if this ain't love...

At a dinner party recently, someone I know – a female expat – said that it was time that she found herself a Papua New Guinean partner. She’s been here for a while. Having travelled around a bit on her own, she now wants to go to more remote places that the average whiteskin doesn’t get to. This is the purpose of the PNGian partner: he brings safety, legitimacy and – if not acceptance, then at least – access, to remote rural villages.

It’s a practical argument (the “adult love” was also mentioned, in the same practical manner). I find it a bit strange that people can be so matter of fact about relationships – particularly cross-cultural ones; what about all the difficulties and the implications? - but I haven’t lived here for several years. Maybe I too would go … a little troppo. Not to say it’s always an odd situation; there are plenty of cross-cultural relationships based on people as individuals, rather than skin-colour – it’s just that you see more of the other kind.

White male and PNGian female relationships are more common (by at least 10:1) than PNG male and white female. There are several obvious cultural reasons for this: for the white guys: it’s a patriarchal culture, men are always welcomed and partly because of the patriarchy and partly as a colonial hangover, white guys are considered a valuable catch; he can easily hang out with her male wantoks, and is accepted by the females. If he has an ounce of charm, all will love him (I’ve heard it said that white guys who can’t make it in western society, can make it here. Nasty, but there is some truth in it). It might be easier for him to be adopted by a village than to have a no-strings affair – but if he’s after the latter, he can always pay.

For the white girl, it’s not as easy. She has no real place amongst his male wantoks; it is probable that the females will be hostile, but even if not they will be very hard to get to know; acceptance takes years. Locals would think the white woman odd (why is she doing this, leaving her own wantoks and coming to us?), whereas the male wouldn’t be questioned.

I know of some successful, loving cross-cultural relationships. A young professional couple in town; an Anglican pastor and his aussie wife who’ve lived (in a house) in a village for almost 20 years. And I know some others; an Aussie male who lives with his two PNGian girlfriends; “they’re not for conversation,” he says, “and there are none of the complicated emotional demands that white women bring.” A white priest who has a history of “adult love” with young black boys (locals shrug; it’s a man of god, an older whiteskin … no one intervenes directly. If it were a PNG man doing the same things, very different story).

Black and white relationships are tricky ground. Each to there own is the best response I can come up with, albeit an inadequate one at times.