Everyone in Guam fears social embarrassment; it is a Guamese phobia, to the extent that public displays of awkwardness are feared more than death. Indeed the publicity for a high-profile comedy horror film, The Revenge of the Flesh-Accidentally-Touching Zombies, contained the tagline “You’ll be socially embarrassed laughing”. The Guam FA’s badge bears an image of the result of a diner in white trousers spilling oxtail soup on themselves in a fashionable restaurant. Any native of the island looking at this picture would feel a spasm of unease pass cripplingly through their body.
In fact, the first design for the badge, an image of one man offering his hand for a handshake while the handshake’s recipient is holding two mugs of soup, was considered too dangerous as people were driving off the road just outside the FA headquarters. The people of Guam embrace their phobia and, indeed, one of their most famous homegrown entertainers, Mr Stomach Upset, has built a wildly successful television career around wearing a new white suit and soiling himself in different and distinct situations of crisis. Cameron Carter