Before the book, even before burning down the backyard fence and the garage...
In 1957, my father worked in Apia as an Assistant’s Assistant to the storeman at a Mr Helmut Schmidt’s (not his real name) Warehouse. My dad describes it as part food store, part mechanics, part hardware and farming and part pharmacy. You could buy anything at that store. I suppose it’s not too unlike The WareHouse stores here in New Zealand. Although staying with his extended relatives in Apia, every morning before his ‘official’ work my father still worked helping the relatives with the Taro plantation.
Staying away from his own village was like murder to my father because like all Samoan sons, he missed his family in Savai’i and I bet it wasn’t the best job a young man could have being an Assistant’s Assistant, but options were limited for someone forced by circumstances to give up school because the family needed him. Education was a luxury, pure and simple and that's exactly how my grandparents saw it. My father tells me that the store man had about six Assistant Assistants, so he didn’t think he'd be missed too much if he left his $2 Tala per week job, to help maintain the family’s banana and taro plantations back in Salelologa. My grandfather thought he was plumb crazy, absolutely nuts to leave that job! But he did.
Safely back in Savai’i, every morning like clock work he rose at 3.30am to walk the eight or nine kilometers to tend to the gardens and bring back what he could. Taro, bread fruit, yams and bananas in woven baskets, sometimes seventy kilos were hanging from his shoulders. His sisters, my revered Aunts, Lima, Mao and Seine would then take the baskets and carry them to the market down by the wharf to sell while my father built and tended the fires, then cooked what there was for the elders and other extended Aiga (family). As the sun was rising making the morning light, he would saunter across the road and down to the sea with his homemade spear gun, still wearing the same dirty ie lavalava and swim to the outer reefs to spear fish.
The fishing although a necessary chore, was one he loved. A form of escapism, it gave him time to be alone with his thoughts. It was in this water wonderland of vivid coloured fish and an equally brilliant coral landscape that he realised in order for any of his children to succeed in life he needed to immigrate. His children needed education in order to have a better life. So like thousands of Pacific Islanders, we came to New Zealand. The better life wouldn’t come without its surprises and hiccups and sad times. But life balances out and even though there were hard times if you had the love and support like my family had for each other, it could bring funny moments that could travel forty years to make that load as light as a feather.
This book is about that load, both the good and the bad. It’s about life in the past and why you should look ahead to the future with an optimistic x-ray vision like Superman, because we are stronger and more capable than we think. So, just as my father and your father most probably many times before have carried those woven baskets of green banana’s and taro with quiet contempt at the strain on muscle and bone, so should we at life’s unfavorable times. By the way after my father left his job, the other five ‘Assistant Assistants’ complained and after much negotiation were promoted three months later to just ‘Assistant’. One year later they received an extra Tala, taking their weekly wage to $3 Tala.
The moral of this story is… oh never mind, just read the book.
Ta'afuli Andrew
BOOK REVIEWS
Canvas: Weekend Herald
Presents with a great future
9 December 2006
"Outstanding memoir by Fiu, a Samoan who came to Auckland with his family when he was three. Written with verve and humour, Purple Heart is a revelation." more >
The Listener - Best Books
David Eggleton
9 December 2006
"The early part of his autobiography is redolent both with memories of a Ponsonby childhood and the culture shock of adjusting to a new way of life. His touch is light - and though sometimes wry, he's never self pitying; rather, he celebrates the human comedy." more >
North & South Magazine
Warwick Roger
August 2006
"This is a delightful little memoir by an extraordinary man who has undergone five open-heart operations. It's also a story about migration, courage, racism, traditional values versus modern ways and about the love of the extended family....
Ta'afuli Andrew Fiu is an interesting new voice and I hope he has more than one book in him" more >
INTERVIEWS
NZ Women's Weekly
Jenny Forsyth
August 2006
Auckland heart surgery survivor, Ta'afuli Andrew Fiu has survived five operations. His secret? Strong women - including his "female" heart. more >
TVNZ Breakfast
Kay Gregory
31 July 2006
Kay Gregory speaks to author Ta'afuli Andrew Fiu about his book Purple Heart. Speaking on air, Kay said "I think every New Zealander should read this book. It's a tale of a Samoan coming to New Zealand. It's a tale of someone suffering through great adversity health- wise, surviving it, the people you met. It's brilliant."
Radio Australia
Isabelle Genoux
7 August 2006
Isabelle Genoux speaks to New Zealand Samoan author Andrew Fiu about his book which tells his story of migration, endurance and unbroken spirit.
