Monday, November 17, 2008

Week 4



This is Pejay Clark a 30 year old man who describes himself a Samoan. He does this because Samoan Culture accepts individuality, but it also accepts and embraces diversity.

Pejay is respected in Samoa, "because he does his job of a fa'afafine better than any woman can" so he says. "We're the the important ones, not the real girls," said Pejay.

Pejay is a fa'afafine born a man, but assumes this transgendered role which is accepted in the Samoan society. Pejay who has 11 siblings made her own decision to be a fa'afafine. "I am a woman trapped in a man's body," Pejay said.

Fa'afafines have relationships with straight me, as the men are attracted to the idealized feminine appearances that the fa'afafine portrays.

This story seems like a regular story of the Samoan culture being accepting towards diversity.


There is another story about a Sonny Vaetoa, 26 who was raised in Auckland, but identifies himself as Samoan because of his heritage. In Australia, Sonny calls himself a mala, a gay man who undertakes female skewed jobs involving physical activity such as plantation work and collecting coconuts.

If Sonny had been raised in Samoa, he feels he would be live a third category according to Samoan culture, undercover, where men live a heterosexual life, but enjoy homosexual relations on the side. "I'd have a wife and children. My family is quite religious," he said.

I personally don't agree with Sonny's idea of the fa'afafine. It totally goes against the true Samoan Culture of the fa'afafine.


Both Pejay and Sonny cited the 1999 Australian-funded documentary, A Paradise Bent: Boys Will be Girls in Samoa, featuring television personality fa'afafine Cindy as the speaker for homosexuality.




http://www.starobserver.com.au/community/2008/11/26/where-family-comes-first/2833




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