Fiji media risks ending up like Chinese press, says academic

Chinese language media in New Zealand relies heavily on free content from mainland China's media and is “importing the propaganda line to Chinese-language discourse in New Zealand”.

By Steve Chae: Pacific Media Centre

Fiji’s media is at risk of becoming like the Chinese press with an authoritarian model under the censorship regime, says a New Zealand journalism academic.

“In the West, the media’s role is mainly seen as a watchdog. In Fiji, the traditionally western-style media is now under threat from a military regime that doesn’t want to accept independent news in a country that is very diverse ethnically and religion,” says Pacific Media Centre director associate professor David Robie.

“The cultural complexities in Fiji are such that many in people in the country believe there should be nation-building media.”

While the majority of the population of 940,000 are indigenous Fijian (54 percent), there is a 37 percent Indo-Fijian minority and other races. The country’s dominant religion is Methodist, but among the Indo-Fijians, a majority is Hindu without about a third Muslim.

China has growing economic and political influence in Fiji since the December 2006 coup. Fiji imposed draconian censorship on April 10.

Ranjit Singh, former publisher of Fiji Daily Post and now chief reporter of the Indian Weekender in New Zealand, says: “Fiji never had democracy but the problem arises from pushing the Western concept of democracy”.

“It’s a first world solution to a third world country,” he says.

“That does not help to understand the complexities of the Fiji issue. The issue is not black and white. It’s got shades of grey.”

Dr Robie says the Fiji media is expected by many people to help solidify national identity.

“The Chinese media has parallels with Fiji in that their journalists are also trying to find a space within the authoritarian media,” he says.

“But the New Zealand media reacts with shock and horror at the lack of plurality of ideas in these media.”

Propaganda machines
A Press article reports how the Chinese government propaganda machines work in a two-pronged strategy aimed at Chinese people at home and also abroad.

Dr Anne-Marie Brady says Chinese people in New Zealand are affected by the Chinese propaganda focused on those living overseas.

An associate professor at the University of Canterbury’s School of Political and Social Sciences, Dr Brady gave a talk on the operations of Chinese propaganda to the US Security Commission in Washington last month.

She says the Chinese language media in New Zealand relies heavily on free content from the Chinese media and is important – “especially to new migrants to New Zealand”.

This is “importing the propaganda line to Chinese-language discourse in New Zealand”.

David Soh, publisher of the Mandarin Times, says 80 percent of his readers are native speakers who are born and raised in China.

He says new migrants to New Zealand feel a sense of belonging to China but accept they are citizens of a new country.

The paper makes subscriptions to Xinhua news agency in China but also fills its pages daily with translations of New Zealand news.

Soh says he is free to report on anything he likes and will respond with criticism on things that are happening in China.

Tibet divisive
Last year’s Tibet incident was sensitive and had “quite a divisive effect” within the Chinese community, whereas the Sichuan earthquake was emotional and reached a common feeling.

He says he does not promote things that are illegal in China such as the Falun Gong practitioners but accepts they are legal in New Zealand.

Asked about Fiji, Soh says it is “a different world where law and order is not good at the moment”.

Hewitt Wang, editor of Skykiwi.com, says the media he works for is a New Zealand media and presents the opinions of Chinese community in New Zealand.

“We accept all the opinions from worldwide media - not just the Chinese media,” he says.

Ethnic community media should be publishing all views, including the Chinese propaganda.

“Propaganda depends on how you define it. I like to think of it in a positive way,” says Wang.

Dr Robie says propaganda is “uncontested information which can be plain wrong, or disinformation calculated to achieve a manipulated mindset”.

“With competing media, the truth will emerge somewhere down the track. When government imposes news values, that single view becomes propaganda,” he says.

Language ability
Virginia Chong, vice-president of the New Zealand Chinese Association, says she does not read Chinese language media in New Zealand because she has lost the language ability having been born here.

Chong says international students can become influenced by the Chinese language media here.

“Every country puts out spin and everybody has their own impression on those things,” she says.

Dr Robie says Chinese language media in New Zealand has not yet made a transition from being a media “enclave from China to culturally based media in New Zealand”.

“It will evolve in the future when Chinese media will become a lot more integrated within New Zealand society,” he says.

