It's always been land
Marlar Boon, and Charles and Grace Buenconsejo

In this wide-ranging conversation, Marlar Boon from Mabel's Burmese Eat & Drink Shop, and Charles and Grace Buenconsejo from Soil of Cultures, explore their deep-rooted connections to Myanmar and the Philippines — diving into the ways that food shapes politics and community at scales large and small. This conversation took place in September 2024.

Marlar Boon: Why don’t we start with who we are and then we’ll go into how we met. Do you want to start first, Charles and Grace?

Grace Bariso-Buenconsejo: I’m Grace and this is Charles. And we started Soil of Cultures, which is a collective of artists, cultural workers and food advocates wanting to support and promote people’s food sovereignty, specifically through collective action and also art —

Charles Buenconsejo: — and growing food is part of our cultural mahi. I’m Charles. I’m originally from Cebu, Philippines, and I grew up there and I speak the Bisayan language. That’s my first dialect. I’m an artist and photographer, and I’m very passionate about growing food.

GBB: I’m also originally from the Philippines; we moved here eight years ago, now. And then my day job is not really related to food at all.

CB: But you’ve always been surrounded by creative people and people who are in the growing space!

GBB: Yeah! Maybe because of my affiliation with Charles. So I work as a software product manager, but also, outside my day job, I’m one of the founding members of Gabriela Aotearoa, which is an alliance of Filipino women promoting the rights and welfare of Filipino women and children in Aotearoa and also in the Philippines.

GBB: How about you, Marlar?

MB: I’m Marlar. I am Burmese. I was born in the Hutt Valley, but both of my parents were born in Myanmar and I was really lucky that my father, throughout my life, lived in Myanmar, so we would go back and visit him often. So I was very much surrounded by Burmese culture, cuisine, language.

I own a Burmese restaurant with my husband Ian and our friend Dan, called Mabel’s, named after my Anglo-Burmese grandmother. We’ve had it for the last two and a half years. And I’m also a mother, which doesn't necessarily add to this conversation, but I think it does because it stemmed my interest in food, and, specifically, Burmese food. Further back, I studied visual arts. We own a small bar in Wellington as well, and Mabel’s is a product of my husband’s hard work in the hospitality industry and us just wanting to share Burmese culture with people.

It’s always been part of our DNA, having those foods.

MB: So should we just talk a little bit about how we met?

GBB: Ooh actually, the very first time we met is when we visited your restaurant …

CB: … yes, we were looking for a place to have lunch …

MB: … and Kerry Ann [Lee] delivered.

CB: Yes! Kerry Ann said we should go to your place. She said, ‘Go to the Burmese restaurant, you’re not going to regret it. And then you’ll meet the owner, Marlar, she’s so nice!’

GBB: And then the next time we met, Kerry Ann invited us to do a workshop at AAA [Asian Aotearoa Arts 2024] and you attended —the collective cooking workshop.

MB: Yeah, we were all cooking together and I think what got me really excited was the ingredients that you guys brought — a lot of what you guys grew — and for me, it was really cool because I came from a culture that had a very strong connection to some of the ingredients.

CB: Yeah, because we have that shared connection through our cultural food. It’s always been part of our DNA, having those foods.

MB: I think it was a very instant friendship. And then we also then did the noho marae stay together [as part of AAA 2024], and Charles and I landed in the kitchen quite a bit and did a lot of cooking together. I think, quite often, even though I did study art, I probably feel a little bit of an inferiority complex. I don’t really pursue anything artistic these days, although there are some elements to the restaurant, of course. So I think, for me, it was very natural to jump in the kitchen, and very natural for you as well, especially with Sam, Sam Buchanan.

CB: Oh yeah — he’s cooool.

MB: And very deeply connected to food as a way of showing love and connection, especially in that sort of community space. So I think that’s where we naturally felt comfortable.

CB: I think the kitchen is a place of comfort for me, personally.

MB: Do you cook a lot at home?

CB: Yeah, I cook a lot. I love cooking for Grace, and community in general. That’s why I was drawn right away to the kitchen. And to be honest, the deeper conversation around food and politics and culture, sometimes it’s happening in the kitchen — it’s not happening in a place where it’s very curated.

... the deeper conversation around food and politics and culture, sometimes it’s happening in the kitchen ...

MB: Absolutely. What have you guys been working on at the moment? What’s been happening?

