The 7-8pm hour on Sunday evenings on RNZ National features a news bulletin followed by One In Five – “a programme exploring the issues and experience of disability”. This is followed at 7:35pm with Voices – “a weekly programme that highlights Asians, Africans, indigenous Americans and more, from Iraq to India to Indonesia and East Asia, spanning Morocco to Madagascar, Belize to Brazil. These are our local-born and immigrant ethnic minority communities, New Zealanders with stories to share”. At 7:45pm there is The Week in Parliament. In this recording:
19:06 – One in Five
Rugby VIPs
BODY:
The New Zealand Rugby Foundation supports players who have broken their back or neck during a game. It works with 102 Very Injured Players, or V.I.Ps, giving them financial and emotional support and advocating for them. The Foundation also works to prevent injuries on the rugby field.
EXTENDED BODY:
Left: NZ Rugby Foundation CEO, Lisa Kingi-Bon and VIP No 8, Muir Templeton. Right: Seti Tafua and Frank Bunce
Twenty years ago Wayne Forrest dislocated his neck playing a game of rugby and became a tetraplegic.
Two years later the New Zealand Rugby Foundation stepped into his life.
The Rugby Foundation’s role is to give financial and emotional support to catastrophically injured players. It also advocates for them and is involved in developing programmes to prevent injuries on the playing field.
The Foundation works alongside 102 V.I.Ps or Very Injured Players in New Zealand.
Wayne says words cannot express the difference the Foundation has made to his life.
“You know I’ve said ‘thank you’ enough times but it still doesn’t seem enough. I’ve been extremely lucky.”
The Rugby Foundation has provided funding for him to go with a charity to the UK where he took part in courses to learn water skiing and sailing and went camping on the moors.
“That was probably a bit turning point for me. I realised then that, with a bit of support, anything is quite possible.”
The Rugby Foundation has also helped him fund sports equipment, modifications for his home and has arranged weekends away to sporting events away with other V.I.Ps.
He says those weekend are invaluable for connecting with others in a similar situation and provide opportunities for newly injured players to talk with, and get tips from older players.
The Foundation also funds education for spinal injured players and supports their families immediately after the injury.
It receives $300,000 funding each year from the New Zealand Rugby Union and holds fundraising events so it can support its players.
Transcript:
(Men shout)
(Whistle blows. Rugby Sfx )
Men: Come on!
(Whistle blows)
(Applause)
Muir Templeton: 16 March, 1975. It was a pre-season match. I’d been on for a couple of quarters. They rested me. And then the coaches decided another ten minutes. Normally I was a tight head prop. I was then put into the position of lock just for the last ten minutes ‘cause I was reasonably tall. So the opposition kicked off. I took the ball; I went running forward into the opposition to set up a ruck. But unfortunately I came to under a pile of feet. I recognised that something was wrong and I just screamed out “I’m concussed, I’m concussed”. And our flanker dived over the top of me in the form of a crouch on knees and hands over my head to protect me. And there I lay.
Carol Stiles: It wasn’t concussion. Muir Templeton had broken his neck.
Muir Templeton: I remember being in intensive care with wet sheets, buckets of ice and fans over the top of me and I tell you what, that was not a pleasant experience. And for a frightened young 18 year old who hadn’t experienced much of life… very intimidating. I got told off by the doctors that, for the other ICU patients, it wasn’t a nice thing to be screaming out.
Carol Stiles: Muir is one of 102 people in New Zealand with spinal cord injuries as a result of playing rugby. The Rugby Foundation calls them ‘VIPs – Very Injured Players’. Muir is VIP number eight. It’s the job of the Rugby Foundation to support catastrophically injured players.
John Moananui: Anybody and everybody within the Foundation gets taken care of. I guess the Foundation is the last organisation before you fall through the cracks, you know?
Carol Stiles: John Moananui is another VIP.
John Moananui: Even though we have ACC and we have WINZ, or social welfare, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to cater to all your needs.
Carol Stiles: When did you have your injury?
John Moananui: I had my injury just over 30 years ago, 31 this year – August 19th 1984. And at that time, being a single father, I had two nephews and two nieces I brought up with my son. So, yeah, it was pretty hard. I was in and out of hospital for the first five years. Anywhere from four months to 11 months, sometimes nine months, ten. I guess people like me and others you’d feel the crunch at the end of the day.
Carol Stiles: Have they helped you at all financially?’
