Cultural Leaps

Hand cranked Singers for sale

One day I’m working in the PNG regions, the next having pizza at an air conditioned shopping mall in Port Moresby and the following day sitting in a café on the boulevard in Cairns. Such leaps between localities and cultures can take some adjusting to. Returning to Australia for the first time in fourteen months, I was unsure how much I’d suffer from reverse culture shock. It was not a big problem (thankfully), but I did have some observations along the way.

Before arriving back in Australia I had a day in Port Moresby with a friend who works there. We walked along the foreshore, her boys splashing in the water and dodging the rubbish along the high tide line. We went for lunch at a shopping mall with the first escalator I have seen in PNG. Much of what was available I was not used to seeing in PNG, yet the mall was an odd mix of developed meets developing nation.  Across from the expensive jewellery store was the fabric store with a window full of brand new sewing machines…hand powered Singers for the majority who have no power to plug an electric machine into. Some stores sold skimpy fashionable clothing, other sold cover-all meri blauses.  It was a good way to ease myself out of regional life and prepare myself for a return to ‘the west’.

Some of the things I enjoyed about being back in Australia were the smooth and safe roads, fast internet and all the yummy food (cheese! icecream! chocolate!). It was nice to walk down the street on my own and not be stared at, but I had to remember not to smile at everyone on the street or greet them though. I expect the locals would have thought me a little odd if I did!

Looking at the people around me, it often felt like the women had only got half dressed in the mornings…put a top on and forgot the bottom half. In PNG I am used to wearing long tops over pants or wearing skirts past my knees. On the streets of Aus  I saw ‘dresses’ I’m not sure I’d even wear with trousers here!

Being a tourist on something you do not see in PNG- a train

Public affection also stood out. No more men holding hands to express their friendship, but plenty of couples cuddling up. When a guy friend gave me a welcome hug in public, I was a little stunned. I’ve got so used to shaking hands of even close guy friends and only hugging gal friends that it caught me by surprise. In many villages it is not even appropriate for me as a single woman to look a man in the eyes. When shaking hands with everyone after church, you glance at each other before looking past them while shaking hands. That is as far as friendly physical contact goes. It’s not that people are unfriendly, far from it, it is just that they express it in other ways.

My Cairns budget can probably be split into two main categories; eating out and supply shopping. Eating out is a very rare occurrence for me in PNG, so I enjoyed catching up on all the foods I’ve not had in awhile and the novelty of dining out. Indian, pub meal, cafes, iced coffee, cakes, salads, sushi rolls, kangaroo mince, bacon, wine, cheese, all those yummy deli smallgoods…many of them are things I could buy or make in PNG, but am not willing to spend that much money or that much time to do so.

As for supplies, Spotlight, my credit card and I had a date (or two) which will see me supplied with sewing projects for a while to come. Wandering in and out of stores also supplied me with ideas for what I might like to sew, resulting in a return trip to Spotlight for more supplies. I also restocked with the boring essentials…socks, shoes, underwear, antihistamines, face cleanser.

An old photo but a good summary; books, journal, cafes...

Then there was the item I have resisted for a long time… an e-reader. I like books. I like to read them. I like to borrow them and to loan them. I like to hold the weight of them in my hand. What I do not like is to pay per kg to fly them around PNG. With the rate I read, this can become quite expensive if I am going away for a few weeks and will have little other entertainment in the evenings. So it was that I bought an e-reader and downloaded a pile of free classics. Now I only have to pay to fly a few hundred grams about while carrying a small library in my bilum. When home, I will continue to enjoy ‘real’ books, including that mouldy smell which cannot be avoided here in the tropics.

Stepping back in and out of Aussie culture went well. As my exit from PNG was made easier by an hour or so at the mall, I eased into my return to PNG by joining the YWAM medical ship, Pacific Link. Here we could be quite western on board, but step into PNG village life during the day, but more on that another day.