I suppose the oddest moment came during a lecture on Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. At a friend’s place the evening before, I’d eaten some rather strong hash brownies but assumed the effects would wear off by the following morning. Besides, I had my lecture notes from the previous year, which looked pretty thorough. So I started my lecture, and though I still felt a little little-headed, what I was saying didn’t seem to sound too improbable. About halfway through, I reached a section where I began to analyse how both sides, Trojans and Greeks, were ironically undercut and, as a consequence, so too were the values they stood for. And there at the end of the analysis I had written in large capital letters: SO, YOU SEE, EVERYTHING IS MEANINGLESS. I read this out. And then paused, allowing the profundity of the insight to wash over me. It was absolutely true: everything was meaningless. I read it out again. And again paused. The lecture room was very quiet except for the slight click-click of the fan on the ceiling. After such a revelation, there seemed nothing left to say, so I picked up my books and walked out. In the next Shakespeare lecture a couple of days later I went on as though nothing had happened, but after that I was always careful to check my notes in case of unexpected profundities.
[…]
One of the many reasons people become immigrants is they hope that, like my friend Andrew, they may leave behind their past self. Ovid’s contemporary Horace would have wondered about that:
Why change our homes for regions under
Another sun? What exiled man
From self can sunder?
Horace, as usual, sounds sensible. We may go elsewhere, but aren’t we inside still the same person? Most of us like to believe we possess some essential irreducible core of self, and we are sustained by the stories we make up about that self. In Anthony Powell’s Books Do Furnish a Room, the narrator Nicholas remembers how the eccentric General Conyers always used to insist that ‘If you bring off adequate preservation of your personal myth, nothing much else in life matters.’ This sounds a chilly reflection but it contains a lot of truth. Personal myth helps to explain why many people emigrate; it is another of the reasons I came to New Zealand.
Keeping a personal myth in reasonable repair is not easy. Self-belief alone is seldom enough; some kind of external corroboration is also required. You may think yourself likeable, but how likeable are you if you have no friends? You may think you have a great voice, but what if even your dog can’t stand your singing? There is a similarity here with relationships. We all hope to have a positive image of ourselves reflected back to us. If we do, and can reciprocally reflect a positive one back to the other person, the relationship has a good chance of surviving. Of course, there are people who preserve their personal myth against what might seem persuasive contradictory evidence. Van Gogh is the example usually cited: despite selling only one painting during his lifetime—and that to his brother—he continued to believe in himself as a painter, and posterity has entirely agreed with him. But he’s the exception.
Sometimes would-be writers try to preserve or confirm their personal myth by going to live elsewhere. Robert Frost’s story is one of my favourites. In late 1912, Frost left America for London. He was pushing 40 and, after years of farming and teaching, London represented his literary equivalent of the Last Chance Saloon. But it came off: Frost found publishers for his poems, was well reviewed and, returning to the States, eventually became accepted as the national poet. More than that, while in England Frost made friends with the literary hack Edward Thomas and helped reanimate Thomas’s own long-suppressed myth of himself as a poet. By the time Thomas was killed at Arras in April 1917, he had produced the 140 or so poems on which his reputation rests.
I may have told friends that I was going to Hong Kong to ‘test my survival equipment’. I also privately told myself that I was going there to try to be a writer (albeit one who earned his living as an academic). What sort of writer I wasn’t sure, but while I was there I managed to publish a small book of stories and poems, which helped sustain the myth. But, despite the personal myth and the cricket, I never did get the hang of living in Hong Kong as an adult.
The problem was that it wasn’t, it couldn’t be, the imaginary homeland of my childhood. It was, as it had always been, a business community, dominated by powerful trading companies. Money ruled. There were plenty of rich Chinese, but there were no poor gwai los. The gwai los almost all belonged to expensive and exclusive recreational clubs like the one my parents had joined when I was a child. If you didn’t want to belong, and I didn’t, the only other option was a kind of cultural no man’s land made up of a few disaffected gwai los and a few westernised Chinese. This in-between world had its compensations, but it wasn’t a place to stay for too long.
I don’t remember exactly when I knew that I had to leave Hong Kong. But I do remember one late afternoon in the university staff club when someone asked me with some surprise why I was going. Everyone was drinking heavily, and I was already rather drunk, so I blurted out without thinking, ‘I’m leaving because I don’t want to get brain damage.’ There was a silence round the table. And it hit me just how insulting I’d been. I was on the point of apologising, when Mary—an English Department colleague whose Chinese nickname was Brandy-for-breakfast—said with great sympathy, ‘Yes, Harry, I know what you mean.’
*
Between Hong Kong and New Zealand, there were four years back in England. The first year I spent trying and completely failing to write the Hong Kong novel before I realised that Timothy Mo had already written it with The Monkey King. My personal myth seriously dented, I took a three-year job in the English Department at Leicester University. I now had a family: a wife, two stepsons, a son and a daughter. By the time the position at Leicester was starting to run out, it was clear what life under Margaret Thatcher was going to be like. I was restless. It seemed a good time to leave. I didn’t want to go to South Africa (too racist), Canada (too cold), Australia (too brash) or America (too much). But there was a position in the English Department at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.