John Moananui: Yes. A couple of times I hit the dumps and was a bit low on cash, paying bills, and all of a sudden they said ‘Look, we’ll help you do that’. But what it’s gone and done, the Foundation itself, is attempt to try and bring people out in the open by attending games and other activities. So, yeah, when I can I’ll get to the rugby games, which is good.
Carol Stiles: It’s one of these activities that’s brought ten VIPs to Wellington. The Rugby Foundation has arranged for them to have a weekend away to take part in the Round the Bays event. Lisa Kingi-Bon is the CEO of the Rugby Foundation. She says the organisation has been transformed over the years.
Lisa Kingi-Bon: It began in 1986 with the late Kel Tremain and Sir Russell Pettigrew. They’d both been very involved with the main body – New Zealand Rugby. They started the Rugby Foundation initially in terms of areas of rugby and need. So right in the beginning it was not focused at all in terms of injury. It was focused in terms of able-bodied rugby, say secondary school rugby and club rugby that was in their view declining at that stage. And as they went about doing their work they started meeting guys who had broken their necks playing rugby. So I would say in the first 10 years they started seeing that, but it really took a good 15 years to really become really conscious of how many people had been injured playing rugby.
Carol Stiles: Now, the Rugby Foundation is entirely focused on injured players.
Lisa Kingi-Bon: We work in four main areas. Our main area will always be what we call ‘support’. I prefer the word ‘partnership’ because we partner with the guys. Injury prevention is massive. New Zealand Rugby led the way, and they were the first ones with ACC to create the RugbySmart programme. And the amazing thing with that is from 2001 when RugbySmart started to now, all of the injuries or the bulk of the injuries pre-2001 were in the scrum. There’s been one in the scrum in the last 10 years, and that’s because those rules changed. So this sounds ironic, but probably the safest place to be in the game really is in the scrum now.
Carol Stiles: Lisa says the other two key areas for the Rugby Foundation are advocating for players and their families and building relationships with other agencies.
Lisa Kingi-Bon: New Zealand Rugby Union has got a really big insurance policy, but that was initiated by the Rugby Foundation in the late ‘90s. It’s a really interesting part of it because once the insurance policy pays out we don’t just give the money to them, either. We help them on the legal side; we’ve got amazing lawyers who do the work pro bono. So you’re creating a trust deed, you’re creating a really responsible situation to try and have a safe place for that money to go to.
Carol Stiles: The Rugby Foundation is completely independent of the New Zealand Rugby Union although Lisa says they have a fabulous relationship with it. The Rugby Union is its biggest donor and gives the Foundation $300,000 a year. And Lisa says high-profile rugby players are always keen to help with fundraising events for the Foundation.
Lisa Kingi-Bon: There’s not one guy who, if we ask them to do something, they’ll ever say no. They know that they’re the lucky ones. And I don’t just mean them. I mean any other able-bodied rugby player would do anything to help someone who just by… (Clicks fingers)...a real stroke of bad luck has ended up on the bad side of the ledger.
Carol Stiles: Lisa says it’s important to look at the statistics around rugby injuries to put them into perspective.
Lisa Kingi-Bon: Every single year in New Zealand there are about 130 people who present at one of two spinal injury specialist units, which is Burwood in Christchurch and Middlemore in Auckland. So 130, OK? Only about one or two of those at the most are rugby. So at the moment the data shows that the most risk, the most accidents actually happen in falls. And that’s at home very often. Car accidents are always bad, but that’s come down quite a bit. And the most dangerous of sports is actually mountain biking. Rugby, it is a contact sport, but at the end of the day we’ve done everything, rugby has done everything that it can to keep people safe in terms of good technique, warming up properly. Concussion is massive at the moment. The focus is on that. And that’s education, that’s not just a coach or a referee, because up until now it’s only been the coaches and referees who’ve done RugbySmart. This year is the first year that it’s been rolled out, that the players do RugbySmart, as well. And now the focus is on them accepting responsibility for “No, I’m not feeling great; I’m going to get off”. Of 5,200 people who live within the ACC Serious Injury Unit only 100 are rugby. If you speak to any one of our guys they would say “If you’re going to end up in a wheelchair, hell you want to end up being injured playing rugby” ‘cause they’ve got us on top of ACC.
Carol Stiles: Wayne Forrest’s relationship with the Rugby Foundation started a couple of years after his accident. That was in 1995. He says he’s had a lot of support from the Foundation over the years.
