Interview 2

Me: What is the value of family in Papua New Guinea
Interviewee: Its a support system, it's a group of people standing by each other through thick and thin. They nickname Papua New Guinea "the land of unexpected" because since there's always a bunch of different things going on the family is then required to be flexible and help each other out.

Me: What is your family structure there?
Interviewee: Definitely the dad is the provider or the king in the household. It's definitely a king queen relationship so my dad always has the final say but he respects my mom's input more than his own. And it's very mutual like that.

Me: How does Papua New Guinea's culture differ from U.S culture?
Interviewee: The main one is the lifestyle, a lot of people talk about like coming over here to America to live the American dream and i feel like that has a lot to go with it like materialistic views or materialistic things like a car, job, or money. Whereas in New Guinea you grow your own crops, you eat your own crops. So the labor you put in, the more product you will receive. So with that New Guinea's lifestyle is much more simplistic than American lifestyle so with that it's very easy to live there because you don't have much so you are more content with what you have.

Me: What are some of the highlights in New Guinea, like what are the things that make people think about New Guinea?
Interviewee: Definitely the climate and the landscape like where i grew up it's like 80 degrees year around and the only precipitation you have is rain here and there. The climate as far as you can plant any like tropical fruit or when you go to school you can just grab a banana off a tree for a snack and then definitely the land and having the ocean to swim in and what not.

Me: What role do women play in the culture there?
Interviewee:  Definitely they're the providers because they are the workers like they go into the gardens, they chop the fire wood and carry it back, they are the workaholics of the family.

Me: What is the most famous food?
Interviewee: Coffee, coffee is the number one cash crop you can go over to any Starbucks and they'll have New Guinea coffee.

Me: What are your meals like there?
Interviewee: Usually we try to have breakfast lunch and dinner but if that's not happening we usually just eat when we're hungry.

Me: Is food pretty available then?
Interviewee: Yeah depending on the climate there I mean if there's a drought obviously food is less available but for the most part we always had something to eat.

Me: What is the education system like?
Interviewee: It's really terrible, it goes back to the government like as far as education goes, teachers pretty much can decide if they want to go to class or not like you can have students showing up to class where the teachers don't show up because they get paid by the government so they can just be like i'm not going to school. So it's definitely poor because there isn't really a desire to teach.

Me: So then there wouldn't be much of an opportunity to go to college then or are there even any colleges there?
Interviewee: Um, no not really it kinda goes from high school into businesses and you can graduate and go work for a business I mean you can learn but for the most part you just go straight into a business. For the most part people will go to Australia or New Zealand for college.

Me: How do people from Papua New Guinea view the U.S?
Interviewee: To be honest they want to be like the U.S, the culture is slowly starting to westernize so pretty much let's say if skinny jeans come in style here it might take a couple years but it will become popular in New Guinea too. So the desire is definitely there.

Me: What are some of the top past times there?
Interviewee: Random rituals for each tribe are huge, like people will just deck out in tribal outfits and pretty much they find a reason to celebrate anything there like sports, rugby and soccer are big there probably the top two. And also holidays like Christmas they'll definitely have a huge celebration for that.

Me: What are some of the different religions there?
Interviewee: Christianity is huge there but New Guinea shares there island with Indonesia so there's a lot of Muslim or Islamic beliefs that come across. But before missionaries came there it was definitely spiritual like black magic and witch doctors there. But mainly now it's Christianity.

Me: Is it difficult to practice your beliefs there or is it pretty free?
Interviewee: It's difficult because we don't get challenged because there aren't a lot of different views so it's tough to learn new things by talking to people.

Me: What are some holidays?
Interviewee: Well their independence day when they won there independence from Australia the whole island will celebrate that. And like Christmas, and New Years and pretty much any time there's a celebration like a wedding or a sporting event victory.