Tagata Pasifika: Pacific Writing
TV1
December 2006
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
TV1 Interview - CHV
Why
not a woman!
Transcript
of interview with Tahitian writer, Célestine Hitiura Vaite by Anne Collett
ASIA PACIFIC
FOCUS with Helen Vatsikopoulos
ABC Television 24/04/2005
Segment on Célestine,
her books, and her opinions (on a fair few things)
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
15mb Windows Media (Movie - 15
minutes)
15mb Quicktime (Movie - 15 minutes)
LIFE MATTERS
with Julie McCrossin
ABC Radio National
02/09/2004
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Interview - Frangipani
3.5mb Audio
only (20 minutes)
PACIFIC
BEAT with Nick McClelland - 300604 Audio
ABC Radio National
30/06/2004
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Interview - Tahiti Writers
10.5mb Audio
only (30 minutes)
Salon
du Livre, Paris: Reception at Tahiti House
RFO Reseau France Outremer 15/04/04
Speech - Breadfruit
FRENCH LANGUAGE
29.5mb (Movie - 10 minutes)
An
Interview with Tahitian writer, Célestine Hitiura Vaite by Anne Collett
First
appeared in **Kunapipi XXVII:2
Reproduced by permission of Professor Anne Collett
Edited
extract
Célestine Hitiura Vaite is a woman who - to quote from her novel, Frangipani - 'knows what she wants and makes it happen'. Born in Tahiti, Celestine began writing while pregnant with her third child and recently completed the final novel in a trilogy set in Tahiti, following the life of Materena, a woman partly modelled on her own mother. This interview took place in January 2006 at Célestine Vaite's home in Mollymook (a small town on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia).
ABOUT TAHITI
AC: Why don't we begin with Tahiti - the place that formed both you and your novels.
CHV: I'm of the family Mai. It's quite a big family. My ancestor was Chief of Faa'a - one of the people to sign the French Protectorate. I grew up in Faa'a exactly where my books are situated. We lived in a fibro shack behind a petrol station next to the international airport and not far from the Chinese store and the cemetery. My mum said, 'I can't believe you put our fibro shacks in your books!'
AC: So it's the really personal stuff - ties to family and childhood - that you miss?
CHV: People say, 'Oh, you must miss the majestique of Tahiti - the mountains, the rivers …' But it's not that what I miss, it's Faa'a: the children, the roosters, the church with the clock that chimes the hours. Yes, so many places hold sweet memories of my childhood. There's the place where I sold mangoes by the side of the road with my cousins. Every time an auntie would walk past we would put on a pitiful air, and suddenly she'd decide to cross the road, because you don't sell things to each other! But I think we wanted brand new thongs or something like that so….
AC: Is there anything different about living in a very small island community? Does it make a difference to the way you live your life? What kind of influences does it have on you? Obviously Australia is also an island - but a very big one, so it doesn't feel like one - but do you think about being on this little island in the middle of a huge expanse of water?
CHV: No you don't - it's only when you get out! It's only then that you realise, 'Oh this is a small island!' but once you've left, people ask, 'Why do you want to go there? This is Paradise. We've got everything here.' No, you don't even think, 'Over there is France or Europe of whatever' - no, it's just about us. But once you get out - often to France to study, and you come back, a lot of people want to get out more often because they find it suffocating. When you live in a bigger place like I do, you learn to be more assertive maybe.
AC: What language did you speak as a child?
CHV: Most of my cousins (Mum has two sisters and I had heaps and heaps of cousins) spoke Tahitian but of course there was television - and Mum wanted us to do well - so she encouraged us to speak French and believed in books …
AC: Was this at a Catholic school?
CHV: Yes, I won a scholarship to the Anne Marie Javouhey - a prestigious private school, behind big fences …
AC: Yes … so when you said the book was translated into French, is it not in Tahitian?
CHV: No it's in French.
AC: Is it possible to get it translated into Tahitian?
CHV: Well I met with the Minister of Culture, Tauhiti Nena, in August and because of the new government he said there would be an interest in having it translated into Tahitian and maybe turning it into plays in Tahitian, so yes. But most people can read it because it is simple French - not long descriptive paragraphs about trees or whatever - it's more compact.
