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Fiji
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Turtle Island will celebrate the new Millennium before any other place in the world. Because of their location relative to the International Dateline, the Fiji Islands will be the first country in the world to toast the year of 2000. In 1979, the owner of Turtle Island, Richard Evanson, decided to turn the clocks back one-hour to provide additional daylight for the film crew of Columbia Pictures which was filming the movie "Blue Lagoon", starring Brooke Shields. Since that time Turtle Island has been welcoming each new day one hour earlier than its' neighbors. |
| Visit the Turtle Island for more details or South Pacific Holidays | |
Location: Oceania, island group in the South Pacific Ocean, about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand. Half a World away from Greenwich. They will be the first to see in the new millennium in local time. They will have been celebrating for 12 hours before Greenwich officially moves the World into the new millennium.
: The Fiji Islands lie approximately halfway between Australia and the Hawaiian Islands in the middle of the South Pacific. The population of 800,000 people live on its 300 islands spread over an area of two hundred thousand square miles.
Fiji will celebrate " The Year of the Millennium", beginning its celebrations from the year 2000 through to 2001. The 180° Meridian, is where The Third Millennium begins in local time (Greenwich marks the Universal Day - other countries operate in time zones relative to Greenwich). Fiji enjoys the first moment on earth for the next thousand years. This is based on Greenwich mean time. Fiji sits on the 180° meridian, only one of the two places on earth where the line crosses dry land. The other is in Siberia.
The 180° meridian is the line of longitude that divides yesterday from today, as devised by scientists at the Greenwich Observatory in England, and accepted as the worldwide norm. So to allow those in Fiji to live their life in one day, and not two, an adjustment was made to the 180° meridian, and this is called the International Dateline. Like daylight savings time, it is used as a convenience, but not for navigational purposes, nor to represent true time.
Fiji is right on time, right on the line; Proud that they can represent the world in its first moment on earth for the third Millennium.
Fiji will celebrate the Millennium through a series of events that will lead up to the year 2000 and continue to the year 2001. There will also be the development of more permanent representations of the Millennium.
Fiji will hold the Festival of Praise a week prior to the Millennium, a non denominational event that will bring together the religions of the world to celebrate in unity and prayer.
The 180° meridian runs through three locations in Fiji:
At Udu Point on Fiji's second largest island Vanua Levu, on the island of Rabi and on the garden island of Taveuni.
While there will be significant activities to celebrate the Millennium in both Taveuni and Rabi, a major focus will be on the Millennium Wall to be built at Udu Point.
The Meridian Wall will be constructed in a specially designed park at Udu Point, a extraordinary site, high on a hill where one can experience both sunrise and sunset from the same location. This one kilometre wall will be built with hollowed bricks. People around the world will be invited to put a personal message in a stainless steel tube that will be permanently sealed inside each brick. The bricks will be used to construct the wall as part of this permanent Millennium monument. It is one way we will ask those around the world to be a permanent part of the 3rd Millennium.
The Millennium is for everyone in Fiji. Efforts are now underway to provide opportunities for all of our citizens to participate. Special emphasis will be placed on encouraging our people to begin developing a vision for the future,and to put this vision into place through a conscious effort to improve our lives, or environment, and our country, through our schools, our churches and our communities.
The "World of Music & Dance" will bring 200 artists from 30 countries to perform in Fiji in a six day festival commencing on December 28 through January 2, 2000. The highlight of the festival will be a world wide television broadcast to celebrate the Millennium. Many of those who will perform are entertainers of note, and will help focus the world on this once in a lifetime event.
: A vast celebration on the International Date Line in the middle of the Pacific Ocean including:
Millennium's Eve Television Special: A Dusk to Dawn broadcast featuring the finest traditional and contemporary musicians with short feature segments and introductions by noted celebrities, writers, scientists, and just plain folk such as children "diplomats" with their hopes for the future and centenarians with their memories of the past.
High Chiefs of Fiji: In preparation for the Millennium Celebration, Fiji will send a multi-cultural delegation around the world to make ceremonial invitation to dignitaries, celebrities, students and especially to the leaders of tribal peoples, inviting them to send delegations to form a World Village on the Festival site.
WOMAD.: Festival artists and staging are under the direction of World of Music Arts and Dance. Established in the UK by Peter Gabriel, WOMAD is an eclectic collection of contemporary and traditional musicians from more than 30 countries and has appeared in 20 global locations since 1982. WOMAD's 1994 festival in San Francisco holds the record for largest paid attendance ever for a concert.
Global Dance Party: In response to the significance and relationship between 180 degrees and 0 degrees longitude, WOMAD proposes to link a hi-tech dance event in Greenwich, England with a mirror site in Fiji, sharing the same video and soundtrack via satellite. It's an idea that could quickly go global with many sites around the world all linked together and sharing the "contact high" of midnight revelry somewhere on the planet every hour.
Midnight Fire Ceremony: In Fiji, the ancient past is still a living memory. In addition to a traditional fireworks display by Chinese artisans, Native Fijians are organising a New Fire Ceremony that will light the hill tops of many of the hundreds of inhabited islands.
Sunrise on the Dateline: In the first light of dawn of the new Millennium at the actual place where the Dateline meets the sea, the people of Fiji will launch a Voyaging Canoe the likes of which has not been seen in the Islands for nearly a century. A Time Capsule including photos, messages to the future and other items from Festival participants and dignitaries will be dedicated at the site and sealed for a thousand years.
FACE: The Foundation of the Arts for Cultures and the Environment is officially sanctioned through Cabinet Proclamation as the producer of Fiji's Official Millennium Celebration, embracing the concept and program developed by F.A.C.E. The Festival program illustrates the goals of F.A.C.E: to create events that focus attention on the environment and cultural contributions of the world's indigenous peoples
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