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NZ National Schools Poetry Competition

Burnside High School —

Angelina Zhou Narayan was a runner-up in the NZ National Schools Poetry Awards, with her excellent poem "Cultural Tripartite"

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION ON CULTURAL DAY? 

Lining up for the Japanese curry, I look around

See how I’m shrouded by flowing hanfu, proud patterned layers of the hanbok Picking out a loose wire from the kameez I bought in a Fijian department store a few years back

The royal blue is restricting, the flash intertwining gold pressing against my chest

The stares are what a hen painted into a peacock gets

The compliments are what you give a pretty ornament from the souvenir store 

I’m often told I don’t look Indian

 When I get home, I claw my way out of the gauzy layers

 They cling to my skin, then my culture is once again

 Folded neat, stashed compact in the same bag the cashier gave me.

 OUTSIDER ATTENDS FIAFIA NIGHT

Saying grace, anticipating the kai

I look, and the sense of belonging isn’t there

But trays of tuna swim in coconut milk, an entire pig rests upon crumpled foil Mountains of bread slathered in butter

I gravitate towards the scent of curry, roti 

Politely decline the I cling to my Chinese mother to fend off the foreign feeling 

What’s an Asian woman doing at a Pasifika event? 

Then they look to my iTaukei dad, and we’re no longer outsiders.

FRIED RICE IN MANDARIN IS CHAOFAN

Stilted greetings, switching tongues

 Wishing I could interpret their lilting vowels, the steady-stream-flow of syllables They switch the setting when their eyes see me, they ask

 Do you eat chicken feet?

 When I come to dim sum, I don’t order fried rice

 That shows how cultured I am

 They say I’m pretty for a mixed-blood

 Can you speak Mandarin?

 Not really, but I can say what fried rice is