A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

The challenging final story “Pijin Wawrz” is a tongue-in-cheek experiment in
orthographic transcription, which unfortunately prevents many readers from grasping the
satiric science fiction parable that is aimed at former governor Ben Cayetano, who grew
up speaking Pidgin but later acted as a fierce opponent to its use in classrooms and
official situations. Tonouchi broods: “He’s da arch-nemesis of da Pidgin Guerilla. Within
him, he get da powah of da Pidgin force – he get da potential for be da ultimate Pidgin
role model, but no, he no like. Sad yeah?” 517 It is no coincidence that an example from the
story such as “Æfta hæf-æn-áwr awv stænin stil” (after half an hour of standing still)
reminds you of transcriptions of Old English: Tonouchi has his Guerilla say in a speech
(thankfully direct speech is transcribed in a more easily readable manner):
Standard english is one oxymoron, english by nature isn’t standard. If you travel
to different parts of da country, eh-rybody’s english going be li’lo bit diff’rent.
And if you compare english thru time, go compare Beowulf, Shakespeare, and
John Grisham III, all da englishes wuz supposedly standard of da time, but dey all
so diff’rent. Dis standard ting is jus one artificial construck invented by man. […]
In Pidgin we can look beyond correck-incorreck […] and focus on da content.
Pidgin breaks down da hierarchies and instead of dismissing based on
superficialities, you take da time to undahstand and get to know wea da person is
coming from. 518
If this sounds utopian, he lets the government react in good dystopian fashion with a
Fahrenheit 451-like burning of books and records. While the first and title story of the
collection dealt with the frustration that one’s mother tongue is not to be found in
dictionaries (“I kept flipping back and forth, back and forth, making sure fo’ double check
each one. But nevah have none of da spellings. Bumbye wuzn’t one word,” 14), the
solution of the final story is to trick the enemy who is nothing more than a programmed
(=standardized) computer, using the flexibility of this supposedly inferior language: “Get
517 Interview with Ryan Senaga in Honolulu Weekly, 11/13-19/2002. The description of Cayetano recalls
Darth Vader of Star Wars fame. The Filipino Cayetano was Hawaii’s governor from 1994 to 2002. Before
him, George Ariyoshi was the first Japanese American governor from 1974 to 1986, when he was followed
by the native Hawaiian John Waihee (1986-1994). Currently, Linda Lingle holds the post.
518 Tonouchi 2001: 134-5.
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