He also says the New Zealand mainstream media make judgments of other media through “cultural lens” and this could also be a form of propaganda.

Singh says there is biased reporting of the Fiji issue in New Zealand in that only negative stories are played.

But within the community media in New Zealand, he says he would like to “put a positive spin on Fiji”, referring to the Indian Weekender which covers Indian diaspora news, including Fiji.

He says journalists in Fiji can be better educated on how to report for Fiji.

“The political situation now can be partially blamed on the Fiji media,” he says.

Behind the story
“As journalists we really need to see the story behind the issue and investigate these things,” says Singh.

Dr Robie says: “The harm caused to Fiji is already very great.”

He blames New Zealand foreign policies for its “short sightedness” since December 2006.

“The situation in the Pacific is now quite volatile,” he says.

“New Zealand has been like a big brother to Fiji as we pride ourselves as a being part of Pacific.

We now have to report these stories better with more depth and more comprehensively,” says Dr Robie.

Steve Chae is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University. Pictured: Pro-Chinese rally in Aotea Square, Auckland.

NZ expert tells of Chinese propaganda

Cooking Chinese dishes for dummies

By Kristina Koveshnikova: Pacific Media Centre

China Daily has held its very first cooking classes for foreigners.

Lessons in preparing traditional Chinese cuisine were offered at the Yosemite village in Shunyi district, Beijing.

Chinese people enjoy good food and take pride in their famous dishes. Over the centuries cooking has developed into a very sophisticated art, with several types of dishes from north to south and east to west.

Chinese cuisine has become widespread in many other parts of the world, from Canada and America to as far as New Zealand.

The art of Chinese cooking is not at all difficult and anyone can learn how to make traditional Chinese dishes.

Chefs from a local restaurant were invited by China Daily to teach foreigners how to make popular Chinese dishes like spring rolls, kunpo chicken and dumplings.

Dozens of people from over seven different countries came along. Some even brought the whole family to the event.

After each cooking demonstration, guests had the opportunity to prepare the dishes themselves, using the skills they had just learned.

The dumplings seemed to be the hardest dish to prepare among the three，coming out in all sorts of different shapes and sizes.

But all the foreigners at the event agreed Chinese food is a lot easier to cook than it may appear.

So anyone can master it.

Happy cooking!

Pictured: Kristina (centre) takes a turn at Chinese cooking in Beijing (China Daily).

Kristina Koveshnikova is an AUT graduate journalist who is on a Pacific Media Centre internship with the China Daily sponsored by the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

Cooking Chinese dishes for dummies [video]

Amnesty to engage Pacific media in campaign against poverty

By Josephine Latu: Pacific Media Watch

Amnesty International is gearing up to launch a “demand dignity” campaign with a focus on human rights and poverty in the Pacific region.

The dignity campaign is a global project to promote social and economic human rights, focusing on poverty issues.

The role of the media in this campaign has been highlighted at a special seminar hosted by the School of Communications at AUT University, labelled “Putting human rights at the heart of Pacific journalism”.

Amnesty's deputy director in New Zealand, Rebecca Emery, said: “We find that the understanding of human rights among the media and the New Zealand general public is probably not as well understood as it should be."

The organisation is seeking to develop a “new media network” to bring more awareness about human rights issues in the region.

Emery added that Amnesty was expanding its focus from civil and political rights, to social and economic rights, and that development in the Pacific was seen “a rights issue”.

“We will be looking at the slums in the Pacific – first up, Fiji, then the Solomons and Vanuatu,” she said.

TVNZ’s Pacific affairs correspondent Barbara Dreaver also pointed to poverty as the “biggest issue in the Pacific”.

She gave the example of Kiribati, where “prostitution [of young women] to foreign fisherman, sometimes encouraged by their families”, was a reality of the struggle for survival.

Dreaver also spoke about human rights in the Fiji and her own experiences.

‘Fearless reporting’
She added that “fearless” reporting was needed to bring attention to human rights abuses that communities may prefer to keep hidden.

However, she said journalists needed to report on solutions as well as the problem.

Pacific Cooperation Foundation programme coordinator David Vaeafe said that in a survey conducted at the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) conference in the Solomons in 2007, Pacific journalists identified three main human rights themes as priorities:

• governance, leadership and freedom of expression;

• environmental rights;

• and children’s rights.

