Guest Column

America - or something close to it - was one of the first words in my vocabulary as I learned to speak in my local dialect as a child in the remote village of Aimaga in Cape Gloucester District, West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG).

And this wasn't accidental. I had to know it because I grew up in an environment littered with World War II relics.

My favorite playground was along a line of rusting tanks neatly parked allegedly by Americans on a beachfront near my village.

It was an area where American soldiers encountered one of their toughest battles in the Pacific, according to a war historian. The battle was described by the historian as a "Green Inferno" after the Americans were met with severe resistance not only from the enemy but also from the ravages of Mother Nature. Heavy torrential rain and mosquito-infested swamps inflicted many of them with severe illnesses, and they had to be sent home.

The tanks, which were partially tampered with by locals looking for useful parts, are very much intact today.

My dad and granddad often shared accounts of their experiences with the Americans, especially about their friendliness towards them. I was often intrigued by the stories, and it was through these that I developed a special interest in the United States.

Coincidently, while in college from 1987 to 1988, I met an American who was my journalism lecturer. He was a Roman Catholic priest, Father Frank Mihalic, from Michigan.

Father Mihalic, who has since died and was buried in PNG, taught me basic journalism from an Amercian textbook, which meant that all illustrations in the book were based on American way of life.

Later in 1993, I met another Amercian, a retired banker who came to PNG to work for the Lutheran Church as a lay missionary. We both worked in a church-owned printing and publishing company. He was the executive director while I worked as an English book editor. I learned one thing from him. He taught me to be patrioticŠto display my pride in my country by raising and saluting my national flag daily.

I was drawn emotionally closer to the United States by the 9/11 tradgedy - the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the forced crash-landing of an aircraft in Pensylvania. On this fateful day, I was checking out the last pages of my newspaper for printing when a colleague announced that a plane had crashed into a tower in New York. We initially thought that some aircraft had accidently flown into the tower. However, another aircraft crashed into the other tower, and it soon registered that something was terribly wrong.

As chief sub-editor, I decided that it was looking to be a big story and it needed better treatment. After discussions with the editor and general manager, we decided to go to town with the attack as a wrap-around. We pushed the local stories to the inside pages. We produced a four-page special on the attacks.

We did the same the next day, and we sold out on both days.

A year later, I wrote a feature about what we did, which was published in a liftout produced for the newspaper's 10th anniversary.

My strong attachment to 9/11 was such that I was reduced to tears recently while watching the movie, The World Trade Center, starring Nicholas Cage and Michael Pena, about two policemen trapped by rubble in one of the towers.

This attack on America and my encounters with the two American professionals had largely contributed to my being in the United States, in Minnesota, and in Paynesville as a 2006 fellow with the World Press Institute.

And I could never be happier. I have expressed my delight to my colleagues telling them that there was no journalism program closer to this. Before coming to America, as a journalist, I was fairly informed about the country, but I still felt that there was still something missing, and the program filled the vacuum. There is nothing more rewarding than having to live with American families, who have so far received my colleagues and I with open arms and hearts into their homes.

I have discovered that the real America is different from the stereotypes portrayed by Bruce Willis, Nicholas Cage, Sylvester Stallone, Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Whoopi Golberg, Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson, and countless others in movies and in music by Michael Jackson, Madonna, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Pride, Dolly Parton and hundreds of others.

By sharing their homes, we are able to appreciate and understand, at least in some aspects, what it means to be an American.

I've learned a lot so far.

I have learned that Americans are generally friendly people. They greet you with a smile as if they've known you for years. You'll rarely find this, at least in my experience, in some other parts of the world.

I've also learned that despite their sophistication in their knowledge and technology, the American people still care a lot about little things that matter in life. Things like taking care of your own rubbish and respecting your environment.

This is unlike in Papua New Guinea where we take many things for granted.

I've also learned that American people have pride in their own country, and they make no bones about it. They go out of their way to show their pride by flying their flags in front of their homes and offices.

In Papua New Guinea, we need to cultivate this pride in order for us to respect our fellow citizens and everything else that makes us as a nation.

The many American flags I had seen so far reminded me of my lay missionary boss. I have attempted to count the flags everywhere we have gone since we were here; however, I have lost count because there were too many.

Vulum, a journalist from Papua New Guinea, is a fellow with the World Press Institute for the next four months. He stayed with Press publishers emiritus Peter & Lynne Jacobson for three days in August.