GBB: Right now, I guess you can say we’re in a bit of a hibernation after the Back to the Roots programme. But we are involved in a couple of projects at the moment. The first one is we’re working with Para Kore here in Whangārei to help twenty Māori families who are first-time growers to set up their gardens. And then the other one is we are also going to mentor one young Mindanao leader as part of theUnionAID programme.

CB: Mindanao is in the Philippines.

GBB: And typically, young Mindanao leaders visit Pōneke to meet mentors. But unfortunately this person was unable to come over due to personal reasons, so we’re going to mentor her online. The reason she was paired with us is because her topic of interest is food sovereignty, but in the context of where she’s at in the Philippines.

CB: Yeah, to give you the context of Mindanao: if you see Dole, Del Monte, all these pineapple and banana brands — Sumifru — it’s from that region. So the largest grower of pineapple apparently is in Mindanao, and it’s where all these human rights violations are taking place, like the displacement of our Indigenous community, and peasant workers who are treated as slaves. They’ve been facing landlessness and state repression, and even bombings, to be honest. You’ve seen The Green Guerillas — that’s the reality of that space.

GBB: She’s part of this programme there called Art Relief Mobile Kitchen, which is basically like a mobile soup kitchen whenever there’s a disaster in Davao. But right now it’s very seasonal and she wants it to be consistent, and for the people that they’re serving to be able to feed themselves so they don’t need to rely on aid.

CB: That’s food sovereignty. Cutting off your dependency from capitalism.

MB: Yup. Aid is a funny bargaining tool in those parts of the world. What society understands as aid contributions from governments isn’t necessarily what gets received. Aid can sometimes be used as political leverage and, sadly for us in the diaspora that are advocating for more, we see that it isn’t always going to the people who need it most. And we both know that, coming from the countries we come from.

CB: It only creates conditionalities of dependency on the exploiters themselves.

MB: The Philippines and Myanmar have recently had a lot of flooding — and there have actually been a number of deaths during this time. So that also contributes to losing crops. If you’re thinking about food sovereignty and trying to not rely on outside parties, and then you have mass flooding in all these regions, then you have again lost your ability to feed your communities.

So it was really cool that we actually were able to work together a little bit, just recently. You had some little booklets and seeds and we sold them at Mabel’s to raise some money for your communities. I think it's really important that, even though we are from different parts of Asia — regardless of me having a Burmese restaurant and you doing work in the Philippines — part of being human is just being able to connect and collaborate and to have more understanding and empathy, to see what’s happening outside of your window.

Aid can sometimes be used as political leverage ... we see that it isn’t always going to the people who need it most.

GBB: That’s true. How about you? What have you been up to lately, Marlar?

MB: That’s a good question. I actually haven’t been working in the restaurant too much. It’s been pretty quiet in Wellington so I’ve been trying to stay home, spend more time with my children. Hopefully it starts picking up now that it’s spring.

What else have I been working on? I’ve gone a little bit quiet on fundraising just for the time being. It’s really hard, because there’s so much happening in Myanmar and I was on a roll, but there are so many people who are jobless in Wellington, so you’ve got to read the room when asking people to help support causes that aren’t necessarily connected to them. And there’s so much happening in the world right now. Allowing there to be space and not asking people constantly and burdening them with the problems of your country … I think there’s more impact when you do things once in a while.

Also just gearing up for other community work that I’m doing. I’m doing a lot of organising and cooking. I’m running the food for my kids’ school fair, so regardless of the restaurant I’m always trying to do things that are really important to me and trying to emulate to my children how I think they should be when they’re older by being community minded.

GBB: That’s really interesting. I think that’s the other reason we gravitated towards you, because we see that you’re really passionate about helping other people.

CB: Serving the people.

GBB: I’m wondering what influenced you. Because you mentioned before, you said it’s definitely your grandmother. That’s why you named the restaurant [after her]! What other factors influenced you to be the person you are now?

MB: When I was young, I shifted from a private girls’ school to my local public high school, and that was a huge shift in terms of being able to see the different levels of socio-economic problems we have in society. And I think being able to spend so much time back home in Myanmar, and being really engaged with what’s happening there, and the scale of the wealth gap. But I don’t think it was natural for me to always be this person. I think that there were a lot of things that I didn’t really act on until I became a mum. And also, as cheesy as it sounds, my husband and I have very similar values and anxieties about the world, whether it be climate change or politics. So for me it was this shift in how you see the world — you just grow up!