He announced that the Pacific Cooperation Foundation was currently working with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission on a learning website for environmental rights reporting, due to launch in at the PINA conference in Vanuatu in mid-July.

The site will include online tutorials, training modules, documents about freedom of information laws, and Pacific country profiles.

“It will be a live working site that will be updated constantly,” he said.

“It’s accessible to everyone and people can go through the training modules at their own pace.”

The modules were written by four journalists from the Pacific and New Zealand, and covered print, radio, television and online reporting.

Picture: Fiji soldiers keeping the press at bay (Radio Fiji).

Josephine Latu is a masters student in the School of Communication Studies and also contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre's Pacific Media Watch database.

Amnesty International NZ Pacific Media Watch on Pacific media and human rights

Labour MP vows to seek parliamentary support for Aung San Suu Kyi

By Violet Cho: Pacific Media Centre

Outspoken Labour MP Maryann Street has vowed to initiate a motion in New Zealand’s Parliament calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all Burmese political prisoners, saying it was a responsibility of parliamentarians to “add our voices” to the international clamour.

She spoke during a vigil last night organised in support of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who is on “trial” by the military regime after being accused of breaking state law.

About 40 people – including local politicians, activists and students – braved the rain and cold to attend the vigil.

Street, who is also chairperson of the NZ Parliamentarians’ Caucus on Burma, said: “It is our responsibility to add our voices to the clamour of international voices heard for Burma to move towards democracy”.

Dr Suu Kyi has been charged for breaching the terms of her 13 years of house arrest after an American Mormon John W. Yettaw swam across a lake and entered her house this month.

The trial started on Monday and is continuing. She is being held in Burma’s notorious Insein Prison in Yangon while the charges and evidence are being heard.

Many commentators believe this trial reveals that Burma’s military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), plans to justify the extension of her detention, which would have expired by the end of this month.

She could face five years’ imprisonment if she is found guilty.

“We are gathering to show our support for Aung San Suu Kyi and demand international action,” said Naing Koko, director of the National Council of the Union of Burma’s New Zealand office.

“Suu Kyi has been detained for more than 13 years and she must be freed.”

“The trial is all about keeping any voices of dissent silent in the run up to rigged elections next year.

'Exposing the lies'
“It exposes the lies the generals have been telling that elections next year will bring change. In fact, the election and constitution are all about keeping the generals in power.”

Joe Carolan, a representative of Socialist Aotearoa, gave a speech calling for New Zealand companies to stop all trade with Burma.

He also rejected the idea that international governments should play a key role in bringing change to Burma:

“Change is going to come to the region from the ordinary people, from the poor and from the student movement there, not from the likes of the British, the United States or the United Nations”.

On Wednesday, Dr Suu Kyi’s trial was briefly opened up for reporters and diplomats but generally it has been closed for the public.

Su Kyi has been in detention without trial for more than 13 of the past 19 years.

There was a schedule for her to be freed by the end of this month after serving six years’ house arrest that started in May 2003.

To justify her security, the military placed her under house arrest after her travel to northern Burma was ambushed by pro-government mobs.

Demonstrations have been taking place this week in more than 20 cities across the globe.

Pictures: Top: The Auckland vigil (Violet Cho); middle: Aung San Suu Kyi at a Yangon rally when out of house arrest; and above: local Burmese leader Naing Koko.

Violet Cho is the 2009 Asian Journalism Fellow with AUT’s Pacific Media Centre.

Burma junta bars media and diplomats from Aung San Kyi trial again

Tensions faced media, aid workers in Sri Lanka

The news media had had little access to civilians in the dying stages of Sri Lanka's civil war which ended this month. This made media dependent on sourcing details from aid organisations.

By Amanda Fisher: Pacific Media Centre

A natural tension existing between aid workers and journalists working in humanitarian crises was evident in the current conflict in Sri Lanka, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

ICRC head of public and media relations Florian Westphal told a conference on reporting war held at Massey University, Wellington, yesterday that tense conditions in Sri Lanka had made it extremely difficult for aid workers to fully cooperate with the media.

