Arthur – San Antonio
“My name’s Arthur. I’m from the United States, from a State called Texas near the South, next to Mexico. I’m from a city called San Antonio. I moved here about two years ago to play music in a band called Makeshift Parachutes – psychedelic rock music.
So, two years ago when I moved here I had to get a day job, and not just play music. That day job ended up being a fundraiser for Amnesty International. I’ve been doing that for two years, and because of that job I get to meet a lot of really interesting people from other countries.
One of the meals that I had that was quite memorable I guess; we’re told not really to go into people’s homes, but sometimes once you get chatting it ends up happening. I met a man from Afghanistan who was displaced during the Gulf War in the ‘90s who was moved around quite a bit, and obviously me being an American I think he found it quite interesting.
The other thing is he was Muslim, and my mother is Jewish. So it’s a lot of clashes all in one traditionally. So we started chatting for ages, and started to get talking, and we ended up having a meal together where he made us some extremely hot tea that I have never tasted before and it was quite bitter, but I pretended to like it quite a bit, to I guess make him happy. We also shared nuts. We sat on the floor, on a traditional mat that he was using. I got to meet his entire family, including his wife, which was quite interesting, because you could tell the dynamic between the two is much different from what a normal dynamic would be in a household. I also got to meet his child who had make-up on, which was quite interesting. He was a young boy, probably only a year old, wearing really dark eye make-up.
It was just amazing to watch communication between such diverse and different cultures, especially when there’s supposed to be a lot of conflict in those two religions or two areas of the world. That was pretty much what ended up happening. He made me stick around for much longer than I wanted to, but you had to please; I was in his home, so we tried to be cordial, I guess. I think we talked for almost two hours, but it was quite interesting just the terrible things I guess he had to go to just to get to Auckland, and get to New Zealand. It’s a lot of work moving from different camps when he was in the Middle East, and not really knowing exactly where he was going to be the next few weeks, especially with a wife who wasn’t alongside him. So yeah, makes my small trip from Texas to Auckland sound a bit easy, when I thought it was quite difficult. In comparison it’s quite nice; put’s things in perspective, I guess.
I’m quite an atheist now, but I still wear the Star of David, because my Mum gave it to me, and that’s what kind of sparked that whole conversation with that man; the fact that I’m religious by birth but haven’t practiced it my entire life. He found that quite interesting, and he’s quite religious, or he was quite religious when I met him. So that’s where my mum comes into the picture; she didn’t force it on me, even though she was quite Jewish when we were growing up. She just let me who I wanted to be, I guess.
My band is putting on an album. We’re touring. That’s the way that we feel like we can make it; playing as many shows as possible. We’ve played here in New Zealand quite a bit. The goal is to make albums and be able to live off music. I don’t want heaps of money, but to be able to do it for a job would be my goal. We’ve played The Kings Arms a few times, and a few local bars like K-Rd, been all the way down to Wellington four of five times, played a few festivals this summer. Now we’ve settled down near Kumeu, just north of Auckland with our own music studio. So all of our focus right now it into writing an album – possibly two, in the next year. Two kiwis and two Americans are in the band.
I think the one thing that I’ve noticed and actually like and dislike about Auckland is how diverse it is. I love the diversity because it’s nice to see all the cultures together. I was speaking about the diversity of the cultures here in New Zealand, especially in Auckland; it’s extremely diverse and it’s amazing, but I don’t believe that all the people in Auckland are embracing it in the right ways. I see a lot of segregation between cultures where you can see different people from different parts of the country only living together, and that goes for every culture. It’s not one in particular, and I think that causes a lot of problems, because there was a lot of mysterious, what goes on in these places and it starts to get a negative connotation to it. Then it basically creates a void that doesn’t need to be there, because they’re all living in the same city. Yeah, that’s the negative side of it, but I think it can be positive quite easy if you do it the right way.