Robot Claw – Page 594 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Tales From Green Hell: Documentary Evidence (part two)

June 10, 2011

Just as my dad once trained to be a priest, my mum was once a nun. She left the nunnery though, and shortly after joined the Divine Word mission and went to Papua New Guinea herself (she was just a young lass then). The missions were based in the port town of Madang, and here’s a shot of the compound:

Madang is the town in which my brother and I would eventually be born. Here it is on the map:

In those days (pre 1975) PNG was not a country but an Australian territory. So yes, I am Australian by birth, technically!

Anyway, as I recall, even though the missions were based in Madang both mum and dad spent time in all sorts of remote villages in the jungles of PNG. Here’s a shot of mum in a village in the mountainous, inland region called Bundi:

Lovely shot isn’t it! That was taken in 1967, which means mum was 23 at the time. I bet Bundi was a bit of a frontier town then, since even today it’s a green hell:

I was watching a documentary on TV the other day that said that Papua New Guinea has the largest areas of uninterrupted jungle on the planet. It’s a smallish island, but much (most?) of it is still wild, unconquered jungle. Although it looks beautiful – and I was born there – I’m not sure I’d ever want to visit.

Anyway, back to the point of this post: Mum’s shots from PNG!

Here’s a startling one:

That guy has a nasty spear. I expect not too long after this photo that spear was thrown into a wild boar or giant pacu fish. Good eating surely followed: baked swine, taro root, pineapple and jungle fruits. I wonder if they had beer on the missions? I imagine they must have, else dad may have gone crazy.

My mum smoked in those days, but then I think everyone did.

That’s a bouquet of flowers that my mum made. It looks like franjipani to me. Anyway, the bouquet was for the wife of the Australian administrator of PNG (Dr Hay), and this young girl presented it to her. I bet it was appreciated.

Here’s an interesting shot of mum with some village kids. She was a teacher, and these were her students. Mum taught as a nun as well, so she had experience. Even so, it must have been a culture shock. Note how happy she is in all these shots. Mum jokes now she’s hard to take photos of… she just needs to channel her memories of PNG!

This next photo is special in so many ways:

Fabulous isn’t it! Look at the style of her! Her hair looks great, especially with the scarf. But beyond that, the scholarly pose; the microscope, the specimens on the table (plants and flowers?) and her students watching. Note also the thatched hut in the background. I could imagine this photo appearing in a magazine back in the day! This is a truly beautiful, strangely anachronistic shot made so much more special by the fact that it’s my mum!

Not a shot of mum, but wonderful nonetheless. In 1967, floppy discs were invented, the first human heart transplant occurred and physicists discovered the quark. None of the kids above had any idea about any of this – such technology would have been almost magical to them – living as they did. The world is still like this today in many ways. It’s a humbling thought.

Here’s a shot of mum at home in Madang in 1971. Mum and dad were married by now, and I bet my brother is in that house somewhere probably playing with one of the cats (we’ve always had cats). Or perhaps not, since he would have been less than a year old. One of the cats was called Franjipani, after the flower (in the bouquet, above). If you go to Hawaii you’ll see franjipani everywhere, and apparently the same is the case in PNG.

Here comes a fantastic shot:

Here they are – the happy young couple! That cuscus-like thing mum is holding is my brother. But that’s not what is truly incredible about this shot. Look close and note I’m (almost) in this photo as well! This is officially the earliest known photo of me, and I love it 🙂

And this one, taken not too long later, was when I got over my shyness and introduced myself to the world. Drag your eyes of my handsome baby-self and note the washing machine technology on display in the rear of the shot. Another great shot!

And so ends the documentary evidence posts, at least for now. But this post has given me an idea for another type of ‘documentary evidence’ post that I must follow up on sometime in the future…

Tales From Green Hell: Documentary Evidence (part one)

June 8, 2011

I admit, shamefully, I may have embellished my previous posts in this series somewhat. I beg forgiveness: I did this only for the enjoyment of the reader. Truth be told I intended to continue down that road with this post, which features photos taken by my parents during their tenure in Papua New Guinea.

But once I received and looked at the photos they were so charming all thoughts of jest instantly passed. So here they are, with what little commentary I can (truthfully) muster. This post will be the first of two, and focus on my dad. Mum’s post will follow. In all these photos dad is younger than I am now…

That handsome guy in the top left is my dad. He spent a decade (slightly more?) in PNG working for the Divine Word missionaries. I think he got there in the early 1960’s.

