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.