Week6
This is the reading in Pacific Reader:
This is my analysis of the reading:
The Unfinished Fence by Vilsoni Hereniko is a short prose about a Fiji named Jimi. He works in New Zealand temporarily with his three months tourist visa.
Jimi is alone in New Zealand while his wife and kids away from him in Fiji. He is not likely to take transport to work because of people in the bus are strange and indifferent. It makes him more lonely so that is why he prefers to walk to work even, it is a long way to walk through. As in the text, Jimi “thought it is better to work in a factory, at least there would be people to come and talk to. He was thinking about the people in the village who always worked in groups. Work was fun.” He compares the life in Fiji and the life in New Zealand as far how lonely he felt and how tedious the job he has. This is to demonstrate how he cannot fit into New Zealand and how Jimi cannot connect to the society as well as the people who live there. Moreover, people who live in New Zealand treat him as like inferior instead of tourists or locals. For example, the police see Jimi and ask him: “We are the po-lice. Where are you go-ing?” syllables here seems like trying to talk slowly on purpose. They assume Jimi does not understand English because of the impression of brown or dark color people. This is one way of showing their racism. Secondly, the police stop Jimi due to his outlook as being a pacific islander. They are assuming people like Jimi could be illegal entitled to work. This is another way of showing their racism. Apart from that, I can accept how people treat Jimi as an outsider but the way his employer treats him is really unfair. Jimi’s employer does not care about Jimi at all. As in the text, Mrs. Davidson (Jimi’s employer) shares the same sense of lonely and excluded. Jimi is excluded by the people surrounding him in New Zealand while Mrs. Davidson is excluded by her child or friends. Mrs. Davidson pays Jimi to work for her as a gardener and doing some house chores. At the last line in the prose, when Mrs. Davidson finds out Jimi did not return then she went to get the letters herself. I felt this is just way too unfair to treat Jimi, Mrs. Davidson did not even want to call Jimi and ask what happened to him. Because Jimi is a punctual guy as in the first paragraph says how he got to work on time and make sure Mrs. Davidson has her letters. Because Jimi likes to see Mrs. Davidson’s expression when she reads the letters and he felt he is under the responsibility of that happiness. Jimi treats Mrs. Davidson as like a friend but Mrs. Davidson does not. I think if Jimi is a local who works for her, she will be more care about why he did not show up in work. This is can be another racism of showing how Pacific Islander does not comply with their jobs.
I also feel the gender inequality in career, when Jimi mentions that his wife will laugh about his job because his job is made for woman and he also used the word “a lewa” to describe it. This is about showing different perspectives in Fiji and New Zealand. In Fiji, a man should work in the factory and woman needs to work as what Jimi does in Mrs. Davidson’s house. In New Zealand, you have more options on what to work and you will not be judged.
After reading Vilsoni Hereniko’s prose, I can totally relate to it. There are always some people in New Zealand who are racists. I actually feel lonely and excluded all the time, even though I am right here for two years now. I would like to walk instead of taking the transport as well. I am afraid of how people look at me differently sometimes because I am Asian and it does happen to me multiple times. I have been told I need to emerge from New Zealand and I have been told I need to stay away from them. What I felt most alone is how strangers can talk to each other like friends even though they just first met. See if it is because they are locals and they do speak fluent English but I cannot? Or they just do not like me? Even I just sit next to them and tried to make conversations, but still, they look at me differently and they act like we have nothing in common.
My creative response:
Meeting with Jimi began at eight o’clock and ended at five, Mondays to Fridays. Mrs. Davidson doesn’t know why she hired Jimi. The moment when she saw Jimi for the interview, she hired him immediately.
The job Mrs. Davidson offered to Jimi was a gardener, she liked to see Jimi spent weeding under the apple trees, planting flowers and trimming the hedge. Mrs. Davidson’s life always filled with a clean and tidy environment. One thing she liked the most was to watch her employees clean her house. Woman around her age appeared to be ostentatious, of course, Mrs. Davidson was a part of them. Mrs. Davidson’s husband died in the navy, and she’s all alone now. The loneliness made her vainer. She dressed up and sat outside the house to wait for the neighbors to compliment her. She found it thrilled when people compliment her on how nice the house was and how beautiful she was. She genuinely knew that the only reason they praise her is that she's loaded. But she was always happy about it. She always threw a tea party in her garden, and everyone is welcomed. The garden filled with exquisite light refreshments and it was all free to everyone who took part in the party. Mrs. Davidson was too old for having fun, but she did enjoy people having fun with her. She thought she would not feel alone if there were enough people to be with her.
Mrs. Davidson realized the only reason she hired Jimi is that of his skin color. She does feel sympathy for Jimi, but more importantly, she wanted everyone to know she has a charitable soul. People like Jimi were not that welcomed in New Zealand, because of their not so good spoken English and not so pleasant outlook. Mrs. Davidson sometimes invites Jimi to have the afternoon tea with her inside the house. She always talked a lot about her life. But she never asked a single question about Jimi. Mrs. Davidson was happy to find a listener, but she was not so sure if Jimi caught any of what she said.
Jimi was responsible for getting the letters for Mrs. Davidson, and Mrs. Davidson loved to read the letters from her families. She liked to share some letters with Jimi, and she felt merrier when someone’s listening. But one day something happened that changed their routine. Jimi promised Mrs. Davidson to get her letters, but he never showed up. Mrs. Davidson felt strange but got the mails by herself. “Shouldn’t hire Fiji in the first place”, Mrs. Davidson says.
References:
Vilsoni, H. (n,d). The Unfinished Fence.
Reflection:
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For this week, I wrote a short prose based on The Unfinished Fence. This is another Pacific literature that I am interested.
The main character in the original work is Jimi; however, Mrs. Davidson is the main character in my writing. When I read The Unfinished Fence, I felt the way people treated Jimi were terrible and insulting. The police treated Jimi as he doesn’t speak and understand English. People don’t seem to like Jimi because of his skin color. Mrs. Davidson was the only one who feels sympathy for Jimi, but she didn’t care and call Jimi when Jimi didn’t show up for work. This is the reason why I pathetically portray Mrs. Davidson. Mrs. Davidson didn’t even ask why Jimi didn’t show up and jumped to the wrong conclusions of “Jimi as well as Fiji weren't that much responsible for their job”. Mrs. Davidson hired Jimi because of his skin color, and she judged Jimi’s personality of his skin of color.
I want the readers to think does every people of color being treated equally? I have watched many TV shows; some white people only hang out with black people due to their skin color. They wanted attention from people, and they wanted people to believe that they are nice white people. This is similar to some college and company; they accept individuals who have a darker skin color in priority. They may think they are helpful to the people who have darker skin color, but I don’t consider people with darker skin of color will be too happy about it. I think everyone wants to be accepted because of their abilities instead of the skin of color, especially the people with power. Mrs. Davidson is one typical type who hired Jimi because of his skin of color instead of skills.