![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deckardcanineIn preparation for my New Zealand tour, my sister and her boyfriend bought me two books about the country for Christmas. I decided to read the shorter one first and save the big one, Keri Hulme's The Bone People, for the trip.
The title refers to a Maori taunt loosely translated by an explorer. Aptly enough, about half the book is about the early history of interactions between Europeans and Maori, with occasional parallels in the Americas. The rest, interspersed throughout, is New England-born author Christina Thompson's own account starting from her decision to study in New Zealand. She ended up marrying a Maori and having kids with him. While she reports no major marital conflicts, the overarching theme is always clear: when worlds collide.
From the sound of it, no two contemporary cultures ever met with more differences than the Europeans and Maori of the 17th century. Even today, with a common language, the latter possess attitudes rather foreign to most White New Zealanders, let alone Americans. For example, they're not big on individual achievements. That leads to them being often seen as lazy; by the same token, they see others as selfish. Not that bigotry is any more fashionably open in New Zealand than here, but it surely persists. And the author's family moving to Australia, California, and Hawaii did not escape a certain amount of clash. Perhaps most interesting were the reactions of in-laws.
Ms. Thompson does a good job of sounding fair in her assessment of her own heritage and her husband's, championing neither over the other. She doesn't spare the shocking details of past savagery on each side, nor does she emotionally detach herself. I don't share all her sentiments, but I understand. Her adult life decisions, wise or unwise, have certainly been interesting.
Looking for something to finish pretty quickly before the trip, I've picked up another Christmas gift, John Pollack's The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics. (Say that last part out loud if you don't notice its pun.)
The title refers to a Maori taunt loosely translated by an explorer. Aptly enough, about half the book is about the early history of interactions between Europeans and Maori, with occasional parallels in the Americas. The rest, interspersed throughout, is New England-born author Christina Thompson's own account starting from her decision to study in New Zealand. She ended up marrying a Maori and having kids with him. While she reports no major marital conflicts, the overarching theme is always clear: when worlds collide.
From the sound of it, no two contemporary cultures ever met with more differences than the Europeans and Maori of the 17th century. Even today, with a common language, the latter possess attitudes rather foreign to most White New Zealanders, let alone Americans. For example, they're not big on individual achievements. That leads to them being often seen as lazy; by the same token, they see others as selfish. Not that bigotry is any more fashionably open in New Zealand than here, but it surely persists. And the author's family moving to Australia, California, and Hawaii did not escape a certain amount of clash. Perhaps most interesting were the reactions of in-laws.
Ms. Thompson does a good job of sounding fair in her assessment of her own heritage and her husband's, championing neither over the other. She doesn't spare the shocking details of past savagery on each side, nor does she emotionally detach herself. I don't share all her sentiments, but I understand. Her adult life decisions, wise or unwise, have certainly been interesting.
Looking for something to finish pretty quickly before the trip, I've picked up another Christmas gift, John Pollack's The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics. (Say that last part out loud if you don't notice its pun.)