“That was a real dilemma for us because, on the one hand, there was a real interest for us in that being covered...[but] on the other hand, we had to be extremely careful that we didn’t say something that may compromise the little we could do,” he said.

“You’re constantly trying to strike the right balance.”

The media had had little access to civilians in Sri Lanka, which had made them dependent on sourcing details from aid organisations, Westphal said.

It was often the most newsworthy situations which were the hardest for aid workers to negotiate.

“Our main responsibility is to have access to the people we set out to help, and to what extent are we going to jeopardise that?”

Joint role
Media and humanitarians often held a similar function in areas of conflict for the outside world and, in that regard, were united in some of their aims, Westphal said.

“Both the media and aid organisations are probably the most prominent sources of what all of us learn about war and suffering.”

Often a member of the media or an aid organisation may be the only outsider present to report on what is happening in a particular situation, he said.

However, while the media and aid organisations might share an end goal of tackling injustices, their operational methods were routinely vastly different.

While there were similarities in the ultimate aim of being “agents for change”, media and aid organisations worked toward different targets within that context, Westphal said.

“We always have to bear in mind that aid organisations and media have different objectives.

“The media have quite a different job.”

Helping victims
The aims of aid agencies to help victims and have access to them often involved objectives at odds with the media, who sought to disseminate information to the public regardless of direct impact on immediate victims, he said.

“Our responsibility is to the people that are the victims of the events.

“Talking to journalists can jeopardise access, especially when you’re talking about something really sensitive, like access to prisoners on the understanding that we won’t speak with reporters.

“It’s not just through exposure and denunciation that we get things done in this world – in some situations it can actually get quite harmful.”

Speaking at the same conference, freelance foreign correspondent Jon Stephenson recognised the value of aid agencies, while criticising them for being, at times, unnecessarily taciturn.

“It’s very important for us as journalists to recognise the contribution aid groups make...but the ICRC isn’t faultless and should be subject to criticism.

“The ICRC could have done more in tipping off the media”, especially in relation to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which details of human rights abuses were only just emerging, he said.

Useful tool
Westphal said the value of the media to humanitarian organisations should also be recognised. That value was wide-ranging, amounting to more than just a financial stimulus to generating aid.
The news media was a very good tool in placing issues in the public forum and motivating people, he said.

“It’s not just about funding but also about positioning...you have to be seen to be doing something, and that happens through the media.

“We want to raise public awareness of the suffering.”

Westphal cited the example of nurse Florence Nightingale who found the motivation to act because of newspaper reports on the Crimean War.

Generating funds was an essential byproduct of media exposure, and something currently of particular importance, he said.

“The economic crisis is not just affecting the media, but is also affecting our sector in a major way.”

Latest estimates were anticipating a 25 percent decrease in aid organisation donations, he said.

Optimistic view
Despite any tensions, Westphal said he was optimistic about the relationship between aid organisations and the media.

“I’m pretty optimistic there’s a lot of good day-to-day cooperation going on.

“We have a good relationship, but there are a number of issues we need to work through.”

There were areas which both groups needed to improve on in order to meet the needs of an evolving world, he said.

“The agenda of the media and aid organisations tends to be quite fast-moving and fickle. When the next big event comes along, people quite quickly lose focus.

“The cases of forgotten conflict are not just the fault of journalists but also our fault too.”

“Another shared challenge is where and to what extent we really are a welcome presence in aid areas these days...If what we are trying to do is not accepted then we do not usually have the basis that allows us to go out to those areas and do our jobs.”

There was suspicion among some civilians that the media and aid organisations were agents of western colonialism, operating through a framework of western ideals, he said.

Westphal queried why conflicts such as those in the Congo were less favourably covered in the media than western-led conflicts such as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.

“Our motives are necessarily being questioned.”

Other areas where the media and aid organisations needed to proceed cautiously included not presenting civilians as “passive recipients of aid” when reports quite clearly showed a substantial amount of support came from within the affected community, and in not over-simplifying conflicts into tales of good and evil when they were often much more complex, he said.

Camera footage
Westphal said the ICRC was committed to collaborating with the media and would continue to disseminate information and camera footage among journalists.

However, in pursuit of greater transparency and credibility, sources of footage and information should be declared by media outlets, he said.

