Zoey Bourgazas’ Creative Response Blog

“Kidnapped” by Ruperake Petaia

The opportunity for education is given to many fortunate people around the world, but whether or not they take advantage of it is up to them. Education seems to be one of those societal privileges that many people take for granted. Petaia’s poem, Kidnapped, touches on the reasons for this young boys rejection of the education system he is placed in. His mother is blamed for carelessly abandoning him in what we uncover as a schooling system, and leaving him to be the victim of the stories and events told by “western philosophers armed with glossy-pictured textbooks and registered reputations.”
        The way I see this poem is a kid taking for granted what he is so fortunate to have; education. I know this may not be the point being made, and that the poem is fueled by the treatment of the native people by the white settlers, but his is written from the perspective of someone who is seemingly rejecting the overbearing and inconsiderate actions done unto his people through means of education. The poems ends with an emphasis on the diploma that the boy earns after 15 years of being “kidnapped,” and how he uses it to decorate his wall. What one gets from school is more than just what is learned, but what is experienced as well. I understand the resistance to the white settlers culture, but I don’t understand the resistance to school. It can be an enriching experience regardless of how engaged and receptive one is to what is being learned.

“The Unfinished Fence” by Vilsoni Hereniko

When I was in grade school I had a teacher who never really seemed to treat her students fairly; She was always raising her voice at the kids with different color skin than me, but even some white boys as well. I was one of a few white girls in a class of around 20 boys so she was yelling a lot of the time. It wasn’t something I liked. I don’t know why she seemed to like me but not the boys; I was capable of being just as loud and rowdy as they could. She always talked to me so delicately with a crooked smile and her weird twitch, which I later realized was an attempt at a wink. I liked that she was nice to me, but it wasn’t fair to everyone else. Why was I treated with special privileges? It wasn’t right.
Half of the year had gone by before we were welcoming a new student into our class. His name was Abenezer and he had migrated to America with his family from Ethiopa. Abenezer didn’t speak English very well and it was clear that my teacher found this aspect of her new student as tedious and annoying. Whenever Abenezer would try to speak with our teacher she wouldn’t seem to offer him any guiding help, rather stare at him blankly while projecting no reaction.
I became friends with Abenezer, not out of pity, not because no one else had, but because I purely thought he was the kindest and most hilarious friend I’d grown to know all year.Though we didn’t have the best communication, we didn’t need to talk to one another all that much; we could sit in each other’s presence and laugh. That was enough. My teacher began to notice that we were spending a lot of time together, and that when one day she pulled me aside to tell me something that I later realized was the most disheartening thing I had ever heard an adult say at my young age. She leaned over me with her teaching badge dangling near my face and said, “Zoey, do you want the other students to call you stupid?” I looked at her with confusion and worry, “No! Why would they do that?” I said. She got a little bit closer and whispered “Well maybe you should think about spending less time with Abenezer and more time with your other classmates. Now, go on.” I was confused, I had no idea what she was talking about but I left anyway to play by myself.
I went home that day, with a little slump in my shoulders. Why did she tell me I shouldn’t play with Abenezer? What did he do? Did he steal someones cookies at lunch? I just didn’t understand. I told my mother what my teacher had said and my mom told me something that has stuck with me to this day. She said that I should never judge someone based on the color of their skin, their gender, their hair color, or even their favorite color. She continued to tell me that I can play with whoever I wanted, and that each individual has every right to be treated equally. I smiled at my mom she smiled right back.
My mother looked forward to meeting Abenezer and his family because she knew that we had become such great companions. I never really understood why my teacher acted like Abenezer was any different than me. I liked toys; he liked toys. I liked to laugh; he liked to laugh. We both liked to spin around in circles until we felt like we were going be relieved of the copious amount of cookies we had eaten at lunch. It was always fun with Abenezer. Why was he treated differently?
In Vilsoni Hereniko’s “The Unfinished Fence,” Jimi’s treatment reminded me so much of Abenezer. He was a man who was treated unfairly because of the color of his skin. When reading stories like these it always brings me back to the topic of equality for humankind. How far have we come? How far must we continue going? There is always work to be done. Ignorance plays a large role in the inequalities today. Ignorance is not bliss; you don’t know what you don’t understand, therefore there is no room for judgments in such an intricately woven world.