And I come from a really interesting family. My grandmother Mabel and her brother Bill, they just did a lot of really good kaupapa. They did a lot to benefit their own communities. My great uncle Bill, once he came out to New Zealand, was the political advisor for the Black Power. He was very driven within his communities to help them. Even though he wasn’t my grandfather, I called him Pho Pho because I didn’t have a grandfather on that side, and I probably spent my whole childhood seeing him every week. Also my parents are Buddhist, so I think I grew up seeing a lot of my parents sitting in spaces where they’re trying to help and feed communities in Myanmar, and we would often donate a lot of money. It’s just very cultural for us to do so, as Burmese.

That’s why I don’t see food as a commodity. I see it as a gift, cause it reminds me of my grandma and the values that she instilled in me.

MB: How about you guys? How did you fall into this line of work? Did your families or your upbringings shape that?

CB: Yeah, as far as I can remember. I grew up with my grandma. And when I was a child my parents were so busy working and I saw my grandma as my role model cause she was always cooking for the community. Like she always invites her friends around and —

MB: — sounds like my grandma!

CB: Yeah, not necessarily that she cooks for the community, but she was the one organising the cooking and then all her friends would come. And she was just so generous and she instilled in me this value — I’m gonna use the words that she always used in Bisaya — she was always like don’t be hangol, meaning don’t be greedy, and ayaw paglabi-labi, meaning don’t dominate. And I just embedded all those values. When she died, she gave most of her land to the landless. And it was really weird, because when she died it felt like there were more people who came to her funeral compared to when the mayor died! It was more of a celebration and people took turns cooking the food every night. It was unreal. There were so many people that came.

But man, even to this day, I still see my grandmother in the kitchen and in the garden. That’s why I don’t see food as a commodity. I see it as a gift, cause it reminds me of my grandma and the values that she instilled in me. Don’t dominate, be generous. Those two things.

MB: Do you think it’s hard to be generous when you live here, where, for example, to buy ingredients, the cost of food is just so high? Like for me, I’m trying to be generous, trying to invite people over, share food, trying to bring people together with food, but then also it’s just so challenging when, you know, it’s out of your budget.

CB: It’s a different story cause [Mabel’s is] still tied to your economics that feeds your children and pays the bills. So I think it’s different — you shouldn’t feel guilty about charging people for the food because of the prices for the raw ingredients. If only you were closer to us, I could have supplied you — if only you were like an hour away! We have a productive garden here that could go to Mabel’s. And as koha.

MB: What about you, Grace? Did you have any role models or any profound moments in your upbringing to make you driven to do what you do?

GBB: In terms of role models, I think it’s my mom. So with my mom, it’s cultural with a dash of religion. She’s a hardcore Catholic. And I think it fuels her desire to do good for other people. But at the same time, she also has this innate generosity coming from the core value of Filipinos, which is kapwa. But we don’t really use the word often, I think it’s more embodied when you’re in the Philippines, to be honest. And I think that’s what my mom embodied. So my dad passed away quite suddenly —

CB: I didn’t get to meet him.

GBB: — almost twenty years ago, in 2004. And I have four siblings, so my mom, all of a sudden, had to look after five children on her own.

MB: Wow.

GBB: Yeah and we don’t really come from wealth. So she had to hustle on her own. But I think what really made her strong all those years is her connection with the community, with her church, even though she was looking after us full time.

A lot of land dispossession was through the establishment of the cross.

MB: I just wanted to ask something: with religion being so prominent in your country, and obviously a big part of your childhood, do you see it as connected in any way to the issues we have with food sovereignty? Because obviously the religions that are prominent in the Philippines aren’t necessarily from the Philippines — they’ve come from other parts of the world through colonisation. So are there ways that the church helps and supports local communities in terms of growing their own food and resources? Because here a similar thing has taken place. You see lots of churches doing really cool mahi in Wellington, where they’ve got food banks, they’re doing food, veggie boxes and that sort of thing. But then it’s that flip side of knowing that people who use those food boxes in my communities here are the people whose land was taken off them. And the church would have been a huge part in instigating and … I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but I think you know what I mean. …

CB: You’re asking about the contradiction …

MB: The contradiction, absolutely. Everything’s a contradiction, but it just really pains me when I see people trying to queue for veggie boxes here, literally across the road from my house, and then I’m like, that’s the land that was stolen off your ancestors, you know?