“Audiences here expect us to be truthful and expect us to be credible.”

He also cautioned that aid agencies were not simply another supply of news gatherers.

“There is a tendency to rely on aid workers as being the next generation of news gatherers...just bear in mind that our objectives are not necessarily the same as yours. We do have our own agenda and I’m not going to apologise for that.

“We can help with news gathering but we are not news gatherers first.”

The media should avoid an over-reliance on aid organisations for information on what to report as decisions on the public line were often made at headquarters, and not on the field, where the dynamics were quite different, he said.

Conversely, he acknowledged aid agencies were too often directed by the media.

“It’s easy for us to critique the media but we need to be very, very self-critical because we as aid organisations have tended to adapt to the agenda set by the news media.

“We have also not been willing to take the risk to work on something that won’t get picked up on by the media.”

Pictured: Top: ICRC's Florian Westphal; above: freelance foreign correspondent Jon Stephenson. Photos: Michael Dickison and Matt Backhouse (Massey University student journalists).

Amanda Fisher is a student journalist in Massey University’s Department of Communication, Journalism and Marketing.

Reporting Wars conference - Sydney, May 18
Reporting Wars conference - Wellington, May 22
Wellington conference programme
Sri Lanka declares end to war with Tamil Tigers

Burma's armed conflict cripples food supplies

Villagers who have fled their homes in eastern Burma keep moving. Many areas are dangerous because of landmines, military checkpoints and patrols.

By Violet Cho: Pacific Media Centre

Burmese civilians and internally displaced people in eastern parts of Burma are suffering severe food shortages due to the ongoing armed conflict and an increase of state militarisation.

“The food shortage is a serious problem among internally displaced civilians and they now heavily rely on eating bamboo shoots and other food sources that they can collect in the jungle for their survival,” says Saw Steve, an executive member of Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People (CIDKP).

The Burmese civil society group, based on the Thai-Burma border, is working to assist communities effected by the crisis.

Burmese rights organisations are expressing deep concern for the civilians who are suffering direct consequences from the conflict between state military and ethnic resistance groups.

They also condemned the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the ruling military regime in Burma, which has intensified their military operations in ethnic minority areas.

Local rights groups claim the food crisis is a direct result of systematic militarisation and exploitation by the regime.

Saw Albert, a leading member of the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), has been working on a recently released report on the crisis.

“The food crisis has been gradually worsening since the beginning of the SPDC's Northern Offensive in late 2005” he says.

“With increased attacks on village communities and an intensified forced relocation campaign over the last three and a half years, food insecurity is at an all-time high.

“In military-controlled areas, villagers struggle to both meet the constant demands of the SPDC and their allied military groups and provide food for their families.”

No hiding places
Because of the ongoing conflict and repression in the area, it is very difficult and dangerous to meet affected villagers and provide relief.

Villagers who have fled their homes never have a permanent place to hide – they are constantly moving so local NGOs cannot know where to find them. Many areas are dangerous because of landmines, Burmese military checkpoints and patrols and active combat with insurgent armies.

Despite these risks, CIDKP field staff secretly distribute much needed supplied to small communities hiding in the forests.

If caught with supplies like food and medicine, field staff can be killed by Burmese troops, who use a strategy of cutting supplies to insurgent groups.

It is even more risky to carry equipment like cameras and recorders, as they are only used by activists documenting abuses. KHRG staff secretly collect testimonies from villagers in hiding and photograph abuses, which they use for their reports and advocacy.

One villager explained the extent of the food crisis to an anonymous KHRG field worker: “Only two villagers out of 10 have enough rice. They are borrowing from each other just to stay alive.”

Another villager from Nyaunglebin District, in northeastern Burma, explained that villagers do not have a proper time to do their own work for their survival.

“The SPDC army camp is located beside our village, so we always have to do loh ah pay [forced labour] for them. We do not have much time to do our own work. Now we are doing their work, such as cutting bamboo poles and delivering them to their [SPDC] camp.”

Villagers in displaced areas are sharing limited food supplies with each other just to stay alive. Because they are on the run, they cannot plant crops like rice, which is their staple food.
Instead they rely on collecting food from the forest.

