First Monday of the 3 and half weeks’ internship started with a cultural orientation and a traditional ceremony which organized by the department of heritage and arts, Fiji Museum, National Trust and Fiji Arts Council which are the organizations we are going to work with for the coming 3 weeks.
We all dressed up with t-shirt to cover our shoulder and the long skirt to cover the knee to show our respect to Fijian. From the culture orientation we know that the one important principal which the traditional Fijian culture based on is RESPECT. And the respectful protocol is a fusion of what has been passed on by the ancestral traditional way of living an and the influence of early Christian teachings. Also we learned about touching someone’s head is rude and the “tulou,tulou” thing as well.
At the museum, we are welcomed by the director of Fiji Heritage and art. The music students performed Savusavu in the most formal which lasted about 18 minutes!
Performance
After the traditional ceremony, we went shopping with the music students. They are the friendliest people that I meet for the past 20 years! Not kidding. Fijian would like to know your background and relate their personal experience to yours to show that we have something in common. When they knew that I come from China they were trying to talk about some experience they got when they were performing for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. One of the girl even told me that she got a Chinese name Feifei which is named by the Chinese tour guide they had during the Expo.
On the way shopping, she pointed out the court house and the Suvavou house for me. The Suvavou house has many government departments in it, one of them is the marriage department. The law for marriage in Fiji is quite different with the one we have in Australia. Feifei said that people get married when they feel to do so. I think there is no age limitation and no difference between the people living in the villages and people living in the city.
I am going to work at the Fiji Arts Council for the next 3 weeks. The first day to work, I have already get some basic idea about what I can do and what I should do for my project. I will help the financial manager of the arts council to do some accounting work and help with the pricing work. I am really pleased to work in the FAC’s office with all the arts pieces around. I have never thought about being an arts student before and basically have no idea about arts. I think I will learn a lot from this internship experience.
some random shot from the arts council, the boat is the wining piece of 2010 Shanghai Expo
Is Feifei Finau?
回复删除I'm glad that you were at the FAC as well in an arty environment yet still doing the work you are so talented and speedy in doing.
I was proud of the good work you did.