“Sons for the Return Home” by Albert Wendt

I found this book to be extremely well-written, as well as an additional piece of work that helped in educating me about the sentiments and history surrounding the Pacific island people. The one part that resonated with me the most was each set of parents resentment for one anther. They both felt as though their culture and their ways of parenting were superior to the others. The problem with this was that the Samoan parents had never really witnessed the ways in which the Papalagi people raised their children, nor had they really interacted with the Papalagi people in general. This brought me to think about how quickly people come to judge one another without prior knowledge of that person or that culture.
I always have lived by the rule: if you don’t know, don’t judge. I feel as though that is very applicable for the Samoan and Papalagi parents in this story. Though their behavior may be reactive, a way of “protecting” their children, it isn’t a fair approach to evaluating the character of a person or a group of people. It is important to seek to understand, and then be understood, and that’s a practice the parents could have put into work before heavily refuting the love shared between their children.

“Tango” by Michael Greig -- "Tsamiko" by Zoey Bourgazas

Why do you Greek dance, Zoey?
Is there a reason behind the long woven wool skirts swaying from side to side?
Is there a reason behind the black buckled dancing shoes clicking across the stage?

I dance for my people. I dance to stay connected with those relatives who lay at rest while they spectate and applaud above of our plum red hats, tassels hanging left, as they sway side to side in rhythm with the davul.

What I see is a simple remembrance with each twirl, each spin, each clap, and each whistle. This one is for you Yiayia. Three claps for the chickens that follow behind her. A clap for Papou as he spends his days amongst the olive trees in the small village in which he grew up. A twirl for Theo and Thea.

I dance for my generation. I dance to keep a tradition afloat as if the waves of change and alteration keep breaking the mass off the top of our dreamboat. This one is for you dad.

Kefi describes the whole experience. The clarinet softly wales around the edges of the dance floor where we lie within. The experience is complete and kefi remains.

I dance to stay connected.
I dance to find.

“I’m Not Sorry Any More” by Kali Vatoko

I love how strongly worded this poem is, as if the writer is not afraid to hold back any pent up aggression towards those white settlers who took over her family, land, and overall life. Vatoko doesn’t hesitate to uncover the poor treatment done unto her people by the white settlers, and in this it paints a moving picture for those unaware of what had been going on in the regions of New Hebrides, and many other Pacific Island regions during that time. One of the worst parts about the introduction of the white settlers into the Pacific Islands is that they knew what they were doing was wrong, unjust, and unfair, but because they could take over the land and the people, they did. It shows how ruthless a group of people can be if they are making selfish decisions, and that’s exactly what the white settlers were doing.
At the end of the poem, the author clearly states that if the chance arises, she will take advantage of it and essentially take down the white men. I imagine that this attitude was present all over the Pacific but so many voices were suppressed that nothing could be done, they weren't able to stand up for themselves. The aggressive nature of a lot of the poetry written in the anthology comes from a place of reason. In this, the circumstances of many of these poems manages to remove the emphasis from the malicious intentions, rather placing it on the pain felt by those affected by the white settlers. In these poems it is typical to find many moving passages, representing the collective hurt of the Pacific Island people.

“Kros” by Albert Leomala

I really enjoyed reading and analyzing this poem for my group presentation in week ten. When I read the poem for the first time, I was struck by the attitude and tone that Albert Leomala did not hide in his writing. I was initially impacted by the poem and everything it stood for, as well as stood against. As I started to delve into the reasons behind why Leomala carried such a tone in his poem, I was presented with so much history that I wasn’t previously aware of.
I came to New Zealand four and half months ago, ready to jump into the culture and explore the country in it’s entirety. I knew that I would be taking classes, as I was studying abroad, but I didn’t think they would have such an impact on me as a student and as a person. I almost feel embarrassed to admit how unaware of the all the history that lies within the boundaries of New Zealand, as well as the many islands that surround it, known as the Pacific. I found A Pacific Reader to be an extremely enriching class for me as an international student. Though my knowledge was limited prior to coming to New Zealand, while having to conduct quite a bit of research on my own time, I will say I came out of this class having learned a lot about the Pacific people. Their history is strong and deep rooted, and the fact that I was able to take a paper educating me on those parts of history, I feel like I have really engaged in the New Zealand and Pacific island cultures. A bit of the Pacific will definitely be following me back to the United States.

Sons for the return home (thinking about the story)

Sons for the return home

Sons for the Return Home is a novel written by Albert Wendt, a Samoan novelist. The novel was published in 1973, and is almost regarded as Wendt’ biography.

