role reversal

cartoon by Bill Bates

I just wanted to make a note of this cartoon which was introduced to the class before we left in our Fiji culture and history pre-departure classes.

I personally think that this cartoon is a great depiction of the effects of missionaries on the Pacific. In Fiji women are expected to cover their shoulders and knees majority of the time and pants aren't commonly worn. It's considered very slutty to walk around in a mini skirt in fiji, even in Suva (apart form the tourists) you seldom see a Fijian women wearing short or exposing clothing- and when you do it is a complete shock!

Last Wednesday we were invited to the Conservatorium of Music's annual Christmas party, which was held at the Directors village. The whole day was extremely fun; we swam, played rugby and volleyball and just lounged around on a beach that was rarely visited by "Westerners". The one thing I kept thinking about all day was the fact that everyone who was swimming was fully clothed! Even on a beach where we were pretty much the only ones using it. The comment made by the director before we left for the village reminded me of this cartoon.

"You can wear shirts and shorts, that's fine, just don't wear your skimpy bikinis"

So of course we covered up and wore clothes swimming. I just find the irony of this situation interesting when you look back the introduction of Christianity into the Pacific. Although I have experienced this type of "dress-code" in Fiji, tradition and cultural norms are cracking. The more traveling for education and exposure to other cultures and their ways has seen the introduction of skimpier and more "Western" clothing by youths in Fiji.

Rotuman X-files

Hau’ofa asserts “if we look at the myths, legends, and oral traditions and the cosmologies of the peoples of Oceania, it becomes evident that they did not conceive of their world in such microscopic proportions. Their universe comprised not only of land surfaces, but the surrounding ocean as far as they could traverse and exploit it, the underworld with its fire-controlling and earth-shaking denizens…” (1994:152). Here Haou’ofa is referring to areas and space which Oceanic people relate to size. In Rotuma and Fiji this is also evident. Through the interviews done by the LHT team, we have come across similar ideologies that Hau’ofa is expressing. The first interview we conducted was in Vatukoula near the goldmines and here we met Fereti Mario and 70 year old man who claimed to have found the passages to the underworld. The story told of a lovo (earth oven) which was at the bottom of the sea which was found when Fereti’s neighbours father was fishing. Fereti claimed that he had also gone fishing and experienced the lovo in the sea which was believed to be the passage to the underworld. This is just the gist of the story but you get the picture. 

This story really resonated with me and the idea that Oceanic peoples don’t just see their surroundings in terms of land mass but also understand their surroundings in terms of the sea and the underworld. A lot of people in “Western” societies would find this story unbelievable yet these stories and experiences are so engrained in Rotuman history that they cannot be separated.  An interesting point of the interview was actually when Fereti- the interviewee- said that before he experienced the underworld himself he did not believe the stories told by many people in Rotuma.

The LHT team minus Sela

Fereti’s skills and knowledge about these historical experiences have never been written down and I believe that we were the first people to come and interview him and document his story. Along with a lack in documentation or recording of these histories, through my LHT project at the FAC I have noticed the issue of cultural exposure between generations pop up continuously.  

 As a result of talking with numerous cultural elders within various regions of Fiji it is obvious that there is a cultural gap between generations. Youths within Fiji and Rotuma are experiencing a lack of traditional cultural exposure. For Rotuman youths this is attributed to the fact that most youths and families migrate off the island to either main land Fiji or overseas and subsequently only return to Rotuma for Christmas, family gatherings or funerals, which has lead to other linguistic and cultural influences. More common than not the dominant host culture and language replaces the Rotuman language and culture. An example of this was given by Aliti Wiliame from Rotuma. She explained that when she was teaching Rotuman language classes in Suva she gave her young students an assignment on their opinion of the use of Rotuman language. When the students brought the results back they all had said that they didn’t need to learn Rotuman because all the exams and classes in school where in English and when they were at home their parents would speak to them in Fijian. This allowed a wider understanding following on to why Rotuman culture and language is quite commonly consumed by the dominant culture of the host country. In the case of Fijian youths there is a similar cycle occurring whereby youths growing up the city are intermittently and rarely exposed to traditional Fijian culture practiced in the village and passed on by the elders in the village. Living in the city detaches Fijian youths from the flows of traditional Fijian culture and history.

