Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25240
o TEXT' TONY PERROTTET PHOTO ' DAPHNE HOUGARD COLLAGE LUCAS IRWIN CO l u m n: fi re - AN ANCIENT POLYNESIAN TRADITION IS REVIVED AT CINDY'S CROSS-DRESSING EXTRAVAGANZA A DRAG IN APIA Apia, the capital of Western Samoa, may be the last South Pacific port that can still be described as "Maughamesque." At dusk, a few fishermen in lava lavas cast their lines from the desolate waterfront. Hymns waft dreamily from choir practice in the churches; pairs of policemen white pith helmets, like South Pacific bobbies, look chronically underemployed (what fe there are even get to go home on weekends). Every face has a sleepy, contented look, as if all Apia is digestin meal. It looks like nothing could rouse this place from its Polynesian But when I arrived on a Thursday night, things were going to be different-at least according to Tusi, the towering clerk at Ah Kam's Fullmoon Inn, who had intricate tattoos run- ning from his knees to the middle of his back. "You will go to see Cindy," he told me somberly. "We all go to Cindy's show." The attraction? Tusi was amazed I hadn't heard: Apia's weekly drag review-the climax of the social calendar. As elsewhere in the Pacific, cross-dress- ing has long been a pillar of cultural life in Western Samoa, mostly for adolescent boys. But in recent years, there has been a huge increase in the number of male transvestites, who take on female roles permanently. Fa'afafin e (literally "in the way of women") are now a fixture allover this tiny nation's two islands. Men who grow their hair long, wear floral dresses and ladle on vivid make-up can be met in every palm- fringed village. Even so, Cindy's review sounded like a quantum leap for Samoan entertainment. So like half of Apia, I made a beeline for Magrey Ta's Beer Garden, where the most celebrated fa'afafine puts on her spectacular beneath the stars. The place was packed. In front of an elaborate stage with a fake waterfall, crowds of Samoans and curious palagi (foreigners-literally "bursting from the sky") had gathered to knock back Vailima beer. At 9PM, the lights dimmed and an ear-splitting roar went up from the crowd as the willowy Cindy and her team of Rubenesque divas sashayed on stage in sequin nightgowns, then lip-synched their way through "Like a Virgin." It was a professional turn that would have impressed the best in New York's West Village, and no opportunity for innuendo went untouched. Soon Cindy came back with a solo, a Whitney Houston chestnut, all the while tossing in flirtatious exchanges the audience. At first, the show seemed like a kitschy import from the West- Priscilla with a tropical twist-but events soon took a more Samoan turn. To a thundering disco beat, the gals did a hula in grass skirts, with frangipani in their hair. It was a spoof on the chintzy "Polynesian Nights," called fia-fias , which in the 1970s had been brought wholesale from Hawaii to tourist hotels across the islands. One by one the Hollywood- spawned stereotypes were pillaged: Cindy threw in a little fire walking and a mock human sacrifice. Muscle-bound Samoan "warriors" ground