CB: And now the church is the one providing the food aid. In the colonial period, Catholicism and the church used to be a tool to dispossess us. The church and the state weren’t separated; it was really powerful and it enslaved a lot of people through the encomienda system that they established. A lot of land dispossession was through the establishment of the cross.

GBB: And friars were given land.

CB: Friars were given power.

MB: Really? And do you think a lot of people that you connect with nowadays, who are your age, sort of question their religious upbringings? Because I guess people are just a bit more aware [of], or looking to, the effects of colonisation now.

GBB: Hmm. I think here specifically in New Zealand, the younger Filipinos are more …

CB: … secular.

GBB: Yeah, because they grew up in a more secular country, so they are more sceptical about the religion of their parents, growing up. But we still meet a lot of Filipinos —

CB: — who are very progressive. Older, but progressive too. Some of them are religious but progressive.

GBB: Yeah, they can be religious but progressive. In the Philippines, there are still … like my nieces and nephews, for example, because they grew up in a very Catholic religious setting, then they’d still be going to church. So I think it really depends on the environment that you grew up in.

It’s funny because it’s interwoven with Catholicism. But it’s a hybrid culture.

CB: Even my grandma was a hardcore Catholic, that’s why she was cooking for her community! Because every First Sunday (or is it Monday?) they have the breakfast, and then she organises it.

But I think it’s also a hybrid of religiosity and animistic culture in the Philippines. That’s why, when you go to the Philippines, there are so many festivals, fiesta, all of that. But if you really dig deeper, it has to do with animistic culture, right? When you go to the Philippines, there are all sorts of festivals in every region. It’s funny because it’s interwoven with Catholicism. But it’s a hybrid culture.

MB: I know what you mean, because in Myanmar we are a Buddhist-dominant country. But obviously Buddhism came from Western Asia. Theravāda Buddhism came from India and Sri Lanka, and we had our own spirits and religions that we believed in: what we call nats, which are angels, like spiritual beings. But what was really interesting when Buddhism came to Myanmar, was that it integrated with our beliefs. It merged really beautifully. And we have a lot of festivals, but the religions and beliefs — It wasn’t the loss of one, it was the merging.

But then again, when the British came, obviously there were certain parts of the country, I would say smaller ethnic tribes, that were really influenced by the church. But even saying that, you still see that they have their own celebrations and festivals. It’s such a big country. In Myanmar, there are even different tribes that celebrate New Year at different times of the year.

CB: What about the harvest? Because a lot of ours is honouring the nature spirit for the bounty, the harvest. Where Grace is originally from, they have the carabao that kneels down. And it has to do with the harvesting of the rice. So it ties back to the belief of the spirit in nature, nature spirit.

MB: I think it’s amazing that we all come from cultures that have this connection to the land, which is why we — you guys especially — place so much value on where your food comes from. It is interesting to see how there is such a dominance in farming in this country now. We have such a way with the dairy industry, I guess. But, if you think back, obviously that is from European culture, because all of us come from cultures where dairy isn’t such a heavy influence. And in New Zealand, pre-colonisation, it wouldn’t have been either. So it’s interesting how people use their land, how it really shapes things politically for the country — relationships, trade relationships. Which are issues that we have in both of our countries.

CB: Speaking of which, when we went to Penang, to the ILPS (International League of Peoples’ Struggle) convention, I met people from the people’s food sovereignty movement in Pakistan. Their group is Roots for Equity. And what’s really interesting is they told me that their traditional dairy production in their country is now being colonised by our dairy from New Zealand. Because we’re looking for a new market to dump powdered milk in, in Pakistan. But it has to do with the relationship with the biggest buyer, which is China. And China, they are currently developing their own dairy production. So it will impact New Zealand in terms of economics, because it is the backbone of this nation. But it’s also the biggest producer of carbon dioxide, right?

MB: Yes. It’s really interesting that you mention that. I had a conversation the other day and my dad was there — I didn’t know this, but apparently Myanmar was quite a prominent wealthy country pre-colonisation and probably during colonisation as well. We’re very resource rich and used to grow … well, it’s still got a lot of rice. And my dad was saying that apparently our downfall economically was the fact that we had some issues with America, and they wanted us to take their side on some political issue our government wanted to stay neutral on. So America convinced other countries not to buy rice from us anymore, offering to pay for their rice to be supplied from somewhere else just to spite us. And Myanmar is one of the poorest countries still to this day. I think people don’t realise how much of a connection food plays in politics. I thought that was quite interesting.