Paddy plants
A villager who is displaced by the on-going military offensive said that “every time when the Burmese [SPDC] soldiers have arrived at our villager, we have had to flee. So, we haven’t had time to take care of our paddy plants in the fields. They [the fields] are covered with weed. If the SPDC did not disturb us, we would have enough food every year.”

Burmese populations in eastern parts of Burma can be categorised into two groups: those living in the SPDC controlled areas and those who hide in the jungle, refusing to live in forced relocation sites under military watch.

Due to the combination of military demands in the form of forced labour, arbitrary taxation, looting and ad hoc demands for food, money or other supplies, have placed a dangerous burden on villagers' livelihoods.

The practice of land confiscation, restriction of movement (villagers are not freely allowed to go to their farm or plantation areas) and forced relocation exacerbate poverty and dramatically increase food insecurity.

Meanwhile, in areas not under the military control, the SPDC troops are forcing villagers into relocation sites through their common practice of attacking villagers and destroying food stores, burning rice fields and livestock.

Villagers who managed to escape the military attacks are facing further threats of food insecurity their unstable living condition in hiding side in the forest, according to the KHRG report.

The report also documented the regime government’s shoot-on-sight policy, planting landmines and restrictions on villagers to trade with each other also created an extreme difficult for villagers to leave their hiding site in order to collect hidden food stores, to work in their former fields or purchase food supplies.

A villager interviewed by KHRG staff, complained that they felt like they were not treated as human beings. “The SPDC doesn’t see us as villagers. They identify us as their enemy. So when they see us, they shoot to kill us all.”

By documenting the food crisis, KHRG is providing recommendations for the international community on actions that can be taken to ease the current crisis and prevent future abuse and malnutrition in rural Burma.

The recommendations include increased support for cross-border aid and local civil society organisations, which can access affected populations and support the local food security protection measures that villagers in rural Burma have already developed.

Humanitarian aid
KHRG spokeswoman September Paw called for increased humanitarian aid to villagers in rural Burma: "Villagers in Karen State are faced with a serious food crisis as the direct result of military abuse.

She explained how Burmese villagers have been trying their best seeking various ways to address this food crisis, to maintain their livelihoods and to resist military abuse. “Despite these strategies, there is a great need for humanitarian aid to be scaled up to reach these people.”

However, She confirmed that, “the locally-driven protection measures developed by villagers themselves should first be taken into account in order to effectively address this crisis.”

Like civilians in eastern part of Burma are now suffering form food crisis, Burmese people in western part of Burma, Chin State has been plagued by a severe food shortages due to the reduction of local harvest and food production.

The crisis was started in 2006 when a new cycle of bamboo flowering that occurs about every 50 years in the region.

This bamboo flowers are eaten by rats and triggering the explosion of rats population, which destroyed the crop.

This has caused serious food shortages for Burmese villagers, as they are primarily dependent on subsistence farming through shifting cultivation.

Violet Cho is from Burma and is the Asian Journalism Fellow with the Pacific Media Centre. She is is studying on the Bachelor of Communication Studies (Honours) programme. The picture of displaced Burmese villagers is from the Karen Human Rights Group report.

Food crisis: The accumulative impact of abuse in rural Burma

'‘We have a little girl here, come down and work it out'

The year Ofa Donaldson was born, in 1972, there were 3600 adoptions in New Zealand. But rediscovering her Tongan cultural roots was an extra challenge.

By Sylvia Giles: Pacific Media Centre

Proud family photographs hang on the walls of the Donaldson’s Hamilton home - just like houses up and down New Zealand. Ofa Donaldson’s picture is somewhat conspicuous in the family line up, as the only brown face in an otherwise palagi family.

Being adopted may not make Ofa, 36, unique - in 1972 there were 3600 adoptions in New Zealand. It does not even make her unique in her own immediate family, where a younger brother is also adopted, the pair being followed by two biological children.

Yet Ofa’s Tongan lineage stares her in the face.

“It wasn’t like I looked in the mirror one day, and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Mum! I’m brown! What’s going on?’

“It was just a natural thing. I always knew I was an adopted kid. It was just like I was adopted, and Mum and Dad were Mum and Dad,” she says.