AC: Is most of the reading in French? Tahitian is not written very much?
CHV: Yes and it's very hard to read Tahitian - it's more an oral language.
ABOUT WRITING
AC: So when you write in the book with that mixture of Tahitian and French, is that how most Tahitians speak?
CHV: Yes, yes - Oui, oui - exactly, and because I want to keep my dialogues the way they would be spoken, I act them out first - in French- in a loud voice - and then I translate so it comes out….
AC: Your dialogue works really well … it feels natural and alive….
CHV: Well that's what I do - that's my ritual for writing it.
AC: Do you think the way you write and the things you focus on have been influenced by a strong oral culture - a culture in which stories are important?
CHV: Of course. I give a lot of writing workshops - free to the kids - and most of the comments I get are 'Oh, I might not be good enough,' or they feel intimidated. But when I started writing I didn't feel intimidated at all because I thought, 'It's just like telling a story!' A lot of people feel overwhelmed or think 'I've got to be clever,' but I thought it was just a story, and I come from a strong story-telling culture. All my childhood, Mum would tell stories, my auntie would tell stories … we'd go and weed graves… which is so boring… There are so many because we are all buried on top of each other in the same cemetery, and there was always one auntie who would tell us a story. For example, there is one grave we have always been weeding since I was a child and we don't know who's in that grave, except for one ancestor … and then I found a story from the First World War: there was the Spanish flu back home and thousands of people were dying and they were getting buried everywhere, anywhere - and two people got buried by mistake in our plot and still today there are family meetings to decide what should be done. Half of the family wants to get rid of them but half thinks, 'We can't disturb them, and where are we going to put them?' So it's a dilemma that will go on for centuries. We always have stories like that … or stories about legends … all the time so we don't whinge while we're weeding … 'Pull those weeds!' … 'And then what happened?' 'Pull those weeds first!'
AC: Do you think that living in a different culture frees you from certain cultural expectations and obligations?
CHV: Oh yes. If I was still living in Tahiti I don't think I would have written the books because I'd be thinking, 'No I can't do that, no I can't say that, oh that's a bit much!' I probably would have written a book with no sex scenes or … I would have been fairly restricted, but because I wrote it overseas I felt a freedom … so sometimes when I come back the first day it's 'Oh I love it here!' but by the tenth day I'm like 'Hmmm I don't think I could live here again'.
AC: You write from personal experience, and of course your characters get changed a bit from the originals they might be based on - just the way you are describing here - but do people get upset when they see themselves reflected in the stories?
CHV: Oh they laugh! When the book came out in French a lot of my aunties came to the launch in Tahiti of L'arbre à pain which is now on the bestseller list in Tahiti and into its fourth reprint. A few of my aunties read it and recognized bits and pieces of themselves … but I don't write mean, and I haven't been exposed to meanness in my family - so it's much more something to laugh about because it's all so ridiculous….
AC: It seems very warm - so they don't feel they are being made fun of…
CHV: Exactly, and you know Lily - the sexy character - they all think, 'It's me, it's me for sure!'…
AC: So who would you say was the greatest influence on your writing?
CHV: Well I would say two women - my mother for the storytelling and my godmother for introducing me to books. My godmother gave me my first book when I was eight, Les Adventures d"Oliver Twist, (Oliver Twist)'. When I got it I thought 'Great!' [sarcastic] I wanted a Barbie doll. Every time she came to visit me my mum would say 'Get your book out,' because you've got to show … [the present was appreciated]. So in the beginning I was forcing myself to read for her and then I got hooked … I realised that reading is like being told a story except I was in control - I could close the book when I liked. If an Aunt told me a story there was no way I could walk out, I'd have to listen, but with a book I could just close it and go and play. Mum never thought of giving me a book, it was me … I was eight when I got a book and then I wanted another book and another book and then she got the encyclopaedia set. I would have my torch when the electricity was disconnected…. But because I used to share a bedroom with my sisters and my brother (we were all in the same room - Mum in a small bed, and 3 girls in a bed and my brother in his) even then [with the torch] they would whinge but Mum would say, 'Another 10 minutes - leave her, leave her' … and my sister would grumble … it was a nightmare - but I was so engrossed … and that's why now I let my kids read when we're having dinner. When someone says, 'I wouldn't let my kids read at the table,' I say 'My mum let me.' So when my kids ask, 'Can I read, can I read?' I say, 'Well it's not polite, but ok - yes, you can read.'
