The perception of a Papua New Guinean friend…

Here's an interesting email I received from a Papua New Guinean friend of mine a couple of weeks ago…

Hi Rob,

The 'trupela.com' blog fits perfectly with the kind of person you are. You would be surprised how many people know you or have at least seen you and have had more admiration for your 'Dr. Kaupa version of a 'Whiteman.' On the weekend I was listening to a man from Wabag speaking of a Whiteman around Kama how he mingled with the local, etc. I told him that his name is Rob. He couldn't stop talking about you.

If I may use (overuse) an analogy: Jesus - the God lived as human to convert humans from a human experience. Through my interactions with you, I see that you want PNG to be ourselves and be proud of who and what we are rather than becoming a pale photocopies of other foreign ideals or cultures – sadly that is what is happening to us.  Our cultural traditions and values are mere rhetoric. Obviously, the foreign materialism is becoming more attractive to us traditional PNG and we highly regard those that have - people of the higher eulachon, which is widening the gap between the minority haves that have at the expense of the majority have nots.

I was a student of anthropology and sociology but they were all theories back in school  then, but it is amazing how this is all become true especially with my generation in a blink of an eye. Many our us call ourselves Papua New Guineans and yet don't know who we are! For examples, Simbus in Pom  claim they are Simbus but know nothing about their identity. This may be modern PNG but its really is ashame how we value foreign ideals at the expense of our indigenous identities.

Only a few foreigners are dedicated to installing pride in our indigenous identity and you are a unique one of them promoting our simplicity and traditional lifestyle now under enormous threat from the inevitable forces of Globalisation through your blog to the outside world. Ajay's parents should also be credited for promoting a unique PNG development that can be managed and sustained at the village level.

Anyhow, it seems that it is in our nature to grab opportunities (for Western services) and 'pus pus' has become a norm for PNG. So I hope in time it will be in your nature to 'pus pus'…or I would not be surprised seeing you giving a public lecture in a bank or at the GGH Out Patient or Dental Clinic or Michael Apers Clinic where we see it every day.

Thanks for being a trupela man in its true sense. We admire you for your conversion to our society but I hope that in time we will realise the message in it. ( Not to mean you are living a parable …joke tasol).

H.K.