Wayne Forrest: I was part of a charity called Back-Up New Zealand. As part of getting involved with them they suggested I go to the UK. and the Rugby Foundation helped support that. I didn’t expect them to. I put out a whole lot of funding applications to everybody. And the Rugby Foundation pretty much rang me up and said “We’ll do it for you”. My partner then, who is now my wife, and I went to the UK for nine weeks and did three outdoor activity courses, which were about a week long each, from waterskiing to sailing to camping on the moors. And I learnt a lot. That was probably a big turning point for me. I realised then that with a little bit of support anything is quite possible. And that’s what the Rugby Foundation has done, you know? And they’ve helped us with equipment, sports equipment, and weekends away like this.
Carol Stiles: You get to go to some of the big games, I understand.
Wayne Forrest: Yeah, the Sevens. I’ve done the Sevens twice. Every two years they do the Sevens. That’s a great time for us to connect again with other guys that are in a similar situation. And those connections are quite valuable, especially with guys that might have had a fresh injury in the last five years or so. And it’s quite good talking to the older ones, just to know what’s out there – equipment… just all sorts of things because you’ve got something in common. Yeah, that support is unbelievable, really. The Rugby Foundation have stepped in with a few housing mods that ACC wouldn’t fund as well.
Carol Stiles: So modifying your house?
Wayne Forrest: Yeah, you can’t put it into words how they support you, you know? I’ve said thank you enough times, but it still doesn’t seem enough for me, anyway. I’ve been extremely lucky.
Carol Stiles: The Rugby Foundation has also been in Brad Hayward’s life.
Brad Hayward: I’ve been playing wheelchair rugby over the years. And they’ve brought rugby chairs for me and wheels and that, and supported us on trips. So that’s been great financially. ‘Cause the chairs are up to $8,000- $9,000. And that’s quite a lot of money. Education, they’ve put me through a polytech course. They’ve put a heat pump in my house. So they’re amazing. They pick up what ACC won’t do.
Phil Booth: For me it’s been exactly the same. For me it’s been…they put me through my IT degree for computers. I played wheelchair rugby for a few years, as well, and they supported me through a couple of rugby chairs. And hand cycles – I got my one through the Rugby Foundation. So, yeah, like Brad said, they pick up where ACC don’t and fill holes there. And, yeah, it makes life a lot easier and more enjoyable.
Brad Hayward: Over the years Lisa has come on board and she’s really emphasized getting the guys together, like the Sevens, and the Round the Bays, and getting all the guys together so we can meet and have that peer support. For the new guys it’s great to see guys who have been there and done it and it gives them inspiration to carry on and see you can actually live with a spinal injury and have a good life.
Carol Stiles: Unfortunately there’s people coming through all the time, I suppose.
Phil Booth: In ’96 they changed the laws. There were 16 of us with broken necks front row in that ’96 year. And ACC put a big thing out where all the coaches and referees had to go to seminars and they changed the engagement law so now they crouch, touch and engage, rather than stand back a metre and dive in like we used to. So I think that’s changed a lot. There’s not so many front-rowers that are injured from rugby. I think a lot of them are more in the tackle ball situation now.
Carol Stiles: Would you encourage a son to play rugby?
Phil Booth: Yeah, to play rugby. I might not encourage him in the front row just to… well, actually I’ve got godchildren that are… One of them is going to play in the front row there, so… No, I think it’s all fine. At the end of the day it’s a freak accident. Anything you can have that in, walking across the road and getting hit by a bus.
Brad Hayward: I remember after my injury, about a year later… I’ve got a younger brother who is 13 years younger so he was about 8 or 9. I won him a trip to go and see the All Blacks, ‘cause I thought I don’t want to put him off rugby. And I remember seeing a photo of him on top of Jonah Lomu’s shoulders. And he carried on playing rugby and he still loves rugby. Just ‘cause we’re injured, we shouldn’t stop other people enjoying, because sport is a great way to meet people and see the world, yeah.
Carol Stiles: When you hear that a player has been injured, what does the Rugby Foundation do?
Lisa Kingi-Bon: The whole medical situation is looked after by the health system in New Zealand, OK? So I don’t go rushing to them straightaway. I’m spending a lot of time on the phone to the parents and to the immediate family, to their support networks, flying in uncles or brothers or whatever we need to just to… if we can keep the family strong that’s going to be good for the player. And every single situation is different. To every family, obviously, there’s counselling. We act as a conduit; we will act as the catalyst to do whatever needs to be done. And then it’s just a process of developing… We just become part of their family, really. And we just offer support in whatever way that we can. That’s not always financial, although obviously that comes into it later, down the track. But it’s more just getting through. And for us it’s more showing and walking the talk that rugby actually cares and that they’re not alone. And it’s also networking them with other people who have been through it before.