We arrived in Wellington on a Saturday in late June 1981. According to the New Zealand Yearbook, we were six of the 45,292 permanent and long-term arrivals between 31 March 1981 and 31 March 1982, of whom 12,290 came from the United Kingdom. I was one of 1,815 teachers. This was about the same as the number of arriving service workers (including cooks, waiters, firefighters, detectives and nightwatchmen) and twice the number of managers. Four hundred and twenty-nine accountants and 344 ‘workers in religion’ also arrived during that period.
(2004)
Cliff Fell, from ‘The M at the End of the Earth’
Our first afternoon in Auckland—remember this, babe?—
a mynah bird in Miranda’s garden.
Then on K Road, waylaid by rain, we ducked into
McDonald’s—strange refuge, we’d never been before.
An order of fries for Nina,
after her night in Garuda’s silver belly.
Islanders
queued for burgers and shakes—it was their land.
And then it was birdland,
as though in this last place in the world,
the world had turned upside down for us,
to find us with this simple cup of joy—sparrows
pecking at crumbs on the floor, and swooping from
their perch in the rafters, to feed on the morsels
our fingers held in offering.
(2007)
Chris Tse, ‘Chinese Colours’
Yellow
It wasn’t always so—this chink
in my armour letting true colour show,
a shade I could never find
in crayon boxes—the available
yellows always being
too cartoony or sickly to fill in
the outlines of my family.
Instead I’d reach for the pale peach.
Red
Without which
there would be no
such luck.
We bundle our money
and give it away
in red envelopes, for fortune.
We tie red ribbons around
our pot plants
to bless the home, for prosperity.
Then there is the deep red
of char siu, rich and sugary
as red should be.
White
Bananas: yellow
on the outside, white
on the inside.
Green
The Chinese man
with the unfaithful wife
is sentenced to a green hat.
*
A cloudy mix of green
and white adorned the wrist
of my Ma Ma, the heavy fall and clunk
of it resting on the table became a rhythm
for the house.
After the stroke she moved
so much slower, and the thud
of her jade bracelet
became much much heavier;
the room would sigh.
Black
is the colour of my true-self’s hair.
In my formative years
it was stripped to blonde, blue
and red (but never green)
in a timid attempt
to rebel.
Gold
Gung Gung rotates
the teapot three times
(clockwise)
to give the leaves
a chance to flirt
with the water.
The tea is a pool
of gold. It is all the sun
in our tiny white teacups.
(2005)
Tusiata Avia, ‘Wild Dogs Under My Skirt’
I want to tattoo my legs.
Not blue or green
but black.
I want to sit opposite the tufuga
and know he means me pain
I want him to bring out his chisel
and hammer
and strike my thighs
the whole circumference of them
like walking right round the world
like paddling across the whole Pacific
in a log
knowing that once you’ve pushed off
loaded the dogs on board
there’s no looking back now, Bingo.
I want my legs as sharp as dogs’ teeth
wild dogs
wild Samoan dogs
the mangy kind that bite strangers.
I want my legs like octopus
black octopus
that catch rats and eat them.
I even want my legs like centipedes
the black ones
that sting and swell for weeks.
And when it’s done
I want the tufuga
to sit back and know they’re not his
they never were.
I want to frighten my lovers
let them sit across from me
and whistle through their teeth.
(2004)
Tusiata Avia, ‘Alofa’
Alofa go for da walk … walking walking Alofa find alofa everywhere in da bush in da tree under da bush under da tree in da dark alofa … plenty alofa in da dark.
Alofa go to church … Alofa singing to Jesus Alofa praying to Jesus … Jesus bring me plenty alofa plenty money too Jesus make me win da bingo den I make da big donation show my alofa to all da peoples in da church an show my alofa to da faifeau too an everybodys say Alofa is da good kirl—she got so much alofa.
Jesus love Alofa so Alofa win da bingo.
Alofa go to Apia … eating icecream eating pagikeke eating keke pua’a … alofa on her fingers alofa on her shining shining lips Alofa smiling to all da peoples Alofa smiling to all da boys especially all da mens especially.
And when da night is coming Alofa smell like da frangipani like da moso’oi like da Impulse perfume come from Niu Sila and so many boys so many mens Love Alofa Love Alofa Love Alofa.
Alofa dancing in da Tropicana nightclub … all da fa’afafine watching to Alofa—Tisha, Sindy, Leilani, Tia, Lamay, Devinia—all da fa’afafine making like da real kirls making da jealous (no alofa no alofa only jealous) Alofa don’t even care Alofa don’t even look Alofa twirling on da dance floor showing her alofa to da Palagi mans showing her alofa to da Samoan mans.
Alofa making alofa in da Seaside Inn with da Palagi man name Bruce … Alofa singing and singing in da Seaside Inn in da dark Alofa singing … Alofa ia te oe Bruce. Alofa ia te oe.