I know I have explored this issue previously in my blog but through my project this seems to be the most obvious issue for me. And even when I look back on the Mataisau Talanoa at USP I can’t help but think about this lack of knowledge sharing between generations. I understand the historical cultural practices involved but culture is fluid and so I feel that the passing on of this cultural knowledge shouldn’t be as restricted as it once was- as the talanoa at USP emphasized, there is a great need for skilled people such as the mataisau to share their knowledge so that these skills and histories aren’t forgotten and lost.

“When Fijians are photo, Indians are frame. You take the frame out the photo drops.”

Walk down the street in Suva city and without a doubt you will go past an Indian food shop, jam packed not only with Fijian Indians but with i-taukei, Fijian Chinese, Fijian Europeans and tourists. The point here is that when you are in Fiji, it is not just the i-taukei that are visible in Fijian society. Through food, clothing and music it is hard not to notice the very visible Fijian Indian population scattered throughout Fiji.

Within Fiji there is a dynamic cultural relationship between i-taukei and Fijian Indians.  The two are adopting each others culture quite openly as illustrated throughout Teaiwa’s article South Asia Down Under: Popular Kinship in Oceania. Although this may not be publicly visible there are many cases in which I have seen this adoption take place. For example I was having a conversation with a indigenous Fijian man who use to go to an Indian Fijian school and now lives in a share house with four Indian Fijians. He said that he got introduced to Bollywood movies by his housemates and loved them so much that now he watches Bollywood movies without subtitles cos he can now follow the script in Hindi.

In Academia it is rare to come across a paper that focuses on both Asia and the Pacific instead of the common Asia focused article or Pacific focused article. Rarely are the two discourses married. Teaiwa manages to explore the two, South Asia and Pacific, in a very personally reflective paper giving numerous personal experiences and recounts of the issues she is talking about.

I have had little contact with the Indian Fijian society in Fiji yet from what I have seen in relation to popular culture such as the Indian restaurants we have frequented so often on our lunch breaks and the Indian/Bollywood music blaring through our work office windows at the Fiji Arts Council from the streets below, I feel that the potential for popular culture to form transcending “kinships” within Fiji, as Teiawa is arguing, is so great and to an extent I believe that it is already happening in Fiji.  Even as I write this blog I am sitting in an Internet cafe with Bollywood music blaring.

Loud Dancing

Vilsoni Hereniko. A man who I have read and examined academically throughout my Pacific studies journey, has shown me his creative side.  His play Fine Dancing was an intense, confusing and thrilling experience, where at times I was unsure whether to laugh or cry. The Play was originally produced and performed as a wedding present to the guests at his own wedding. A little odd I thought after watching the two hour play depicting a woman’s struggle with sexual and physical abuse from her husband.  Yet the play captured so much more than just domestic violence; the effects of Christianity on Pacific culture, issues around self-identity and perceptions, cultural and societal norms within the Pacific context, and issues around gender binaries. The play was all encompassing in terms of pan Pacific arts and culture, as it included various dances from Rotuma to Tahiti and Hawai’i along with the use of pacific terms such as Mahu which is similar to the Samoan term fa’afafine meaning a third gender person. The inclusion of all these aspects made the performance accessible to a much wider audience than if it were just a portrayal of domestic violence. The main point or concluding message of the play, that I retained, was not to let anyone belittle you and to have a good sense of self-identity.

Hereniko pointed out at the end of the play one of the foundational concrete posts of the Oceania Centre’s structure, which had painted on it a quote out of Epeli Hau’ofa’s well-known article “Our Sea of Islands”. The quote was put there as a reminder to the students and staff who used the Oceania Centre never to let anyone belittle you.  I found this a little surreal. I had only read Hau’ofa’s  “Our Sea of Islands” in a classroom setting detached from the reality of everyday life in the Pacific yet now I was seeing Hau’ofa’s very words permanently marked on a very public structure in Fiji right in front of my eyes, in a very NON-classroom setting! I felt that Fine Dancing had to an extent embodied Hau’ofa’s very words and put it into a context that almost anyone could access.

Hau’ofa says that if the notion of Islanders and their physical surroundings are not countered with more constructive views then this could inflict lasting damage on people’s images of themselves (1994: 150). Here Hau’ofa is referring to self-image in an international context, inferring that the current notions of Islanders are belittling ones.  I found this notion of a belittling self-image, using a more personal approach, was filtered throughout Hereniko’s play. Through domestic violence Hereniko has ingeniously managed to explore the very prevalent issue of self-image within the Pacific region.