Born In A Tunnel

We spent most of our time in Papua New Guinea anchored outside a town that we never intended to go to. This town is called Kokopo, and a man named John Lau, a man who never stops talking or drinking his wine, is a large reason why we kept coming back.

Born in a tunnel near the end of WWII to a Japanese mother and a Papua New Guinean father, John Lau has since traveled all over the world. In his community dining room, there are pictures of him striking a pose with Muhammad Ali, Andre Agassi, and many others. After spending so much time with him, I still don’t know how he got to where he is today… maybe I didn’t ask the right questions, or maybe I wasn’t listening hard enough. From the little I know about him, allow me to introduce you to the most interesting man I’ve met.

We first met John Lau in a documentary we downloaded on Papua New Guinea. He was the fisherman, the marlin specialist who makes world famous lures (with slightly perverted names). Some of the largest marlin in the world have been caught with his award winning lures. Although they didn’t catch any marlin in the PNG documentary, John was a primary feature. As we watched, we remarked on how fascinating this man seemed, almost out of place, yet we couldn’t find a better place for him.

Arriving in Rabaul, our agent told us that Kokopo was a place that we couldn’t miss, and it would be a shame if we didn’t experience his friend, John Lau. When we asked where we could meet John, our agent assured us we couldn’t avoid him if we tried. His was the big place on the water, the only jetty in town.

Destination: Kokopo.

From the waterfront, Kokopo looks like a dump. Shantys line the beach. There is no concept of valuable “beach front property”. As you scan further down the beach, a disheveled jetty pops out, with a well maintained complex behind it, and a 30ft sportfish moored out front. The jetty consisted of steel beams with wood planks lain down across the beams. Not a single plank was held down, and there were many gaping holes between planks. (I was unfortunate enough, ok, fine, clumsy enough, to slip my foot through one of these holes as we left one evening). Did it seem like a safe place? Not one bit, but looks are so often deceiving.

Seeing as there was only one spot to go, we tendered in and tied off the jetty. From the jetty, the complex behind looked like a restaurant with an open balcony on the second level. A small Japanese man called down to us, “Come on up! You want a beer?”, it was John Lau. We drank our beer, he drank his bottle of wine, and we swapped stories with him, mainly fishing stories for him, until it was time for dinner. We weren’t planning on staying for dinner, but apparently John was, and we felt it would be rude to refuse. A few others seemed to be waiting for dinner on the balcony too. We later came to find out that John opens his home, his balcony, and his massive personal kitchen operation to feed about a hundred people every day.

It took us a while to figure out where John makes his living, but we found out that he and his wife own and operate a large, lucrative wholesaler called Tropicana. He provides his employees housing and meals. I would have liked to ask more questions about it, but he was much more interested in talking about fishing, and we were just as curious to find out where the best marlin fishing was. We inquired about his lures, but he brushed us off, saying he doesn’t make them anymore.

Over dinner, John was more than happy to advise and help us. He told us where the marlin were, he told us which mechanical company could help us with our generator problems, he told us where to go out for dinner, he told us where a good place to get provisions was, and he told us that if we ever needed anything else, all we had to do was ask.

After returning to Kokopo three more times due to our pesky generator issues, we ended up spending a total of eight days there. The next time we returned to Kokopo, without prompting, John handed us 5 of his world famous lures, asked nothing for them, and showed us how to rig them.

The third time, John sent us off with a massive chunk of ham that he had personally smoked for 3 days. He showed us how the smoker worked and described his own special technique. It doesn’t matter how good you think your technique is, his is better. Running a smoker for multiple days in Kokopo is quite a feat since temporary power outages are frequent, requiring constant attention. He put up a good fight, but we finally convinced him to let us pay for this.

Eight days spent at a place that wasn’t even on our map, with a man that we never thought we would meet; a man whom we will never fully understand, but will have a hard time forgetting.