At 6.45am each weekday morning, Mrs GOM and I find ourselves
in the sports hall at a local secondary school attending a Dawn Breakers HIIT*
class. It’s my attempt to keep in some
form of shape. Unfortunately, that shape
is usually bent double, gasping for breath and trying not to lose the previous
night’s supper, but nevertheless, it’s a great way to start each day and has benefitted
me hugely (although my Chiropractor would likely disagree).
Not only does the class serve to improve my fitness, but
it’s an excellent way to meet others and there is a great sense of community
amongst the group that I attend. We come
from an array of backgrounds and we’re all different ages, shapes and sizes –
united by the common goal of improving our health. We complete a six-week programme that sees us
having our photos taken on the first day of the course, for comparison with photos
from the mid- and end-points. As we
lined up to have the first day’s photo taken, I found myself behind the newest
member of the group, Joni, and introduced myself and Mrs GOM. After a short exchange, Joni asked where I
was from.
“Oh, we’re local,” I
said. “About three streets up the road
from here.”
Adopting a look that suggested she was dealing with a
simpleton, Joni tried again.
“But, I thought I
heard a New Zealand accent.”
Huge kudos to Joni for a) rephrasing the question so that
I’d understand it, and b) correctly detecting the provenance of my dulcet
tones. I mumbled some absurd
justification for misunderstanding the question; about having lived here for
nearly 30 years and that my accent had softened. What I realised immediately though, was that
it was the first time I had been asked that question and responded as though I
was a local, rather than the immigrant that I am.
I have always identified as a New Zealander and I always
will. It’s a heritage of which I’m proud. I come from a beautiful country where people
are largely open, friendly and welcoming. I only left for a three-month holiday in 1990
and fully expected to return; circumstances and choices meant I did not. Equally, and with all those years under my
belt, I also identify as a Brit, and now, as Joni can attest, call England
home. I was made to feel welcome here
when I arrived and continue to feel a part of the wider community. I suspect that may have a lot to do with
being an English speaking, white, middle-class, male, so my integration into
society was without the challenges that other ethnic and social groups face.
We can do so much to make others more comfortable and feel a
part of our communities. When I was 10, my
family was invited to a wedding by the owner of our corner store, an Indian
immigrant. His daughter was getting
married and the wedding was a grand affair, held at the Lower Hutt Town Hall
and there were hundreds of guests. Dressed
trestle tables were lined along one wall of the hall, groaning with food. As we were queueing with the other guests for
the wedding feast, the bride’s father came to us and took my mother by the arm.
“Not those tables Mother
of GOM. These ones,” he said, escorting her
and the rest of us to another part of the room.
“I think you might prefer the cold buffet,” he said.
On the row of tables before us stood steaming
curries, samosas, rice and other Indian delicacies. My mother, noting that he’d said ‘cold
buffet’ questioned the presence of the hot food.
“This table’s for
you whiteys,” he said with an absence of malice and a cheeky grin. “They’ve gone easy on the spices.”
The gesture was unexpected and hugely considerate. His arrangements had led to adjustments to
the traditional Indian fare, to make it more agreeable to the palates of those
unaccustomed to spicy foods.
“Perhaps for the
children,” my mother responded somewhat magnanimously. “We’re thrilled to be invited, and I would
rather share what you are having.” Our
guest lost his smile and concern etched his face.
“Really?” he
said. “It may be a little hotter than
you’re used to.”
“I’m sure it will be
fine,” my mother assured him.
It was not. I was dispatched
to find her the iced water.
Our host saw that my mother’s attempt to enjoy the full
experience had left her somewhat flushed and he brought her a lassi, a sweet
yoghurt drink. “This will help,” he said,
handing it to her and she accepted it gratefully.
With over 400 guests to consider, our host was particularly
attentive to us, to ensure that we felt comfortable.
Despite his best efforts though, he couldn’t cater to the
will of a bored and stubborn 10-year-old.
I had decided that hunger was the preferred alternative to the exotic
spread before me and failed to take the opportunity to indulge in what I now
know to be delicious cuisine. I leveraged
my age, pleaded boredom and was allowed to head to my Grandmother’s who lived
nearby, where I had one of her delicious white bread, single-slice-of-ham sandwiches
and a pickled onion.