The novel begins with a dream of a Samoan family trying to “have good education for sons…and return back as a healer like the ‘papalagi doctor’”, but it ends with a big disappointment when they returns back after twenty years, no papalagi doctor, only their son’s broken heart. The story appears to explain that reality is sometimes quite unexpected, full of resistances and brutal.

In order to explain the reason of no return, Wendt digs deep into the social complex of the time. During the period of the family’s immigration, New Zealand is facing serious problems of discrimination, feminism, and colonialism. The discrimination could be found in words like “Dirty coconut Islander”, and also in the family’s preparation for a papalagi visitor, “mother” has to prepare for the whole week to prove that they are not “ignorant Islanders who didn’t know how to live like New Zealanders”. This explains that the white society has a strong discrimination against the island people. Moreover, with respect to feminism, the article mentions that women need to “obey him all things, give him children” or “disappear in the kitchen”, which stresses that women are only fit for house work and being servants, and may always be inferior to man. The most important thing in the novel is the colonialism. For example, the sentence that “We’d defeated them…in a very un-British-gentlemanly sort of way…make them pay for our war…compensation…we even took large areas form the bribes” sufficiently illustrates the brutality of the war between the white and the local, bloody and unfair. But this might lay a solid foundation of the class division in that society, the white are always higher than the brown, for they are the winners. Thus, this inequality may result in social problems and sometimes even cause personal tragedy.

Because of the above situation, the hero, the youngest son of the family, is intertwined with numerous contradictions with pakehas. In the school, for Samoans are normally quite talented in “rugby”, so, the boy becomes a perfect player, always wins the “the stupid game”. However, to the disappointment of the family, because pakeha often considers that “the brainless Islanders” are not good at “physics, chemistry, and biology”, so, the boy finally fails to meet a doctor’s qualification, which complete destroys the family’s desire of a “papalagi” doctor.

Apart from this, the boy suffers huge attack towards his personal affection because of the stereotypical social influences. The boy has a relationship with a pakeha girl, while, the class difference and social taboo change this beautiful love story into a tragedy. The love story between the boy and the pakeha girl looks like a love romance of their own, but it is actually the relationship between two classes or races. To explain this, the author also introduce the concept of “church”, which implies that religious difference might be the very important factor between them, for the God of pakeha is different from the God of Samoan, just as his mother explains that Samoan God is much earlier than the pakeha God.

No matter how much they love with each other, they may be too weak to overcome the “mountain” between them. This mountain may be the integration of religious belief, social taboos, class division and identities. For example, when she follows him to his Samoan circle, the situation would be that “nearly all people watch her… seem that they had never seen any other papalagi there”. On the other hand, when he goes to her circles, he may be questioned for “an islander…are you invited?”, for pakehas couldn’t imagine an islander being in their party. They are probably the minority, the “odd” people in each others’ group. They should be rebels if they choose to love and get marriage, so, the girl gives up at last, for his mother destroys her final courage. The girl, like an angle, tries to eliminate social discrimination and draws him towards her society, and his mother also manages to keep him in her Samoan circle, they all fail eventually.

Her abortion would definitely happen because of the “mountain”, so, his mother just acts as the starting fire. Just the son finally recalls in the airplane “he has nothing to regret”, he may have forgiven his mother’s deed. The physical girl disappears, but the ideological “girl” rises in his heart. The girl is like a sigh of “home”, while, his home town, Samoa, may be his parents’ home, his root, two of them are all places for him to return. He couldn’t choose where to go, so, he could only be a flying man between two nations.

At last, the family returns back to Samoa, with their disillusion of dream. Life may not always develop along with your desire, but sometimes alter your original desire. They miss the chances of being a “papalagi” doctor, while, they obtain rich life experiences and money. They build a “most expensive house” in the village showing their “success”. Ironically, this “crystal house” may not only express their “achievements” but also hind their sadness and disappointment, because, their beloved son, their incentive of dream, and their excuse of immigration, refuses to return back to Samoa. The novel gives a rich imagination for readers at the end, but I would rather believe that the boy may completely come out of his sadness and face the future with great courage, for, with time passing on, everything will become nice memory, but tomorrow is always waiting him to do. Pakeha and Samoan will become good friends one day.