... our country is rich in natural resources ... It’s perfect for growing all sorts of crops. But our people are hungry.

CB: Yes, so this is the contradiction. Like the Philippines is rich, but the Filipino people are poor. Likewise, it’s the same where you are in Myanmar. Myanmar is rich, but your people are poor. So there’s that contradiction, because our country is rich in natural resources and if you think about our country, our entire country is a greenhouse, right? We can grow basically all these crops 24/7 because we don’t have any winter. It’s perfect for growing all sorts of crops. But our people are hungry.

MB: Mmm. Do you think those problems would be solved if they weren’t worried about relationships with other countries? Or do you think the problems that you have still lie within your own people?

CB: The imperialist plunder; we have to get rid of the imperialist plunder.

GBB: Because the Philippines is semi-feudal and semi-colonial, right? So it’s semi-colonial because, technically, we received our independence on paper. But because of the imperialist plunder that Charles is talking about, where we have uneven treaties with imperialist countries —

CB: — in the Global North —

GBB: — we are still dependent on them. So technically, we’re still not sovereign or independent. And then the reason we’re semi-feudal is because, if you look at our class structure, 70 percent of the population are farmers because they live in the countryside. And seven out of ten farmers are actually landless. And the reason for that is because there are large landlords and then there are bureaucratic capitalists who they work with — these imperialist powers — to keep their power, leaving most of the Filipino people poor. So it’s a mix of external forces and also internal.

CB: Puppet regimes and neoliberal oligarchs. So yeah, we just want to get rid of all of those viruses in our system. And focus on our own national sovereignty, our self-determination.

MB: Do you see that happening in your lifetime?

CB: It’s protracted, so we don’t know. But if we don’t advocate now, it’s not gonna happen. So we need to raise the political consciousness and awareness of our people. It’s the only way to build that momentum.

Our people have just been so conditioned that America will come and liberate us. We’re so conditioned. But nope, they will only plunder us. And they get to determine who gets to live and who gets to die. So we are the sacrificial zone. The US and China will push through that war that they’re teasing in the West Philippine Sea. We will be the battleground again. And then once that happens, it will be like another World War II, where our infrastructures will be in ruin. But once our country is left in ruins, America will come again and then they will help us build the infrastructure, but it will be created through loans again from the World Bank. And that means we will be in debt. Perpetual debt. And yeah, we’ll never get rid of them.

So if we have shared values, how can we all engage and get other people engaged ... ?

MB: This is something that we have always talked about in our friendship. Obviously the world is currently going through significant problems, and we are seeing a lot of our friends and our communities here (and ourselves) advocating to end these atrocities. Unfortunately, what is happening is politically connected on a global scale. There are many people in many parts of this world suffering from these regimes and people choose to disconnect from that because it’s too overwhelming. Because it is really hard to process that there are certain groups of people that can do such harm to so many innocent people. So if we have shared values, how can we all engage and get other people engaged to make sure that they’re hyper-aware of what they’re buying, and have knowledge of a country and its political situation? And it’s hard, because I think we both come from countries where the conflict and problems have been so ongoing. Myanmar’s known to have the world’s longest civil war. So people just get exhausted hearing about it.

CB: The BDS movement has been working, right? Boycotting will be one way of disrupting.

MB: Yes, we’ve already seen certain companies announcing that they’ve just had a record loss in profits. And I think people are sort of shifting and trying to buy more local. But it’s continuing that momentum and narrative. Whether it be growing your own food, or not buying certain fruit that may have a nice fancy label at the supermarket but causes so much harm for your people.

I think even talking to you guys, learning so much about all the food that we get here from the Philippines and what sort of impact it has on the farmers — everything is interconnected and it’s just trying to raise that awareness. I think people don’t realise that every single thing that you buy, everything that you consume has some sort of story that you don’t know the other side of. It can be from where you’re eating to what you’re buying, to what brand of bananas or eggs you choose to get at the supermarket and how those animals are being treated. And there’s so much more deep thought that people need to put into their consumption.

I think people don’t realise that every single thing that you buy, everything that you consume has some sort of story that you don’t know the other side of.