Carol Stiles: Some of the VIPs downstairs were telling me about various things the Rugby Foundation has paid for for them over the years. What sort of things do you get involved in funding?
Lisa Kingi-Bon: I’ve now got quite a structured application system, and we tell them what we will fund. We’re very clear about what we won’t’ fund. And we have a column called ‘Let’s Discuss’. So some of the things, and I’ll just go anecdotally now, umm something as simple as garden maintenance, something as simple as painting your house that the average kiwi bloke can just get out and DIY and do themselves. ACC is not going to pay for that kind of stuff. Someone might move house, might sell and move house, and then we might help with moving costs; education for them and sometimes in the case of some of them for kids, especially if they live in real outlying areas. So that’s a big one for us. Sport is a real big one. This, for example, this weekend, is costing a pretty penny. But for us this is about advocacy, this is about relationships, it’s about getting people together, it’s about creating a support network for them, it’s creating opportunity. Some people need more than others. Some people never ask. They just don’t. They’re just proud Kiwis, they don’t ask. So of the 102 I’ve visited probably 85 of them at home. And that’s also really important that you get to know wives and kids and careers and mums and dads and also you can say ‘You haven’t been asking for anything, surely you must need something, you know?’ So every single person is different. So, yeah, it’s a ‘for life’ relationship.
Muir Templeton: It was somewhere round about 1996 or something and I remember a guy called Ross Ormsby coming to my work and introducing himself and saying that “We’ve been looking for you, Muir”. And he explained to me all about the Rugby Foundation and how it looks after us holistically for different things that we may need or require in our lives that in other aspects are not provided for by the likes of social services or ACC and things like that. It’s an awkward thing to say, but my wife was ill, she had cancer, and there were things that needed doing in the house, and one of the things that they helped us through financially at the time was getting the house redecorated which was fantastic. The most unbelievable thing was that after my wife had been ill for so long… she came home just before Christmas and she said “I’m amazed that I would ever make it home to see what had been done”.
Seti Tafua: Wherever you are in the world the New Zealand Rugby Foundation have got your back. So, yeah, it’s pretty cool.
Carol Stiles: Seti Tafua was playing club rugby in Sydney in 2012 and went into a ruck.
Seti Tafua: My neck just gave way - yeah. I ended up on the ground looking up and just couldn’t move, yeah.
Carol Stiles: How old were you?
Seti Tafua: I was 24 at the time. We’ve come a bit of a way from where we were.
Carol Stiles: Because you’re walking. You’re using crutches, a crutch.
Seti Tafua: Yeah, I’m using a crutch. Normally I have two, but the other one that I’ve… I think I left it in my brother’s car. I’m not too sure where I’ve left it. (Laughs) I’m using the one crutch at the moment, but I normally use two.
Carol Stiles: What role has the Rugby Foundation played in your life so far?
Seti Tafua: I never knew the Rugby Foundation existed because I was injured in Australia. As soon as I got into Auckland, into the spinal unit, Lisa was there waiting in the room with a few treats. They were really welcoming. From there on they gave me whatever I needed at the time. ‘Cause at the time I wasn’t with ACC. Whatever I needed they just provided, yeah. They provided my first wheelchair. Apparently it was the Rolls-Royce of wheelchairs. So, yeah, they provided the standing frame, as well.
Carol Stiles: Did they provide any support for your family?
Seti Tafua: Yes, they did. At the time they had units at the spinal unit for families and the Rugby Foundation paid for the units for them to stay for as long as they wanted to.
Carol Stiles: How valuable is it for you to get together with other guys, older guys, who have had rugby injuries?
Seti Tafua: I love getting together with these guys. We share stories of what they’ve achieved. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. I’m truly blessed to be up on my feet. It’s awesome seeing the boys at all the events, the dinners and stuff. The boys really enjoy that, especially when the All Blacks and the boys come along. They really appreciate what the Rugby Foundation puts on for us. Yeah, Lisa brought in some… when I was in the spinal unit she brought in some people that really inspired me to keep going. And Bryce, he’s walking around. You wouldn’t think he had a spinal cord injury. I remember when he strolled in I was like “I want to be that guy”. So that was pretty cool. It’s almost a blessing in itself, the injury. I was talking to someone the other day that yeah I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of things that I’ve wanted to do for a long time like study and get my driver’s license.(laughs) No, there’s a lot of things that I’ve ticked off that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. You learn a lot about your body, as well, along the way. It’s just a journey that you just go on. That’s the way that I look at it, yeah.