AC: Anything to encourage it….
CHV: Yes … and she had a system for homework and I'm doing exactly the same with my kids now. Every time we had to do our homework, a little plate of goodies would appear, and I do the same - no homework no chocolate biscuits! We'd sit down and say, 'Mum we've got to do our homework,' and the SAOs with jam or whatever would appear. But she was better than me at hiding, because I hide mine but my kids all discover them … and she had a smaller house! I don't know where she hid them…. She had a vision for sure….
AC: So is your family unusual?
CHV: Yes, I think it's my mum who is unusual….
AC: I'm thinking even in terms of literacy - the fact that your mum could read - could your grandma?
CHV: No - I really believe in reading … so my mission is to increase the literacy rate because at the moment, still only people from the middle-class read, poor people don't read - the literacy rate among Tahitians is very low. At the book fairs the people you see are French or half-French and you don't really see the Tahitians who need it, because I believe … my mum believed that reading led to better jobs. After meeting Alan Duff - he explained to me about his program - I really believe, like him, that literacy fights crime because you expand your horizons - not that it makes you feel less bitter - but, like you said before, it gives you another vision of the world.
AC: It was just your mum?
CHV: Mostly the bible though…. The government has introduced programs now in Tahiti - they're sending people to France to train them as librarians, and they have mobile libraries to go into poor areas - so the kids can go into the bus and read … because I think once you're hooked you're hooked for life. And also, it increases your vocabulary and teaches you to write better so you do better at school. It's a chain of events … and it can only make your life better. So I really believe in that and that's why L'abre à pain [Breadfruit] has been voted the best selling book in French Polynesia. More Tahitians are reading now because the book's not intimidating and it's about their lives….
AC: It's about them….
CHV: And they love it…. Last time I was there Tahitians would start reading and laughing. 'Oh I can see my mum there…' and for once it's not about 'Tania was an exotic beauty … with long hair down her back…'. So it's about all the silly superstitions we have - the good and the bad - and the stories of our everyday lives. I work very closely with the translator, Henri Theureau. He came to Australia and we worked together in the finalisation of the translation, because the first translation I got he made the characters speak in very simple language - like 'me go there' or whatever - and I was furious, so he flew here and we worked together. Because although a lot of Tahitians speak bad French I thought a lot of them speak good French too … and why not use those who speak well … and Materena is an exceptional woman - so let's show the way.
AC: And you don't want to talk down to people….
CHV: No, exactly and I think that's why Breadfruit has had a big impact in Tahiti - because women feel proud - and also Materena is a very inspiring as a heroine - more women are proud because of her.
AC: So the whole idea of women telling inspiring stories … do you see that as part of what you do as well? In terms of your writing?
CHV: Yes - do you mean telling stories to make each other feel better? Absolutely. You feel down, you tell it to your cousin, you feel better … because she'll tell you something that happened to her that has to be worse … of course.
ABOUT EDUCATION
AC: Why did she think it was important to study and do well at school?
CHV: Well Mum was an excellent student. Just like in the book, she was the one chosen to recite the 'Welcome to our Island speech' when the governor came; and she was raised by her mother because her father deserted (with another woman who couldn't cook!). Mum wanted to have a job that included a desk for some reason but at fourteen, just months before the Year 10 Certificate, she had to go to Tahiti because her stepfather was so sick, but her mother ended up dying instead. It's sad … and it took my mum twenty years to go home. At fourteen she lived with an auntie and became a cleaner, and then had a child at eighteen or nineteen - and that's it - she just stayed cleaning. So she saw study as a way out of poverty - definitely - and every time she had a bit to drink she'd say, 'Just look at your mother - four kids from different fathers, we live in poverty - is this what you want?' She definitely saw study as the way out of poverty, and the vicious circle. My sister is a top teacher in Tahiti - very respected - and my other sister is into the arts - a dancer - and my brother builds speedboats … and none of us have been to prison. Which is like - an honour - you have to be Tahitian to understand this!
