The award for the most inconsistent blogger in town goes to..... my humble self๐๐. My
beautiful ladies and stunning men, i'm back, back like i never left and i'm taking you to
places you have never heard or seen๐ฃ๐ฃ. We are taking things slow though, you know
good things are not meant to be rushed. Slow and steady gives you the fattest bones abi
how do they say it๐. Our first episode in this series is the beautiful CHRISTMAS
ISLAND, yep, you saw it right, what you saw is what it is.
Christmas Island is an Asian country with Australia as it's external territory. It is located
in the Indian Ocean and has a population of 2000 residents.Their official language is
English which is understandable because i can't imagine how messy it will be if each ethnic
group spoke their individual languages. You will hear ni hao from a Chinese man and a
Malaysian will reply with selamat , with a corresponding sata sri akala from the Sikh๐,
Tower of Babel is that you?๐. The Island is closer to Indonesia than Australia but
Australia owns and administers it. You might be wondering why Christmas Island is Asian
when it has an Australian territory, or why Australia owns it....well let's do some time
travel.๐๐.
Island was given by captain William Mynors, an English sailor who saw the Island on a
Christmas day in 1643 and decided to name it Christmas Island. I guess my man didn't
want to do too much brainstorming and just went with the easiest name๐ how boring Sir
William. I wonder what he would have called it it if he saw it on a random day like
Monday?.
The Island was originally seen by Europeans in 1615 but they didn't care too much about it.
It was in 1688 that anyone landed on it. William Dampier, an English explorer and pirate
set foot on Christmas Island and found it uninhabited, he probably just ate crab with his
crew and left๐
. In 1888, our best friends the British government decided " oh, let's just
take over this Island , it has no life anyways" so they decided to take possession of the
Island, they do it best so i'm not surprised. Christmas Island wasn't a big land but they had a
lot of phosphate ( a rock that contains one of the three nutrients used in making fertilizers),
that was definitely a big catch for our best friends๐.
The British gave the Island to John Murray who was a naturalist and George Clunies Ross
who was a property owner i guess. The two men set up the Christmas Island phosphate
company and then brought in Chinese, Malay and Sikh migrants to work as servants. They
were basically treated as slaves, more than 500 Chinese people died due to the poor
working conditions and bad diets. The mine was forced to close temporarily because at one
point workers were dying every single day. There were multiple Chinese graveyards and
temples that are still fended to today. I feel like the British people find joy in torture and
death because why would you make people work for you and still not treat them well, it's
just pathetic.
12.7% Anglo Australians. The story doesn't get any better, because of the phosphate in
Christmas Island, it was a target during world war II. In Nigeria we will just tell you to
go and do prayer and fasting because your village people are really on top your matter. The
Japanese bombed and invaded the Island in 1942 taking over the phosphate operations so
they could make fertilizers for the Japanese empire. While 50 Asian and Australian families
were taken to Perth, many were still on the Island and workers had to flee into the jungle
where they survived on eating birds and crabs. My stomach just tightened writing this, they
are so going to hate crabs and birds for the rest of their lives๐ญ. In 1943 , the Japanese
struggled with managing the food supply so nearly two -thirds of the population were sent
to prison camps in Java and we never heard of them again. The British regained control of
the Island in October 1945 and then in 1949, the phosphate was bought by the Australian
and New Zealand government.
was the British colony at that time so Singapore administered the Island. The Island,
Singapore, Australia and New Zealand were now under the British, that's just crazy.
Forward to today, Australia owns the Island despite being closer to Indonesia and that is
because the Island was given to the Australians by the British so the Australians had to pay
2.8 million pounds to Singapore as compensation to all the lost phosphate mining revenue.
Hence, on October 1st 1958, Christmas Island officially became an Australian territory
which the Christmas Islanders now celebrate for a whole week as territory day. Sounds like
a happily ever after doesn't it?
resorts and most importantly the crab bridge. You can imagine, they used to beg us to
climb the bridge instead of crossing the express but our coconut heads like dying like rats,
then we will say it's our village people but this crabs follow the bridge that was made for
them to keep everywhere civilized๐๐. The crab bridge was specifically built for crabs
to migrate from forests to oceans....mind blowing๐ฏ. I wonder how honoured those crabs
will feel, with up to forty million crabs needing to go first simultaneously, this is definitely
needed. It wouldn't be a bad idea to actually go to Christmas Island to see the crabs migrate
and all but i think i suddenly developed a phobia for crabs gathered at a place๐จ so no
thanks.
Island a place you will love to visit?







Quite an entertaining read.
ReplyDeleteThank you
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