Carol Stiles: Akesa Tafua is Seti’s mum.
Akesa Tafua: When we arrived at the airport everything had been fixed up from the Rugby Foundation. And when we arrived at the spinal ward Lisa Kingi-Bon, who is the CEO of the Rugby Foundation, she’s already there with the flowers and the card to welcome us, and she was there to help us in all the ways – food and where we stay in Auckland, which is very close to where Seti is.
Carol Stiles: Because you are from Wellington.
Akesa Tafua: Yes, because we are from Wellington and we don’t know what to do and don’t know how we can sort this out if Seti is in the spinal ward. Where are we going? It’s very lucky that Lisa Kingi-Bon was there for us and she was very helpful in any way. All these wheelchairs that Seti is using are all through the Rugby Foundation. And that was my worry. I said how can I do this? They are very expensive. And Lisa Kingi-Bon, who is the CEO of the Rugby Foundation, said “Don’t worry about anything. Anything you need just let me know.” This is the hardest thing that I ever found in my life. And I always think “I can’t cope. I don’t want to see my son like this.”
Carol Stiles: You mentioned before that the Rugby Foundation also helped you in your dealings with ACC.
Akesa Tafua: Oh, yes. When we came back to New Zealand and I was thinking as a mother “How about if we go and Seti is not entitled to the ACC?” Seti said “Mum, don’t worry. Lisa is there” and Lisa said to us when we were talking at the spinal ward “Don’t worry about anything. Just stay focused to Seti. I’ll fight that.” But, yes, we left it to her. And about two months ago she said “I want to come and meet your family”. She came and said “Seti, you are now entitled to ACC.”
I want to, on behalf of Seti and I, as a mother, say thank you to the Rugby Foundation for this and helping us. What can we do without your help? God bless. Thank you.
Carol Stiles: Akesa Tafua ending that report. You also heard from Seti Tafua, Wayne Forrest, Brad Hayward, Phil Booth, Muir Templeton, John Moananui and Lisa Kingi-Bon.
Lisa says the most recent serious spinal injury during a rugby game was last year.
I’m Carol Stiles and you’ve been listening to One in Five. We’ll be back again at the same time next week with more on the issues and experience of disability. Until then, Pō mārie.
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Topics: disability
Regions:
Tags: disability, Spinal Injury, rugby, The Rugby Foundation
Duration: 24'16"
19:32 – Voices
Millennial poets inspire
BODY:
Ya-Wen Ho and Liang Yujing are two talented millennial poets who make bilingualism look easy. Internationally published they're performing their work in English and Chinese, shuttling between languages and cultures. Lynda attends their public performance in the 2015 Autumn Poetry Reading at the Wellington City Library to learn more.
EXTENDED BODY:
Renee Liang (Poet Playwright), Liang Yujing (Featured Poet), Wen Powles (Confucius Institute), Ho Yawen (Featured Poet)
My mother has had the same Taiwanese mobile number for three years but I still don't know it. Not by heart, anyway.
I know my father's number though ... I falter to recite it in English, I have to write it down.
I have dialed this number every night for ten years, to talk to my father, in a different time zone, in his office ...
– Untitled, excerpt from a poem by Ho Ya-Wen
"A satellite is an artificial object which has been intentionally placed into orbit..."
Ho Ya-Wen's poem about her one daily phone call to her father in Taiwan exemplifies the extreme separation and sometimes isolation that is commonly experienced many new Asian immigrant families when they live and work in different countries. They are separated geographically by thousands of miles and described as "satellite families". In nearly all cases, the men will work in the Asian regions while the women and children will live totally separate lives, in Ya-Wen's case it was in a suburb of Auckland.
It's a cold night and well past the bedtime of the children of Li Haibo’s Chinese school as they faithfully sing poems about Autumn, converted into songs.
The Chinese community are celebrating the autumnal season with a language and heritage evening event at the Wellington City Library titled Autumn Poetry Reading. Chinese and English poetry is being performed by some of our country’s finest bilingual talents.
The youngest generation of poets from Li Haibo s Chinese School
These Chinese themed poetry readings are jointly organised by the Wellington City Library and the Confucius Institute at Victoria university of Wellington. Each contributor performs their work in English and Chinese, shuttling between languages and cultures.
