Now, as manager of the Pathways Hotel in the tidy town of Colonia, capital of an island state that counts just 12,000 souls, he deals every day with Americans visitors who are seeing new sights, too. The most traditional island group in Micronesia, Yap is home to a people who are fiercely proud and protective of their culture. Ancient seafaring and canoe-building skills are still alive here. Any fisherman worth his salt can look at a ripple on the surface and tell what kind of fish are swimming below. Girls from a young age are taught to weave and to perform the traditional dances through which legends are passed down.
Boys have their own rites of passage.
Sun, sand and sea dominate life on Falalop, one of the islands of Ulithi Atoll. Even today, Yapese society maintains an intricate system of clans and castes ruled by traditional chiefs who have great influence on who is elected to the parallel, democratic government. In one of the most genuine and touching gestures extended to travelers anywhere in the world, every passenger arriving at the international airport in Colonia is greeted by a bare-breasted young woman in a grass skirt who places a flower wreath on the visitor's head. That Yap has remained Yap as long as it has, despite a century and a half of meddling by foreign powers who came to extract its resources, change its religion, make war, direct its government and, now, invest in its economy, is a testament to this cultural tenacity. Each stone is valued according to its history, not its size.