 

 

'I remember, I remember' by Prem Banfal (Presentation)

Prem Banfal’s I remember, I remember deals with many issues such as migration, cultural identity and the idea of losing something you once had and gaining something new in return. All these three major themes are depicted through Banfal’s reminiscence of her childhood. In her story, she tells us her childhood memories with her late mother. She then reveals us the ups and downs of her life when her father remarried twice after her real mother died. She also shows how studying for a scholarship to go to New Zealand made her distant herself away from her family and culture, “My three years at Suva Grammar school led me to a new awareness of myself, a further estrangement from my father and a growing alienation from my own community.” Moreover, during her school years, she starts to put make up on and shave her legs. To me, these kinds of habits are mostly practiced by people who are from Western countries. Therefore, by practicing these habits, she is losing parts of her Fijian image and is conforming to the idea of being a New Zealander. However, despite the changing variables in her life, there appears to be one consistent figure that continues to support and care about her, her Grandmother. In my opinion, this suggests how important it is to have someone who cares about you no matter what you’re going through. Preparing to move to a foreign country requires a lot of positive thinking and can be a life-changing experience. At the end of the story, she gained a scholarship to go to New Zealand for a better education. Simultaneously, she also lost fragments of her Fijian identity, only to be replaced by a New Zealand identity.

What I also loved about this short story is the narrative structure. The story is written through the use of first person narration. Through this, I was able to compare my previous experiences with her experiences. Although my experiences prior to leaving for New Zealand may be different from hers, they somewhat relate to each other. I also loved how the paragraphs in her story are structured; they seem to alternate between positive and negative feelings. Because of this, I was able to get the impression that the reason why Banfal did this is to show the readers how in our lives, people go through many ups and downs, and sometimes these are the experiences that shape us into the individuals we are today.

To conclude, I think the reason why Banfal decided to write about her childhood memories is to show the readers the importance of not forgetting where you came from. It may sound cliché, but it is quite true. Where you came from is what defines you and one that makes you different from others. In the Filipino culture, we have a saying, “Those who do not know how to look back to their origin, will not reach his destination.”

A womens role, a response to Sons for the return home.

Women in society are know as the carer, a mother, a person who can do no harm which of course is not true. Women just like men can commit murder in cold blood. I'm not saying that the girl in the story commit murder but the person that lead to her making the decision the abort her child is the mother of the boyfriend. A christian who told the girl to abort a live that God gave. To me she commit the ultimate sin against God. Even in the Bible it said that Jesus love the little children and told his disciple to let the children come to him and that we adult should be like children in order to get to heaven. I don't know why she persuade the girl to abort her grandchild but what even her reason is I can never accept it. As it can be seen later on in the story the girl regret her decision and refuse to come back to New Zealand, leading to lost love. Me being a huge romantic person who love to read roman book this to me is such a sad story. I love the story with it depth of culture, it stories of their ancestor, its love, it religion, and it breaking away, I love it all. At the end the guy break away from the control of his mother and hit her. Even though it was wrong to hit a elder or your mother I was so happy. I wish I was in the story so that I can see it in real life.

Response to Wild Dogs (Presentation)

Avia was born and raised in Christchurch, but is of Samoan and Palagi descent. She published her first collection of poetry, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, in 2004 and her second, Bloodclot, in 2009. She is also a performance poet and the author of two children’s books. Avia spent ten years travelling the world and teaching in Samoa, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa before returning home to New Zealand. She’s won a variety of awards, more recently being the Janet Frame Literary Trust Award this year worth $5000.

Avia’s work, among other things, is mostly about Pacific themes. It also explores the defining lines between custom and contemporary ideas, and many of her poems have a personal touch to them.

We can safely assume that Wild Dogs is set in Samoa, due her talking about how being tattooed by a tufuga or a tufuga ta tatua (master of tattoo). From looking at her other work, it’s clear that the poet has a strong sense of cultural identity. For example, Alofa also appears to be set in Samoa, as well as the string of poems centred on a girl called Nafanua. These feature ones such as: Nafanua is Surprised at Her Birth, Nafanua Talks About Her Body and Nafanua Relates an Incident From Her Childhood.  She also uses a variety of Samoan words constantly in her writing, such as palagi (foreigner) and alofa (love).

 Wild Dogs Under My Skirt seems to be a kind of denial of typical femininity. The author says she wants to “frighten” her lovers, rather than attract them. This is also a reference to Samoan culture, where it is common for women to get a malu, a traditional tattoo covering both legs. It could be a comparison between that and Western culture, where a woman with her legs tattooed is considered unattractive and unusual. Avia could be showing her preference for Samoa’s view on femininity over New Zealand’s.