Alofa on da bus—Pacific Destiny Bus—da bus to Alofa’s village in da kuā-back … Jesus hanging in da bus hanging from da mirror in da bus watching Alofa all da way to home …. Fea lou alofa Alofa? Fea lou alofa?
Da father of Alofa send her to da faifeau (who is also da uncle of Alofa) … da faifeau make her da black eye and da big lip an da fula on her maka in front all da peoples … Alofa you make us shame. Alofa you make us want to throw you to da shark. Alofa you are da pig-kirl. Alofa you da pa’umuku kirl.
Long time an Alofa get up early Alofa go for da walk … Alofa walking far far to da bush and lie down under da tree … Alofa is crying an crying Alofa is screaming an screaming Alofa is holding an holding her stomach an da blood is coming an coming … an when it’s finish—Alofa call it Alofa too.
(2004)
Paula Morris, ‘Like a Mexican’
You meet him in the bar of the SoHo Grand. It’s late summer, early evening. You’re there lolling on a low banquette, drinking with your colleagues. He walks in with Rico, and Rico introduces him. When Rico says his name—Carlos—it rumbles out, stately and purring, like an expensive vintage car. When you repeat the name in your too-bright English accent, it sounds tinny and cobbled together, like the brand name of a mystery pharmaceutical.
Your name is Nina. He repeats it, smiling. In Spanish your name means something, you think—a girl, a storm—but your parents didn’t know that. They named you for a woman in a novel by Evelyn Waugh. This is too much to explain, especially to someone busy pulling up a chair and ordering a drink.
You’ve met Rico a few times: he’s an A&R scout working in the Mexico City branch, and he often comes up to NewYork to play demos for you and your boss, Mitchell, and to talk about the state of things. Tonight he’s wearing the usual record company uniform of T-shirt and jeans. Carlos wears a dark suit and tie. He’s in his mid-forties, maybe, older than everyone else there. He has olive skin, short dark hair. There’s a squareness to his head that makes him look adult, upright. Rico tells him you work in International. Carlos, he says, is an old friend from Mexico City. He’s a vice-president at a bank here in New York.
You barely speak to him at all. One of your colleagues has important gossip to tell you, information on lawsuits, cutbacks, falling sales. The business is changing, going bad, and you all need to talk about it night after night. You and everyone you work with are Scheherazade, staving off death with your endless evenings of talk.
Rico and Carlos murmur together in Spanish. They have to leave after one drink because they’re meeting some other people for dinner and then going to hear a band. Carlos asks if everyone would like to come along.
‘Maybe I’ll see you later,’ you tell him, but you don’t mean it. You’ve been living in New York for almost two years: you know about keeping your social options open. So you drink three martinis, eat some sticky marinated olives and a few shrimp popovers, and go home in a cab around nine o’clock. This is a typical Monday night for you. This is a typical dinner. You don’t think about Carlos again because you don’t care about banks or Mexico or Mexican banks. He’s not part of your world. The doors of this chattering harem are closed.
*
A few weeks pass: it’s a late-summer Friday night, and you’re out with a larger group of people at El Teddy’s. None of you have been there for years, but everyone’s saying El Teddy’s is going to close soon, so Mitchell insists on going there one last time. You’ve all just been to hear a singer-songwriter f
rom Cleveland at Arlene’s Grocery and then a mizik raisin band from Haiti at the Mercury Lounge. The night is warm, and the Mercury Lounge was too stuffy, the floor varnished with spilled beer. At El Teddy’s you all drink, and eat chips, and talk in loud voices. The music’s loud too, but strangely muffled, so you can’t make out the words to any song. The echoing noise and the blue mosaic tiles on the ceiling turn the room into an upside-down swimming pool.
There’s hardly anyone else in the place, but the food takes a long time to arrive. Veronica Clark from Corporate Communications sits to your right, stroking her slick blonde hair as though it’s a harp. Even though he’s on expense-account probation, Mitchell—on your left, his bald head bright with sweat—calls other people on his cell phone and urges them to come along.
‘We’re going down fighting,’ he shouts. ‘Me and El Teddy both!’
After his fourth call, he whispers to you that you may need to put some of the drinks, maybe all of the drinks, on your credit card.
A tall, blonde woman who is too old for her black bustier turns up, pushing between your chair and Mitchell’s. He stands up so she can kiss him three times. She wants to know everybody’s name and job title. A chubby boy in a baseball cap shuffles in behind her. The blonde woman pushes him into Mitchell’s empty seat.
‘This,’ she says, staring down at you with wide, crazy eyes, ‘is DJ Jeffy.’
‘Hey,’ says DJ Jeffy. He has a look on his face—something between blank and smug—that reminds you of the intern who’s been wandering your floor all the summer, the one who knows about Napster’s rise and fall the way kids used to know about the last days of Kurt Cobain.
‘He’s a protégé of the Neptunes,’ the blonde woman tells the table. DJ Jeffy reaches straight for the chips.
‘Is it OK if I just call you Jeff?’ you ask him, and he looks puzzled. The blonde woman frowns at you.
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 131