AC: So it was about poverty, but was it also about wanting to better yourself as a person?
CHV:She didn't think about 'widening your horizon'. She saw education as a way out - a way to a better job - that's all. 'You'll get a better job with papers' (which means degrees). When I won a scholarship I had to go to school in Papeete so I had to catch the truck every day and I had to pay $1.20 there and $1.20 back - and it was a hassle because Mum went into Papeete every day too, which was $5 transport every day. I would always panic because we had to have money for the ride for the next day towards the end of the month - before payday - we'd be looking everywhere for something. But no matter how hard things were, my mum would always say, 'Don't worry, we'll find something, God will find something,' - and we'd always find something. Her positivism was just amazing and I think I'm used to that in my life too - so if things go wrong I think, well if it's meant to be you've just got to accept it.
AC: And, I guess, go with the opportunities that are given and make the most of them.
CHV: My brother lost the plot for a while, but my mother never lost faith in him and she'd always say to him, 'Well I know one day you're going to do something good! And do what God put you on this earth for'. She's really big on God. I grew up with a glowing Virgin Mary and the beating heart - the beating red heart! And when I go home with my kids (Mum now has a bigger house because her old house was destroyed by the cyclone - we've got a government house now - so there's more religious posters) they'll say 'Mum, that man freaks me!' and she'll ask 'What did he say?' and I'll explain and she'll say 'That Man! That Man's Jesus Christ!' I think when I started writing, her greatest fear was … well you know there are so many books that rubbish something that is important to a lot of people - just because they can, and probably because that's how they feel … and she said, 'I hope there's no blasphemy in your book - that's all I'm asking - I hope you don't take the name of the Lord in vain'. I saw in her life her Faith….
AC: It was her strength.
CHV: Yes, her Faith gave her strength - so it's something….
ABOUT MEN & WOMEN
AC: The way you talk about your mother and your grandmother and your aunts, it seems to me that the women are what hold everything together … the culture….
CHV: Yes, absolutely yes … if we had to leave it to the men … Phewt! … Like, when the baby's born it's the women who get the tree and decide where it's going to be planted, and we think about the names…. It's the women who tell the stories of the past … men hardly ever … I'm writing about this in my third book [Tiare] … men don't seem to be talking - you know - if they talk it's just 'wind talk' - 'Oh, did you see Rosalee! Oh … I remember Rosalee …'. Sometimes they talk a little bit about themselves but it's so rare - so hard for them … like my uncle was sharing a little of himself with me and then he freaked out … 'Too much! Too much! Too much!' and then he stopped talking, he didn't want to go on.
AC: They don't want to talk about intimate personal things?
CHV: That's right - personal things … whereas women - they'll tell you everything and I'm sure with most women it's a visiting thing. Women get the kids together and they do the cooking and the talking, and even when they talk amongst themselves we're listening - we hear things, we pick up things … sometimes they'd forget us kids and just tell stories.
AC: Was that something you found different in Australia? When you moved what were the things that you found hardest about living in Australia?
CHV: Well, actually it was living in Sydney because … of the lack of emotions - I found it hard… When I first arrived I was kissing everyone and then I realised it's not really a normal thing to do here … so lack of emotions and people keeping a distance… Well, fair enough, you've got to earn their trust - not like Tahiti where some stranger will walk past and Haere mai tama'a 'Come eat!' and next, 'Come sleep!' It could be an axe-murderer for all we know - we're too friendly sometimes. So I appreciate that we can't meet and expect to be instant friends - you've got to earn it - I accepted that. But now where I live in Ulladulla there's a community spirit which is why I feel I can handle being so far away from my family. I've been here for twelve years and it's the women I love - the women. Well it's the same thing … the women get together. We have a women's group where we get our flock of children together and go to the pool or the beach and we share stories.
AC: So that's actually very similar to Tahiti - it's about small communities.
