Point of View

I just watched a show on National Geographic called Meet the Natives.

Some men from a south pacific island go to Western countries to meet the natives and learn about their customs- its interesting hearing a different point of view, I'm used to hearing the western POV of other cultures. The one i just saw they went to the UK and were shocked to see that there were homeless people. They said in their home place Tanna, no one is homeless.

I found that interesting as to me their society looks poor, they don't have electricity, running water, "proper" clothes- yet no one is homeless, but in our "rich" society we have people sleeping on the streets.

They were taken to see some pet dogs washed and groomed, were amazed people would go to so much trouble to look after animals; they made a deal with the English- they said: when we go home we will try to look after our animals more, and you should try to look after people more, like those homeless people.

Hearing this different point of view reminded me of China Ramblings by Suzanne Rowe. Most of the pieces in her book are about her experience as an Aussie in China, but she has some written from the Chinese point of view.

This one is from the POV of a Chinese teacher who has some foreigners visiting her class.

I didn’t want the children to be frightened so I prepared them well. These foreigners, I told them, are people just like us, but different too. Their skin is the colour of a grubby whitewashed wall with splattered speckles. Their eyes are blue, but not as blue as the sky. More like the blue-grey exhaust coming from a run-down tractor. Their hair isn’t yellow like the books say, but closer to the colour of a muddy river.

Later in she wrote about how she felt sorry for the foreigners when it was toilet time. In China the public toilets are just that- public. I'm used to cubicles but in China its a lot more open plan. Anyway, the teacher in this story found it strange that the white person wanted to go in by themselves.