Chairing a discussion with the two featured poets, poet and playwright Renee Liang is among the best of our Asian New Zealand talent contributing to this event that traverses languages and cultures. A famous translated poem by Rewi Alley is also performed in Mandarin.
But its the voices of the two featured writers, Ho Ya-Wen and Liang Yujing, touted as "Millennials who make bilingualism look easy" that the public are keen to hear.
Featured Poets Liang Yujing and Ho Yawen at the Confucius Institute, Victoria University
The next day at the Confucius Institute at Victoria University I meet both writers to hear what makes them tick and to explore subjects such as immortal poets of drunkenness and wine and growing up as satellite families:
"Poet, artist and zine innovator" Ya-Wen tells me she published her first volume of poetry with the international publishing house Tinfish Press in Hawaii, 2013. Ya-Wen tells me that she loves typography and it's relationship to writing. At first I think Ya-Wen says "topography of writing" and imagine words as if they were "maps" across the page.
Ya-Wen was born in Taipei in 1987, immigrating to this country at the age of six. She grew up in Buckland's Beach and considers herself a JAFFA (Just Another F**ken Aucklander).
Attending Elam Fine Arts School at Auckland University and currently working as a graphic artist in Auckland – her subject matter is deeply informed by her experiences as a child growing up in a satellite family. Ya-Wen's father worked in Asia for over a decade while she and her brother were bought up by their mother in Auckland.
Ya-Wen is most recently a recipient of Eleanor Catton’s Horoeka/Lancewood reading grant.
"So what are zines?"
"Zines are an independent form of publishing where you really take control of your medium and content and you circulate outside of main distribution channels."
"Typography and language?"
"For example claustrophobia and density can be expressed through how a page looks; if all your text is huddled to look scared, it can be powerful way to express poetry."
"Satellite family experience?"
"For a whole decade my father worked and lived in Taiwan and we would talk on the phone, every night."
I consider how this would have impacted her family, especially after her father's death from illness, "Was it hard for you parents?"
"Yeah - this was in the mid 1990's when Skype wasn't around and phone bills really added up"
And now her mother does the "Persephone thing", spending six months a year living in Taiwan away from her children. It follows that topography, typography and living satellite lives would reverberate through Ya-Wen's poetry.
A poet with a very different, visceral voice is Liang Yujing. Yujing came from China recently to pursue a PhD critiquing contemporary Chinese poetry at Victoria University. His poems and translations have appeared in many prestigious international publications including the Salzburg Review, Boston Review, Asia Literary Review, and Poetry NZ.
Wen Powels, Director of the Confucius Institute
Yujing was born in 1982 in the small town Changde in Hunan Province, central China. His father was the Professor of Literature at Hunan University of Arts and Science and an early influence, alongside Tang Dynasty "Poet Immortal" Le Bai. Yujing explains:
I grew up learning the classics, especially the work of Tang Dynasty poet immortal Li Bai, the poet of drunkenness and wine. He famously wrote over a thousand poems about drinking wine and only several poems about missing wine.
A quick search reveals that:
Li Bai (705 – 762), also known as Li Po, was a Chinese poet acclaimed from his own day to the present as a genius and romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights ... often called the "Golden Age of China" – the poet of wine and drunkenness.
Yujing's poetry is ironic, dark and moody in tone, exploring a harsher reality of contemporary life in China. An innocent visit to the fish markets can result in an unsettling poem filled with subtle violence, as seen through the eyes of a child:
Wet Market
In the dim light of evening, the wet market swims into vision
in a blur of colours: a string of electric lights, glowing yellow;
the pale white of a small concrete path,
a ditch in shadow, dark as the eyes of my people.
Women of every age swim through the air
in clothes bright as fish scales
moving from one stall to another,
hands like fins in the vegetable piles, picking and choosing.
At the side of the road, a man, stripped to the waist,
is ripping swamp eels open with practised hands.
He nails each eel alive to the bench
and tears out the backbones.
Blood courses down the grain of the wooden bench,
towards the ground. A small boy stands and stares,
fascinated by this show - it's like magic!
he watches till his eyes turn red, red as blood.
– by Liang Yujing, translated from the Chinese by Miriam Lo
Topics: arts, life and society, music
Regions: Wellington Region, Auckland Region
Tags: poetry, spiritual practices, cultural practice, Tang Dynasty, China
Duration: 21'26"
19:43 – The Week in Parliament
Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler and his deputy, Grant Spencer, brief the Finance and Expenditure committee on the risks to financial stability from the Auckland housing market and falling dairy payouts.