CHV: Yes - it's the small community. I think it's a universal thing where women in a small community draw on each other's strength to survive. It's about women and the caring we have - we are such caring creatures - and I'm not saying that men aren't but just that we're different. I'm teaching my oldest son to cook and he's changed his bed sheets since he was fourteen.
AC: I like the part in the book about the son who cooks and wants to be a chef … I guess there's something about the macho culture everywhere - at least it is in Australia - there's a lot of pressure on boys to behave in a particular - a macho - way.
CHV: Exactly, exactly….
AC: And it's very hard for them to break away from that and be a bit different because they're seen to be feminine in some way … it's a problem … it's the same kind of culture in Australia - it's no different….
CHV: In Tahiti men make pretty poor fathers, but they make brilliant grandfathers - Brilliant! They come to an age where it's acceptable - it's expected to behave differently as a grandfather. And that's what I wanted to explore in my third novel, Tiare. A few of my cousins I thought of as such coconut heads when they were younger but they're brilliant grandfathers. My cousin George is always with his granddaughter, and he was telling me last time I was there: 'God, the women are always checking me out!' and I said, 'Yeah, because you're a man with a baby, you know - it's sexy'. With a twenty-year old holding a baby - it's always, 'Oh, she's wearing the pants … why don't you come for a beer…' from the mates. But of the man who is a grandfather, it's expected. The kids have them wrapped around their little fingers… And because they have kids so early Tahitian men often become grandfathers in their forties.
AC: So it's actually quite a freeing thing for them then isn't it?
CHV: Someone was saying this to me earlier and I hadn't really thought about that, but yes, it's like, 'Now I'm allowed … I'm allowed to be soft'. It's about relationship between grandchild and grandfather - it's expected he will go gaga - 'Oh he's gone gaga!' 'Gaga' means he's lost it … plenty of rocks in there … he's gone a bit silly … but it's expected.
AC: So you say he's gone a bit silly now he's relating to his grandchildren in a way he didn't relate to his own children, but it's a positive thing?
CHV: Oh yes - it's a positive thing - everybody laughs and we think he's cute … sexy. A lot of women might have thought, 'As soon as the kids are grown up, I'm out of here,' but a lot of the time they fall in love again with their men - it's amazing! In their twenties it's all about showing their muscles … alright it's lovely but for women - for me - I don't think it does anything…. 'Yeah, great muscles, but can you help me here?' But the softness - there is something about the softness that turns us on - the thought of them being thoughtful - that's what gets us into bed - not the triple abdominals! You've got to melt the heart first - you know - it goes from the heart down, it doesn't go the other way. So a lot of the women just fall in love madly … and the grandchildren, well a lot of the grandchildren spend time with their grandparents because their parents are working - so it's a very lucky child who has that relationship with a grandparent - it brings a lot of happiness. And when the grandparents die the grandchildren are really touched. You will meet grown men now who will talk a lot about their grandparents - a lot - more about their grandparents than their parents.
AC: Is this what your next book is about? More about the men?
CHV: Yes. Tiare is written from Pito's point of view [Pito is Materena's partner and father of her children]. I had a lot of fun. It's about the redemption that comes in the form of his granddaughter. I haven't turned him into a Mr Goody Two-Shoes, but he's obviously showing a bit more affection (and getting much more sex!).
AC: That's interesting, because the first two books are so much about women - strong women - I wondered what you would do next as you can't keep writing on the same topic….
CHV: No, exactly … and I'm closing that story - I've said goodbye. It's a trilogy and that's the last one of the family. You've got to know when to stop. In the third book I close everything - close lots of issues that come from Breadfruit and Frangipani and it's the end - Ciao! - but I did cry when it was finished.
ABOUT TRADITIONS & CHANGE
AC: One of the things that interested me that I think is different in Tahiti to Australia, is the strong sense of the dead still being with you - still being part of the family….
CHV: Absolutely.
AC: Weeding the graves….
CHV: I think the worst thing that can happen to a person back home is to be forgotten. My grandmother died when my mum was fourteen but I know her inside out. I know all about her because my mum talked about her a lot and I think from weeding the grave….
