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> Like receiving in Airai. According to this saying, the people of Airai (central Palau) are likely to ask for those things they have in abundance. A wealthy man asking for financial help; a person asking for a cigarette when he has a pack in his pocket. |
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> Like the insects which stays at ashes of fire but doesn't burn. You're near a situation which needs immediate attention but you don't lend a hand. |
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> It's like the rat of Ngerard, which eats up all your coconuts and (then) all of ours. It's a decision, plan etc. that will backfire. A pet rat owned by Mad, chief of Ngaraard, ate the coconuts of most of the chief's neighbors, then, still hungry, ate the chief's own coconuts. |
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> It's like the way they eat in Ngeraus (where food is scarce): as soon as they get to like or enjoy the food, it's gone. Just as something becomes popular, it becomes unavailable. Ngerraus is a small village in Ngchesar (central Palau). The idiom suggests a person who begins to feel hungry just as the food runs out. The reference is to the meager food resources of a small village. In contemporary Palau the idiom may be applied to some popular import that soon disappears from the shelves of the stores. |
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> Like coconut water, passing from darkness to darkness. Water, drunk from a coconut, passes from the dark of the nut to the dark of the mouth. Some discussions, such as those of village leaders, are secretively passed from mouth to mouth without public discussion. |
