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Vincent O'sullivans Shuriken
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The cultural encounter that took place in Shuriken was not simply a dramatic one. The Japenese Prisoner of War camp in Featherston actually existed and the events in fact occurred. There had never before been a prisoner of war camp for Japanese solider’s. The guards involved had no experience as guards and were called up to become guards for the prision camp. As Vincent O’Sullivan puts it in the introduction of the play “Two groups of men were forced into the closest association, with neither really knowing what to expect of each other. There are few stories where there is such a dramatic meeting between East and West.” It is in this Prision setting that several types of cultural encounters take place. The cultural encounters that take place in Shuriken are unusual, because of the circumstances under which they occur. The setting, a prison camp is an unfamiliar and, unique one for all the characters involved. There is perhaps no two cultural groups more diverse than the Japanese and New Zealanders’. The meeting of the two cultures, during war time when the two countries were in combat with each other, also meant that the encounter was a war between cultures. A fight for supremecy of the two cultures. This struggle for supremecy is exemplified in the way that the New Zealnd guards attempted to force their own cultural ideals on the Japanese prisoners. An example of this is Ernie believing that the Japanese should learn about the teachings of Jesus Christ. “I’d like to see them know about Christ. I really would. I see them looking at me and I think, ‘Love even these, the least of your brethren’.” However the Japanese scoff at Christianity, and use it to their own advantage, against the New Zealand guards and Christianity making Jacko read a passage.
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