A PNG expat abroad

In the 1983 BBC television drama "An Englishman Abroad", Guy Burgess is portrayed as something like a fish out of water. He is exiled to Moscow, but remains an Englishman through and through.

It made me think of the many PNG expatriates who, having gone there in their younger days, have that experience indelibly engraved on their hearts.

I went from PNG to Burma to Iran to Malaysia to Saudi Arabia to Greece where I must have been the only adult wearing the PNG dress code of long white socks and shorts, and today, almost fifty years later, I still think and speak of Papua New Guinea almost daily and with great affection.

Guy Burgess, despite his treason, remained an Englishman at heart. Many former residents of Papua New Guinea have forever remained PNG expats with a love for that country and its people in their hearts or, as my best mate from my PNG days, Noel Butler, used to say, "My spiritual home will about be New Guinea."

Peter Goerman
Blogmaster

 

An interesting video:

 

What's the exchange rate? ☺

 

In February 2014, American citizen Barry Keith Webb flew into Port Moresby from Manila, with bookings to transit to Buka the same day. Airport authorities detained him after going through his baggage, which included a briefcase full of newly printed Bougainville kina totalling 1.6 million.

There are actually quite attractive-looking banknotes ☺ - see here.

Read more on this scam here.

And here's "King David Pei II" in action:

 

A trip to Bougainville in August 2014

A Trip to Bougainville, August 2014 from Jeremy Weate on Vimeo.

 

"Birth of a Mining Giant" published in the Australian Financial Review in July 1969

If you find the text too small to read on this website, press the CTRL button and, without taking your finger off, press the + button, which will enlarge the text. Keep doing it until you have a comfortable reading size. (Use the - button to reduce the size)

 

 

Booklet "Progress in Copper" by Bougainville Copper Limited

If you find the text too small to read on this website, press the CTRL button and, without taking your finger off, press the + button, which will enlarge the text. Keep doing it until you have a comfortable reading size. (Use the - button to reduce the size)

 

 

My Valley is Changing

 

The building of the giant open-cut copper mine on the island of Bougainville brought profound change to local landowners. Despite royalties, training programs and extensive development, landowner concerns eventually escalated into conflict, which resulted in the closure of the mine in 1989. These issues are already clearly evident in the film My Valley is Changing, made shortly after the mine opened in 1970.

A visitor to this blog mailed me an old taped copy of "My Valley is Changing" which I tried to copy and upload to YouTube, however, the quality was so poor that I gave up.

If anyone is interested in this 26-minute film, they can purchase it for their home use for $19.95 (plus postage) from the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia - watch this short excerpt:

In this clip, Gregory Kopa, a resident of Moroni village, explains that the local people were fearful of the consequences of a mine and how he told the CRA mining company and the government (Papua New Guinea was then under Australian Administration) about their opposition to the mine, which was to be located on land traditionally owned by his people. In response, Gregory was told that the resources found on his land belonged not just to his people, but to everyone in Papua New Guinea.

To place your order, simply click here.

 

The real Mr Pip

 

Click here to read Harry Baxter's comments.

Click here for a preview of the movie "Mr Pip".