My grandson asked what the mascot of the Tanapag Elementary School stands for, and I had to stray out of alignment for a moment to think what it really stands for. After a little hesitation to make sure, I suggested that Tataga is a fish favorably eaten by the indigenous people of the Northern Mariana islands. On the other hand, in the Chamorro language, it means \u201ca potentially sharp object that could cut and inflict an injury.\u201d Am sure that the mascot refers to the \u201ctataga\u201d fish, and not an object that could inflict injury. If the word \u201ctataga\u201d is carelessly spelled out, it could mean a slew of different connotation such as \u201cta taga,\u201d which means ganging up for a chopping event. The fish itself is a very dangerous fish to handle if one does not know that this fish has two sharp and poisonous blades at its tail it uses to fend off predators. The point is, we do not need to refer to the mascot of the school to acknowledge the school. What is wrong with just saying \u201cTanapag Elementary School,\u201d unless something is wrong with the school’s name.<\/p>\n
The other school that is of interest to my young and yearning curious seeker is the \u201cChacha School.\u201d Well, this one, I had to think thrice more than the \u201ctataga\u201d mascot. I could only think of two possible connections on this one. \u201cChacha,\u201d as I am aware of, is a popular dance liked by people of all ages. The other assumption is that \u201cchacha\u201d refers to a person who is peculiar about eating a certain kind of food or a person that would not partake of any type of food or social event. \u201cChacha\u201d defines between a person in need and a person in want. In other words, a difference between a person who lives to eat, and a person who eats to live. It is interesting, nonetheless, and that would command an explanation from the folks at PSS. My grandson asked what the mascot of the Tanapag Elementary School stands for, and I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nFrancisco R. Agulto<\/strong>
\nChalan Kanoa, Saipan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"