AC: Because you are keeping the person alive, keeping their memory alive….
CHV: Yes … because it's so embarrassing if the grave is choking in weeds. On The Day of the Dead it's a competition for who has the most flowers or the most beautiful flowers - we paint the graves, agonise about the flowers - 'No, no, yellow on the right…. No don't move that….' It takes hours! And then carrying the bouquets of flowers up the hill. We have candles - it's magic - I love The Day of the Dead! The priests come to bless and make sure no graves are missed and you have to make sure not to step on the graves - everyone is squeezed into little alleys between the graves. But we don't go as far as putting up pictures of the dead the way the Chinese do.
AC: Why do you think that is? What's different about putting up a picture to telling stories?
CHV: Maybe it's a respect thing. We have family pictures in an album - but that's private, you don't go through someone's family album. It's a protection of privacy. The community is very open but there are still things that are private.
AC: Some things are private to the smaller family.
CHV: Yes.
AC: Your books are about traditions, but it doesn't seem to be a static tradition, but something that is accommodating change as well, although some of the things you talk about are things you want to preserve….
CHV: Like what?
AC: Well I was thinking of The Day of the Dead and the weeding of the graves - that is something that is important to the culture and you want to see ongoing, but in other ways, maybe attitudes towards women, you do want to see change happen. So it doesn't seem to me that you're presenting a culture that has somehow stopped in the past. You know how we were talking about nostalgia before, and sometimes nostalgia can be thinking about a culture as though it had stopped in the past somewhere?
CHV: Yes I see what you mean. It's like having a woman on the radio, why not have a woman on the radio, but if I lived there I would think 'No, we can't have a woman on the radio', but because I live here [in Australia] I think, 'Yeah, why not, I'll put a bloody woman on the radio, and I'll make her a superstar!' So you're right in that because I don't live there I'm not restricted so I feel free to go ahead … planting ideas.
AC: Change starts to happen because of those ideas?
CHV: Well that's what one would hope for I guess - yes - to inspire and unlock something….
AC: If people can imagine something…. Sometimes the problem is they can't even imagine the possibility and if you can just get them to think about this other possibility … things happen….
CHV: Exactly. Even the translator of Frangipani was saying 'No one will relate to a woman on the radio … women talk at home not in public.' But I guarantee it's going to happen - a woman on the radio. There are women on TV all the time - Miss Tahiti, or they tell the weather - very sexy weather…. But the idea came when I was in Tahiti and I had a radio interview … they were all men and all French. The assistants were women - the one's behind the glass … and that's when I thought 'Why not a woman!'
AC: Are there any women in Tahiti in positions of power?
CHV: Yes … I had lunch with the Minister of Women, Beatrice Vernaudon, who took me to dinner. She wanted to acknowledge the impact of my stories - she said thanks so much for writing about that - because our women need to know. There's a lot of domestic violence…. I think because I was raised by a single mother I am so pro-woman, but maybe if she had been married, you know, bending to her husband, I would have been different. A lot of women for reasons of security give up their strength to accommodate a man in their lives….
AC: You spend a lot of time in the novels talking about women's strength, and I wondered if partly that was because women needed to be strong because they were living in circumstances which made them vulnerable or in which there was violence. You don't really talk about that in the books.
CHV: It's true, you learn to be very accommodating….
AC: So I guess you're giving an example of how women might behave differently.
CHV: That's right but don't get me wrong, I've got all kinds of colours in my family - I've got one's who are accommodating or one's who are having a fight and my brother will go in to help and be told - no, leave them alone - my mum knows how to fight. There are women out there who will not take shit! There are all kinds of examples but I like the example of the strong woman without going into the physical thing.
AC: I think it's the same kind of thing you were talking about before - it's giving people knowledge.
CHV: Yes.
** KUNAPIPI REVIEW Kunapipi is the official journal of the European Association of Commonwealth Languages and Literatures. It has been produced since 1979 and is available by subscription. It is distributed internationally - a large number going to university libraries throughout the world. This interview appeared in the 2nd issue of Kunapipi for 2005 Kunapipi, Vol XXVII, No.1: Special issue on Women of the South Pacific.
