They live in paradise. But everyday life is a bit more complicated

(CNN) — For travelers, there’s a very specific image of Fiji that comes to mind: flawless white stretches of sand, overwater bungalows perfect for honeymooning couples and bright blue sea in every direction.

For the people who live in Fiji, though, the picture is more complicated.

Restaurateur TJ Patel is a native of the city of Nadi, home to Fiji’s international airport, and is used to meeting people from around the globe at his restaurant, Vasaqa. He says he’s painfully aware that outside of Fiji, few would be able to place his country on the map.

“If you can’t find Australia, one of the largest continents on earth, on a map, fat chance finding a needle in a haystack of the Pacific Ocean,” he tells CNN Travel.

“So you’re always saying, ‘north of New Zealand, east of Australia, southwest of Hawaii.’”

That “needle in the haystack” is a South Pacific archipelago of 900,000 people, about half of whom live in the capital city of Suva. Formerly a British colony, Fiji has three official languages: English, Fijian and Fiji Hindi.

It’s perhaps this geographical obscurity that leads many to make incorrect assumptions about what life is actually like in Fiji.

“I think that perception is that (Fijian) people are always at the beach,” says Evlyn Mani, a local PR professional and lifestyle blogger.

“They don’t really understand that there’s more to Fiji than just those sandy beaches and the cocktails with those cute umbrellas in it.”

The coconut wireless

The word that comes up the most when Fijians describe themselves is “community.” It’s a close-knit nation where “everybody knows everybody,” says Patel, and those who leave are still expected to return to their hometown for big holiday celebrations, no matter where they live now.

Locals talk wryly about the “the coconut wireless” – a grapevine of local news and more personal gossip.

“The main island, Viti Levu, where we’re on, you can drive around in five hours,” says Patel. “So by the time you come to your dating stage of your life, you’ve met everyone that you know. Because there have been enough weddings, funerals, Christmas parties.”

Social media, he says, has only amplified the connectivity of the rumor mill.

“It’s just storylines being shared. Something’s blue, by the time it’s shared with the third, fourth person, it’s red.”

Many Indians were brought to Fiji during the days of British colonization as workers, and they have remained to form a sizeable community. Mani and Patel both have Indian heritage.

Ben Hussain, a mixologist, describes Fiji as “a giant melting pot,” and says that it’s still common to show Bollywood films on TV and have big multigenerational get-togethers for Hindu holidays like Diwali.

The Fijian way of life

Key among communal events in Fiji is the kava ceremony. Kava is a mildly narcotic root plant native to Fiji, which is ground into powder and mixed with water, then drunk out of a large bowl called a tanoa using a single coconut shell as a sort of spoon.

Even international tourists are invited to take part in a kava ritual when they arrive at their hotel or travel to a village.

Cagi Ratudamu grew up in a small village called Laselase, and as a native Fijian he takes such rituals seriously.

For example, he says, anyone visiting the village will be greeted by a traditional Fijian welcome ceremony. There are also special ceremonies to celebrate marriages and new babies.

“Let’s say I was visiting you in a Fijian village,” says Ratudamu. “You’re basically presenting your kava as a gift to the villages. And then we will welcome you. And then we’ll also present a kava. Some people present traditional whale’s tooth.”

It’s also considered respectful for a man to visit his new girlfriend’s family’s village to announce his intentions to date her. Many native Fijians, Ratudamu included, wear a hibiscus or frangipani flower behind one of their ears – behind the left ear means someone is single, while behind the right ear is the opposite.

According to data from the US State Department, about 57% of people in Fiji are Indigenous, and of that group the majority are Christian. Radutamu says that Fijians have their own way of blending Christian beliefs and local traditions. Christmas and Easter are important holidays, where whole villages and extended families gather together.

“There’s a structure in the village. I think it all depends on birthright. The seating structure all depends on your traditional obligation in the village.”

Radutamu works at a luxury hotel, the Nanuku Resort near the town of Pacific Harbour on the southern tip of Viti Levu. But most of the people in his village, known as “Fiji’s salad bowl,” are vegetable farmers.

Most tourists he meets are eager to learn about Fiji and ask to visit his home village, says Radutamu. But misconceptions still abound. The worst one? “Cannibalism. They think we might eat humans.”

Chantae Reden, an American expat who moved to Suva with her German husband in 2017, says she loves many elements of the Fijian communal mindset, even if they took her some time to get used to. One of Reden’s favorite things to do in Fiji is the same as in the US: going to the movies.

“Going to the movies is super fun. It’s like an experience,” she says.

“Fijians love to yell at the screen, which… It’s annoying if one person does it, but if you’re watching a horror movie and the whole crowd is screaming like, ‘Turn around!’ it is not scary. It’s really fun.”

