Remix.run Logo
som 2 hours ago

My parents lived in the highlands in PNG in the late 70s and early 80s and my dad still speaks pidgin (mostly with his current neighbours who are from Port Moresby the capital). I've heard of lot of amazing (and pretty wild!) stories over the years. And met some interesting folk who up were up there with them - locals, missionaries and others. But despite our childhood being fairly steeped in PNG culture - and my name being from there, after a local who used to work with my dad - the closest I've been myself is the Torres Strait :/

yitchelle 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That was an amazing introduction to your stories. I would love to hear them.

hermitcrab an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Would love to hear some of the wild stories...

dyzone 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Share some stories with us!

walrus01 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I would bet $20 your parents were either evangelical missionaries or working with something directly adjacent to their efforts. Now at the risk of over generalizing, there's basically three major reasons why (presumably white, foreign) people go up into the highland of PNG to live for extended periods of time:

1. Mining

2. Missionary work and ancillary things related to it.

3. Anthropological and linguistic research, biology/ecosystem related research and similar.

som an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It's a reasonable guess but wrong. My dad is a carpenter and my mum is an artist. Dad was helping build houses up there for one of the government building contractors. Mum was along for the ride.

Edit: And not that it really matters, but neither of my folks are religious.

embedding-shape 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

walrus01 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Right, because before today, I have such an extensive history of commenting on missionaries or PNG. My HN history is replete with it! I'm so predictable.

embedding-shape 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Why the sudden insistence that every discussion about this article needs to include missionaries? Just woke up and felt like sharing the gospel?

walrus01 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Well, in the sense that I'm resolutely opposed to the efforts of missionaries in general and personally believe they have caused a great deal of harm to indigenous cultures around the world, more like the anti-gospel.

iamshs an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Let me tell of a missionary school and it has left me totally jaded about the cultural wipe-out that is practiced methodically. All the cultural icons are appropriated and a cross plastered on everything, from didgeridoo to the boomerang and placed alongside the holy book. Indigenous knowledge production is low because there frankly it requires audience and artist needs to be rewarded and paid, but this can be taken advantage of by well endowed people. If you search results for that local language on Youtube, all the main results you get are from Christian missions who have translated hymns and set it to indigenous rhythms. It is like you learn keys of the castle from somebody without telling them the end purpose you have in mind from the very beginning, take their knowledge and re-package it. Within the next gen you have new converts actively forgetting what their own parents are teaching them, and think this all is gift of missionaries.

kakacik 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You are not alone, its pretty obvious what force of evil overall (even if some local good was done here and there) missionaries have been. And I don't mean just some 16th and 17th centuries horror stories, I mean even recent times.

The idea that christianity is somehow above all other religions, while covering at best around 1/3 of world population... lets say I don't enjoy talking to irrational, highly emotional people on such topics. Where facts become irrelevant so does my presence in discussion.

dmichulke 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

2 hours ago | parent [-]
[deleted]