Mr Patel and his family had welcomed us into their community,
and we were blessed to experience a part of their culture and feel the warmth
of their generosity. My mother’s attempt
to fully embrace the experience, whilst misguided from a culinary perspective,
demonstrated a willingness to accept difference. The wedding serves to highlight that we are
richer as a community by engaging with other cultures when the opportunity
presents itself – we get to see a different side of life, which can be enriching. What it also shows is that we are not
compelled to adopt the culture (just as surely as I didn’t in my partiality to
Nana’s ham sandwich), but if we do, we may expand what we like and enjoy, as
the plethora of Indian restaurants in this country will evidence. We are still very much permitted to continue
our own practices, but we can be open to difference. Whilst at it, why not invite others to
experience ours, without having an expectation that they will adopt our way of
life?
We have more to gain and very little to lose by accepting
others, no matter their background or status.
In the main, immigrants contribute positively to the economic fortunes
of their adopted countries and if ever you need to find an argument to support
that case, I present as my first witness, the United States of America.
We lived in the US for a couple of years and had the chance
to meet a wide variety of people. What
was telling was how many of them described their ethnicity by prefixing their
nationality with that of their ancestors, “I’m Italian-American, I’m
Irish-American, I’m Polish-American.”
I’ve yet to hear anyone say, “I’m American-American”, although that
would not be a bad thing, but you get the picture; so many of them identify
with their immigrant past. Even the
current President, who some might term the “racist-in-chief”, is of immigrant
stock. Mary Anne McLeod Trump had Gaelic
as her first language and hailed from the Outer Hebrides. Curiously, Wikipedia suggests that she “was the mother of Donald Trump”;
presumably she disowned him.
But I digress… Wherever
we go, be it to another country or community, we will meet and face others who
have the capacity to welcome or not.
When faced with the former, we have the choice to accept or spurn the invitation. Like my mother, my preference is to accept
with grace; there’s usually the equivalent of tea and biscuits that comes with
it, and now that I’m working out regularly, I can wander ‘off-plan’ and indulge
a little.
But when we’re faced with the opposite, when the welcome is
absent, and you’re greeted with disdain, hostility or worse, the choices are
very much more difficult – do we tolerate or fight what we experience? It’s a decision I am fortunate not to have faced
and, I hope, it’s not a choice I have ever caused others to make. What I need to do more of though, is support
others that do have to make the choice, to stand up and be heard when I witness
that failure to welcome. I’m ashamed to
admit it, but frankly, I find that a terrifying prospect even though I’ve got
the benefit of a privileged background.
If there’s a part of the body that the HIIT class can’t help with, it’s the
moral backbone. It’s something that I need
to strengthen, to become more of an advocate for others that could use a hand.
We improve whenever we do something regularly and
consistently. Just as regular exercise
serves to improve health and strengthen the body, it is the same for developing
moral courage. We should extend
ourselves by leaving our comfort zones, by calling out when we hear a slight, by
supporting those that deserve better, and as we do, we make wherever we choose
to call home a much better place for all of us to live.
Twitter: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2019
18 April 2019
* High intensity interval training
Sources:
Chapter one of the GOM 101 text book is titled “The Good Old
Days”. It points to glorious times in
years gone by and provides fuel for grumpy old men everywhere to bemoan the lamentable
state of the world today, harking back to a time when life was simpler,
happiness was a more abundant commodity and politicians were much better at
fiddling their expenses.
My initial feeling was one of righteous indignation; the apparent
devaluation of the world’s most successful sporting franchise left me incensed. That was closely followed by a wry smile as I
contemplated the welcome that a couple of Hollywood icons might receive from
the opponents of Ngati Porou East Coast and the Thames Valley Swamp Foxes when
Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson and Jason (Aquaman) Momoa donned their respective
club colours. I imagined that some of
the tackling they might experience would be a little more robust than the ‘People’s Elbow’ flim-flammery demonstrated on The
Rock’s WWE showreel.