Mani, the PR professional, grew up in Sigatoka, a town on the southwest side of Viti Levu’s “coral coast.” She relocated to Suva for college and has been based there ever since.

With temperate weather, it’s not surprising that many Fijian hobbies involve fitness. Mani enjoys an aerial silks class, as well as running and boxfit, an exercise program that combines elements of aerobics and boxing.

Reden made friends through her gym and hiking, swimming, diving and other outdoor activities.

“If you play rugby, you could befriend every single person in Fiji pretty much,” laughs Reden.

Rugby is a national sport and a secular faith in Fiji. The country’s men’s rugby sevens teams claimed gold in the Olympics in 2016 and 2020, the first-ever medals for any Fijians.

“I think (rugby is) a religion, yes,” says Ratudamu, the hotel employee. “If there’s a rugby game happening that involves the Fiji team, you drop all the tools, you have to spend some time to watch and cheer.”

But what about the people who prefer a less physical hobby?

“There’s always something happening in Suva,” says Mani.  “There’s an art exhibition. Recently, there’s a sip-and-paint thing that started in Suva that’s becoming quite popular. There’s live music. We have great local singers and local bands.”

The islands and the world

Because Suva is the capital and Nadi home to the airport, these two cities share elements with other major hubs – international brands, tall buildings and busy office workers. But as Reden explains, travelers don’t have to go far to see a different side of Fiji.

“We live in a normal three-bedroom apartment, and most people are living in houses in the city,” says Reden. “But once you go outside the city, even just 10 or 15 minutes, you will see more settlement-looking houses. They’re just put together by someone from the community even. They could be corrugated metal or wood and just assembled, not necessarily built with concrete and a construction company.”

Hussain says that Fiji is “the hub of the Pacific” due to its high number of native English speakers, speedy Wi-Fi and connectivity with the rest of the world via Fiji Airways, which has direct flights to the US, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Australia and more.

Netflix, YouTube, TikTok and other online platforms are also bringing Japanese, American, Australian and other countries’ influence onto the islands.

“With the younger people now, you notice there’s a lot of interest in things like anime,” says Hussain.  “So all these new things are coming into play. There’s a pick-up in things like skateboarding. And these are all new influences to the country – things that five years ago, no one would even think of. We’re absorbing things.”

While lots of things are pouring into Fiji from overseas, many others are seeping out – namely, people.

“There has been a huge brain drain across all sectors,” says Hussain. “Honestly, it’s not just the younger generation. We’re losing a lot of qualified people, and these qualified people in each industry, in each respective industry, I think are the ones who are meant to pass down the torch to the younger ones.”

Many Fijians are leaving for Australia and New Zealand, where they can make more money and experience a different way of life. However, local policies that prioritize hiring Fijians can mean it’s difficult to bring in foreign workers, even ones with specialized skills.

“It has created this thing where Fijians who are very educated and very qualified for certain roles, often leave to Australia because they wouldn’t be paid well in their own country,” says Reden. “Then that creates a vacuum where then a Westerner comes in and then they’re paying the Westerner that wage almost, and the Fijian who could have done it gets moved to another country.”

The World Bank classifies Fiji as a “vulnerable” country. While a small number – about 1.3% – of Fijians live in poverty, there are many more who meet the bank’s criteria of being on the brink. More than half the people in the country survive on less than $6.85 per day. The wealthiest people live in Suva and Nadi, creating an urban-rural divide.

There are not many opportunities for expats to work around Fiji, adds Reden, whose husband is an oceanographer. Like most non-Fijians, he depends on yearly contracts to stay in the country.

“Fiji understandably really keeps a lot of its roles strictly for Fijians,” says Reden. “Even volunteering can be difficult.”

Reden says that some locals are reluctant to be friends with expats since the assumption is they won’t stick around long enough in Fiji to form relationships. There are also money issues around well-paid foreigners.

“This expat situation in Suva has driven up the prices of a lot of things because expats are known to be super well paid, that it creates a higher cost of living for everyone else,” she notes.

Hussain says that if he could change one thing about Fiji, it would be access.

“I just want access maybe to more training institutions at the grassroots level, just to be easier for us,” he says.

“We need to make all these institutions more accessible to our people at the grassroots. One of the main problems we face as everyday Fijians is that you have a lack of access to all of these things. You have a lack of funds. We have parents who can’t pay (school) fees, and who knows, that could be the future prime minister who just didn’t go to school there.”

Still, though, he says he loves his country and is optimistic about its future.

“The best thing you can do is just take the good and get rid of the bad. You got to take the mud with the rain.”

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