Mostly however, I think this poem is about repelling men. In Nafanua’s Sister Talks About The Family, she writes about how she (or the character in the poem), was abused by her father verbally and physically, how her uncle possibly raped her mother, and she expresses a lot of hatred towards them. In another poem, Nafanua Goes To Bed With Her Cousin, she talks about sleeping with her cousin and suggests it is forced. Whether these are based on personal incidents or not, a certain degree of wariness towards men is evident in Wild Dogs.

In this poem, she may even be talking about wanting a pe’a, the tattooing males get on their legs. This is a much larger and more defined tattoo, and goes from their hips to their shins. It is also extremely painful, as is a malu. In this case, Avia is not just saying she wants to scare men, but become one in terms of equality and power, thus removing her femininity entirely.

The exact origin of tattooing is unknown, although the Samoans credit the Fijians, and the Fijians credit the Samoans. As said before, it is an extremely painful process and can take up to a couple of weeks. In Samoa, the tatau is a sign of both woman and manhood. Women get a malu before they marry and for men, getting a pe’a shows you are ready to protect and take care of your family. Men without a pe’a are often referred to as telefua or telenoa, which means “naked”. As well as that, men who cannot continue with the pe’a due to the pain are branded cowards, and this shame will extend to his sons. Women are not allowed to have a pe’a, as stated in the Samoan myth of how the tatau came to be.

Wild Dogs’ tone is overall a rough and aggressive one, which matches the author’s desire to appear so as well, which is apparent in the poem. She uses imagery such as wild dogs, the mangy kind that bite strangers, black octopus, that catch rats and eat them and centipedes, the black ones that sting and swell for weeks. These are all things that are either scary or grotesque, that repel us physically and make us wary, which is how the author wants to be. She doesn’t say she wants to be beautiful like the stars or the moon or anything, like most women want to be. I think she expresses the idea that beauty is over prioritised. And that probably, it’s more prioritised here than in Samoa. She says that after it’s done, she wants “the tufuga to sit back and know they’re not his, they never were.” Which I think is her way of saying that instead of conforming to this traditional idea or demand of beauty, she’s retaining her independency and individuality. And that her body is her own, and no one else’s. 

Response to Sons For the Return Home

Albert Wendt’s Sons For The Return Home outlines both the definition and struggle for cultural identity through the immigration of a Samoan family to New Zealand in the 1970s. His story shows the contrast between the two cultures, and closely examines the perceptions each has for the other. The novel encourages many thought-provoking questions on the much debated topic of culture, and inspires readers to open their minds to never-ending array of ideas.

The story follows the relationship of a young Samoan man and his Papalagi girlfriend in New Zealand. Their relationship is the perfect way to show the comparison between the two ethnicities, and to examine the real differences between them. It also serves as the catalyst which allows us to see people’s reactions to this relationship. While the boy’s father is accepting, having had significant friendships with Papalagi people himself, his mother is nothing but. While she is polite in the girl’s presence and treats her with respect, her tolerance for their relationship is thin. She tells her son that while she likes her, the girl is “not for him” and wouldn’t fit in in Samoa – despite the girl’s enthusiasm and eagerness to learn about the culture. She is also convinced that her own parents would always look down on them and regard them as inferior. While to many, including myself, it may seem clear that regardless of race, gender and class, it’s never wrong for two people to be together, the boy’s mother simply does not agree. Although it is evident in the book that the two love each other deeply and that her son is very happy with his girlfriend, none of this seems to be relevant in her mind because the girl is not Samoan.

The book also voices some of the negative stereotypes of the two ethnicities. His mother constantly tells her children that Papalagi people are rich, selfish and cruel. Although she has met none, she declares the children to all be spoilt, naughty and have no respect for their parents. The women slept with strangers before they were married and the men were lazy, and both lacked religion looked down on Pacific Islanders. Samoans in comparison were respectful, hard-working and faithful. Interestingly enough, the racism she feels is directed at her in turn makes her just as bad. Throughout the book she despises Papalagis for looking down on her (although we never see this), while really, she looks down on them. She is completely oblivious to the fact that Samoans also pride themselves above others, as is her son, who deems the Maori people to be a lazy race who do nothing but gamble, have sex, drink and fight. He however, learns to think otherwise, after examining this stereotype and realising that ironically, it is the same one the Papalagi assign to Samoans. Previously however, he had been raised to think that Samoans were the only true Pacific Islanders left – a very racist and elitist idea. At the start of the novel, he also avoids involvement with Papalagi people altogether due to disliking all of them in general based on the few he has met.

