

I was in at Bluebird Lumber opening a trade account last week. I’d spent the last two weeks trying to deal with the Accounts Receivable clerk who to put it simply was just downright rude and totally unhelpful. No you can’t have an account. No your account application has not been approved. No we cannot take a $500.00 deposit on your account, even if Andrew Ah Liki told you that you could. No you cannot have a photocopy of the agreement that you have just signed – not until [whatever]. Talk about grumpy and unhelpful, and not a smile or an inch of grace for weeks on end.

Push comes to shove (and a $1,000.00 deposit after I phoned Andrew in front of the grumpy clerk) and all the business was finally done – or so she thought. I stayed on for a while to chat. Samoans are not in a hurry and when Palagi sticks around for a chat, they like it and things change. I spent a few minutes just talking about my new country, my new home, how different things were here, how hard it was to become accepted by the locals, how they really made it hard for you at the beginning, and then gradually they opened up and became really good friends when they could see that you were OK, and how that over the last couple of weeks I had never actually seen her smaile at me, and “Was she angry with me for something?”

Well guess what? “Oh no, don’t you mind me, I’m just like that!” she says, and there was that lovely Samoan smile for me! Ah, now that we were over all that defensiveness and grumpiness, we can finally be friends! I know that the moment I turned my back, the smile would have vanished off her face in a second, but for a few minutes, I was treated to the big Samoan smile and it was good for us both.

The same thing happened last week in the Immigration department. The clerk and then the big boss were both officious and bordering on rude (Sorry you can’t come into our country unless you have certificates and so on you know!), but once they’d worked out that I was actually a genuine guy, maybe even a nice guy and could be trusted a little – then the big Samoan smiles came out and we had a great conversation or two.

Back to our chief. After an hour or two chatting away together, our man was really relaxed. Casually sitting there leaning against his pole and me against mine, I envisioned a lovely photograph. “Would you mind if I took a photograph?” I said.

Mayor of Uafato Well that lovely Samoan smile disappeared off his face like he’d seen a ghost. He sat bolt upright like he’d been shot by a bolt of electricity, dressed and preened himself and sat there stiff and serious until I’d finished the photo session. Every inch of his demeanour cried out “I’m a high chief and high chiefs don’t smile. We’re serious and important. “Smile!” I said, to no avail. “Smile!” I said again, and again to no avail. Samoan chiefs DO NOT, repeat DO NOT smile for the camera!

Here he is, my mate the chief – no, the high chief (No. 2 in fact) of Uafato.

And of course you know exactly what happnened the moment the camera was off – he was back to Mr Relaxed and totally friendly. Him with that lovely Samoan smile, and me with a dozen serious photos but a story!