Dad was training to be a priest, but he had decided against it before leaving Germany to join the missions. Divine Word was a catholic mission, and you can see a couple of ‘native nuns’ in the above shot (that’s dad in the fetching hat).

I can only imagine (and even then it’s hard) what it must have been like. Even today large areas of PNG are still removed from ‘civilization’.

Dad was a teacher. In the above photo he is attaching a sign listing school fee pricing to a post. It’s a nice shot. I wonder who took it?

I think that’s a tomato garden. Note that dad is in grubby ‘working in the garden clothes’ but that the kids seem to be dressed up. The boy looks to have a hibiscus flower on his head and an ornament in his nose. I wonder if that was his usual attire, or if he dressed up for this photo?

Dad’s comment on this shot is “Only the axe is from the 20th century”

The kids here are playing a German board game called “Mensch ärgere dich nicht“, which is similar to Ludo or Parcheesi. The lovely thing about this photo is that mum and dad still own this exact game (including all pieces, box and plastic insert) and we often play it when I visit Australia!

Dad describes this thus: “Ready for my relaxation on a Sunday – swimming and hunting.”

The gun looks positively ancient doesn’t it? I wonder if it was a relic left in the jungle during the aftermath of WW2 (dad has told me stories of such things).

Note the wall construction material: leaves. This is an unusual photo for an anachronistic reason: at first glance it looks almost like dad is using a laptop (30 years before they were invented…). Note the cable stretching to him and the way he is holding the folder or book.

I’ll end with one last photo, in my mind surely the most beautiful of the lot:

That’s dad with mum’s pet cuscus on his head. This obviously suggests the photo was taken by my mum, who met dad in PNG as she was there as a missionary herself.

But, as I said, her photos will follow in the next installment of this series 🙂

I Am Now Playing A New Wizardry!

June 3, 2011

Yesterday the PSN store came back up after 5+ weeks of being unavailable, and amongst the new offerings on the PS store was a Wizardry: Labyrinth Of Lost Souls ($15), a brand new Wizardry game!

It’s been quite a few years since I have played a new Wizardry game, and even then the one I played wasn’t in English. The last time a new Wizardry game was released in English was way back in 2001, when Wizardry: Tales Of The Forsaken Land was released for PS2 (it was a great game, by the way, and notable for featuring art by the now very famous illustrator Shunya Yamashita). So I’ve been eagerly awaiting this new, download-only version.

So how is it? I played for several hours yesterday, forming a six-person party (2 Fighters, Thief, Bishop, Priest & Mage) and fully mapping the top floors and half of the second floors of the two available dungeons. It’s as grindy and ominous as all previous games in the series (which is a good thing) and is also very low-budget in that it lacks monster animations and a lot of flashy effects. That said, the graphics are probably the best I’ve seen in a Wizardry game and the gameplay is every bit as good (and Wizardry-ish) as I hoped for!

Although the game is translated (unlike the screenshots in this post), the voices are not. Furthermore it lacks even the barest minimum of a manual, so unless you are experienced with the series prepare to be confused a lot, at least initially. This is not a beginner-level Wizardry game by any means!

Overall I’m loving it so far, and can’t wait to delve deeper into the dungeons to see what grim fate befalls my stalwart group of adventurers!

In Japan this game was called Wizardry: Torawareshi Tamashii no Meikyuu and it was also a downloaded game via PSN. However a sequel was released (‘Wizardry Twin Pack‘) on disc, which contained this entire game. I have heard there is some hope this sequel may be released in the US as well, possibly on disc. Let’s hope that happens.

If you’re a bit confused by the lineage of the series (“What are all these Japanese Wizardry games?”), you may be surprised to know the Wizardry series has been a hit in Japan for many, many years. Even during it’s heyday in the west (around the time of Bane Of The Cosmic Forge and Crusaders Of The Dark Savant) the games were being released in Japan and doing well. Even when the Wizardry brand ended in the west (Wizardry 8 was the last – great – game) it continued in Japan, mostly on portables and game consoles.

Incidentally, some of the recent Japanese Wizardry games can be a real beast to acquire, especially for westerners. Not only are they produced in low print runs (mostly because of piracy, sadly), but some of them have also been retailer exclusives (such as a recent DS Wizardry) themselves in short supply.

These days I don’t know exactly how many Wizardry games now exist (hrm, I smell an upcoming blog post), especially beyond Wizardry 8. I do know however that the Japanese ones I have played are all superb, absolutely keeping the tradition of Wizardry alive. Unfortunately it is very rare they get translated for us to enjoy in English, so we must savour the chance when we can.