Then there is the question of cultural identity. The title of the story provokes some intriguing thoughts – in the story, the parents decide to move to New Zealand so that their sons may receive a good education, before returning to Samoa. This plan for their sons to “return home” is consistent throughout the book, the whole point being that the main character, the youngest son, does not know where his true home really is. His parents however, never seem to realise that this could be an issue. Growing up in New Zealand, the boy only remembers his birthplace through glamorised stories of Samoa, but he is told (both audibly and psychologically) that he is a Samoan, and Samoa is his home. Unable to be completely at ease in New Zealand, he returns to his motherland with the assumption that he will feel at peace there. Although when he arrives, he realises that cultural identity is not so simple and “home” is more an idea than a physical place. At the end of the book he goes back to New Zealand, ready to start a new life without a single culture to define him. He realises that he might not be Papalagi or Samoan, but both. 

A monologue response to 'Sons For the Return Home'

Background: This is told through the boy’s perspective, which takes place years after he left his family in Samoa.

What and if- two simple words yet they have the power to haunt you for the rest of you entire life. What if? They are just two words that will make you want to tear down the wall of past and wish you didn’t put the smaller brick under a much bigger brick. It’s funny how sometimes in life, you think about the things that could or might have been if you didn’t do this and did that instead. 

Like, what if she didn’t abort the child? We could have been blessed with a beautiful half-caste. I wonder, if it had been a girl, what she would look like. She would have been the complete replica of her beautiful mother; eyes so green and natural, hair so soft and silky, shoulders broad and firm. It wouldn’t matter if she had a fair or dark skin because she would be my daughter and probably the most beautiful girl my heart could ever see. What if her mother didn’t go through the abortion? She could have been like those little girls I see strolling in the park every afternoon. But what if it had been a boy? Well, I would raise him like a strapping young lad. I’d teach him how to play rugby and let him play at school. 

But I guess it all comes down to me and our decision to move to New Zealand. What if I stayed in Samoa all these years? I would probably be still living in our village and helping out my family. I would probably still feel the same way about Samoa. She and I would never have met each other and I wouldn’t be in this situation right now. But then I think to myself again. What if I stayed in Samoa? I wouldn’t have had the chance to go to a better school. I wouldn’t have been able to gain myself a BA in History, or learned English. If only I knew then what I knew now, my life could have been a lot merrier.  They say, “Always look on the brighter side.” But I don’t know which side is brighter anymore because the bright side is also the dark side.  

point of no return (for presentation)

Point of no return post

Point of no return was written by Tongan famous writer and social anthropologist Pesi fanua. The story describes the things happened during the time period of 1980s to 1990s, when Tonga was experiencing the big wave of immigration.

Fanua uses “no letter”, “no money”, and “no return” to reveal the reality of immigration. Migrants moved out for earning money and mailing back, but, they may stop the action at anytime, for, everything might happen to the outside migrants at that time: losing job, being put into prison for illegal immigration, marrying with other people to keep staying outside or others. In the article, Fanua uses “what the stupid man is doing in Hawai’i” to explain people’s guessing, for that might be very common situation for immigrants.

With “no return” happened, all kinds of contradiction appeared: family broken, children alcohol abuse, women working at night. This situation could also be found from a another family: kalipa’s family, his father married to a New Zealand’s woman to obtain an immigrating qualification, and deported the son, who had to become a beggar back to Tonga. These serious social problems seemed endless, for many more families were going to move out again. According to Kalipa, there were another two couples who were going to hold farewell parties.

All people were planning to go out, while, at that moment, the writer turn to describe that there were somebody else, who still held the country’s identity: Uasi and a few of their people. In the article, the writer seemed to describe a drunker, Uasi, but, it was this drunker, who claimed that he was upholding the country’s identity. It appeared that no one would believe the words of a drunker, while, the voice from the drunker was really clear “drink a lot of kava, for you will soon going out, and you will lose this precious liquid”. Uasi tended to imply that if people went out, people may forget their identity and the tradition of the country. These words gave readers a shock, the drunker was actually sober, and he just used kava to anaesthetize himself, for he couldn’t face the fierce reality, and he needed to vent his disappointment.

In this short novel, the author didn’t write who the father is, and what the family is going to react to the “no return”, however, he suggests some implication: no job for the boy to find, low wage in the country, women would find night job, the friend is begging…all the signals indicate that the only way for the boy is still immigration, following the father’s footmark. Therefore, the “no return” is just the beginning of the migrant, this “no return” would still continue in the near future.