“It was really funny around teenage years. Mum would come down to school, and I’d yell out, ‘Mum!’ and my friends would be like, ‘Aye? Your mum is white!’ But for me it was always a fun thing.”

Strictly speaking, Ofa Donaldson’s surname is still Talatala, as her adoption was never made formal.

“Mum and Dad just got a call from social welfare saying we have a little girl here, and would they like to come down here and work it out?”

But Ofa still calls herself Tongan, especially in recent years.

“Going to Tonga and meeting actual family. I never thought it would be so important, but it was. And it was like, wow, this is actually where my family is from.”

Urban Polynesian
Unusual circumstances aside, she is a second generation, urban Polynesian, and like so many others finding her place in the Pacific. The urban Polynesian has grown in influence in New Zealand, particularly as it is growing at a faster rate than the overall population.

It is a trend apparent in New Zealand pop culture, visible across film, music, art and theatre; the latest telling hybrid is perhaps Othello Polynesia, which is just about to hit Wellington at the Downstage Theatre.

David Fane is just one of the figureheads of this movement. He is a host at Flava fm, is one of the brains behind Bro’town, and a mainstay of The Naked Samoans, and Outrageous Fortune.

Born in New Zealand, he sees a big difference between him and his parents’ identity.

“When my parents came out they joined the church straight away, to draw the community around them. My generation doesn’t feel the need to be a part of a specific island group.

“But that’s not a breakdown. There is no way we’d survive if we held on to those ways. You need to adapt.”

It’s a theme through his many projects, depicting “the Samoan I chose to be”. He makes a trip back to Samoa every three years also, initially joking it is important to him for the duty free.

“But no, and for the chance to catch up with family. But you become very mindful of the difference between being Samoan and being a Samoan New Zealander,” he says.

“You become half-bred of both.”

Pasifika heritage
Ofa Donaldson herself made two trips to Tonga in her thirties to discover her Pasifika heritage.
However after two weeks, she was so rattled by the whole experience she decided to come home early, to her “normal family, and flushing toilets and normal food”.

But her trip was to culminate in her meeting her biological father, almost by accident. In the network of Tongan families that is now woven across the Pacific, she bumped into the sister of a Tongan colleague from back home in Hamilton.

“She knew I was coming to Tonga, but I hadn’t told her when. And that’s how we met my Dad. Because she said, ‘Your Dad is here, he was been waiting 34 years to met you.’”

“It was really emotional. He cried. He could hardly speak any English. So it went me, translator and then him,” she says tracing out their positions on the kitchen table with an index finger, indicating the interloper placed between them.

“Until then I had only heard it from my mother. He explained how he got deported, how he wrote lots of letters to people he knew in New Zealand to try to find me.

“He wants you to know he hadn’t forgotten about you, the uncle explained. And he and my mother weren’t talking so she didn’t tell him where I was.”

But the voluntary pilgrimage still didn’t make the imprint of being forced to meet her birth mother as a 12-year-old child, an experience she describes as “bizarre”.

Her adoptive mother had been upset for the week leading up to it. Ofa Talatala, after all, was still a foster child.

Her Dad, on the other hand, she described as being “a typical English, middle class male: no emotion, just pat, pat, it will be ok”.

Cultural contrast
Which runs in stark cultural contrast with the next piece of Ofa’s storytelling: “When we left [her birth mother’s house], I remember her coming out of the house and standing under the tree, and just wailing,” she recalls.

“I was just like ‘get me out of here’. But it must have been so emotional on her part.

At the time I was like, ‘Oh, my god, how embarrassing, who does that? But for her it must have been grieving. And no shame in it for Tongans, I guess”.

So where does Ofa Donaldson take her cultural cues from in such situations, whether she be adult or child, in New Zealand or in Tonga?

“I really don’t know. It has been cool going back to Tonga, and seeing where I am from, but I think I am so heavily engrained in New Zealand culture.

“It’s not like I am going to drown myself in Tongan stuff now. Some people would, but I am happy to know that I am Tongan, and I’ve been there and met the people.
“I’m happy. Just putting the tapa up, I’m like, ‘that’s me!’”

Sylvia Giles is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on the AUT Asia-Pacific Journalism course. She took the photograph of Ofa Donaldson at her home in Frankton.

Othello Polynesia