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| From Geoffrey C. Gunn's Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, a full-length English-language history of East Timor up to early 1999 "Notorious as a graveyard for residents and travellers alike, Portuguese Timor attracted various negative epithets from European visitors. As Wallace observed of Dili in 1861, "Dili surrounded for some distance by swamps and mud-flats is very unhealthy, and a single night often gives a fever to newcomers which not infrequently proves fatal." -- p. 130 [People were probably saying the same about Washington, DC in the 1860s!] "Writing of the state of health of the colony in the 1880s, Anna Forbes ... commented: No traveller will of choice go to Dilly, for its reputation as the unhealthiest port in the archipelago is not undeserved, and the report that one night passed in its miasmal atmosphere may result fatally deters any who would, except of necessity, go there. Those who are appointed here make up their minds, shortly after arrival, that they will go as soon as possible.... Fever-stricken people and places are recognisable at a glance; the pale faces and enduring air of the residents explain the lifeless town and dilapidated buildings." -- p. 131 "...the Allied bombing of Dili took its toll on Japanese and Timorese alike. According to a Japanese diplomatic dispatch, commencing in late 1942 two or three Allied planes bombed Dili about once a week, in November becoming a daily occurrence. ... By June 1942, Allied bombing had forced the Timorese population to flee the city for the countryside." -- p. 229 "The Chinese, residing in Dili's commercial zone, imparted a typical Southeast Asian commercial character to the city. ... Characteristically, the social cohesion of the Chinese was maintained through a parallel system of Chinese language primary and even secondary schools.... In the post-war period, teachers were recruited in Taiwan and the trend among the Chinese community in Timor was to celebrate officials holidays of the Republic of China.... Although many of the Chinese of Dili had close commercial or even family links with Macau, the main dialect spoken was not Cantonese but Khe or Hakka. ... The "Arab" or Muslim community in Dili numbering some hundreds only, were descendants of Hadramaut Arabs who had settled most parts of Southeast Asia by the nineteenth century. ... Defined by their Islamic identities, the community supported a mosque and an Islamic school, offering Koranic education including the study of Arabic." -- pp. 242-243 "The Chinese emerged under Portuguese rule as controlling 95 percent of all business in East Timor, owning 23 of East Timor's 25 import-export firms ... and owning most of the coffee plantations and 300 retail shops." -- p. 253 |
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