GBB: But also, even having a choice is already a privilege, you know what I mean? Like if you come from a low-income household, that already means that you don’t have a choice, you don’t get to choose which food you can buy because you’re just presented with limited options. I think that’s the other issue. Because not many people, especially in this current economic climate, have access to healthy food. And everyone, if you ask them, they want to eat healthy food. They want to live a healthy lifestyle, but they’re not really presented with enough choice or access.

MB: Yes, very true. Even our cheapest options in terms of takeaways — obviously, it’s fast food. It’s quite interesting to see that a lot of those places are on that list to boycott. So it’s interesting how that’s all connected. And obviously not everyone has those choices.

Even when I was in Myanmar last year, I saw New Zealand apples there — at the same price they sell New Zealand apples here in New Zealand. And we are aware that these price points are unattainable for everyone as we are seeing a global cost of living crisis. And I quite often have that conversation with my friends who are European — they commonly have New Zealand venison in their supermarkets, but you don’t see it here. And we don’t see goat here, but goat is a pest! We have all these sources of food but it’s not culturally acceptable to see them in a supermarket. If goat is a pest here, if deer is a pest here, why are we not actively seeking ways to have them more accessible for people to eat? And would that drive some of the prices down?

For example, we have goat curry at the restaurant and a lot of people are like, ‘I really, really love goat, but I can never find it anywhere.’ Or a lot of people are like, ‘Oh I've never eaten goat before. I don’t know if I like it.’ But then you tell people it’s actually one of the most eaten meats around the world. In a lot of countries — in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa — goat is so prominent. And it’s really interesting that it’s such a pest here and there’s just so much bureaucracy in everything that we eat.

GBB: Yeah, because at the end of the day, the current mode of production values anything that will increase profit in markets, right?

CB: It’s driven by the logic of the market.

MB: Yeah. And I think knowledge is key. People questioning, Why don’t we eat these things? Why can’t we have more access to these things? That would be a great way to change the system and the narratives that we have.

Even for me, personally. I’m pescatarian, so I don’t eat meat, but one of the things that we wanted in the restaurant was to make sure the meat that we served came from an ethical place. So obviously we’re paying more for that premium. I think people kind of label organic as being bougie and I get that not everyone has access to that. But I think, for me and Ian, it was more about the humanity, and how the animal is treated — because we don’t eat meat ourselves, it’d be kind of contradictory otherwise.

But also, I think that rule is no different when it comes to how farmers are treated. I think there is a lot of awareness of how animals are treated nowadays, but people don’t realise that they need to consider that with their produce as well, and how farmers are treated. And we have been seeing really horrible things happening in the last few years, with such severe weather events because of climate change. And people don’t actually realise the impact. For example, you can always go out to the supermarket here and buy rice, but the cost of rice in Myanmar has gone up so much that people are dying from starvation because they can’t even eat rice porridge.

GBB and CB: And that’s your staple.

MB: And it’s our staple. So, you know, the impact of everything that you do, all the decisions that you make — it doesn’t necessarily mean that it impacts you, but it has a huge impact on other people. And if you come from a country like Myanmar, you get a lot of bugs that eat your rice if you hoard and keep it. So you can’t keep rice. So something will skyrocket significantly, but you can’t be wise and buy it in advance and keep stock. So there are so many things that I think are really interconnected.

I think there is a lot of awareness of how animals are treated nowadays, but people don’t realise that they need to consider that with their produce as well, and how farmers are treated.

CB: And the more genocide, the more it will perpetuate ecocide. Man, it’s driven by fossil fuels. And the impact of that on the environment is even worse because it will immediately impact the water, will immediately impact the forest. All of it.

MB: Absolutely. It’s an irony, as well, because a lot of people are complaining about the cost of food, but a huge part of that cost is the impact the climate has had on growing the food that we eat.

CB: I think people should be aware that growing food has to do with the dependency on the climate and the environment, right?

MB: Yeah.

CB: Like, growing has to do with the weather conditions and people should be aware of that. Because if there’s El Niño in the Philippines or rice-growing nations … you know what I mean? Like we’re already experiencing a massive El Niño — like this crazy drought that can go like 40 degrees for three months, four months without any water.

MB: So we’ve had people dying from flooding, people dying from the heat, people dying because of civil war, people dying because of starvation. You just can’t really fathom how much suffering there is right now in the world.

I think there’s one more thing that we should probably touch on. I thought maybe we should talk a little bit about how we honour our cultural practices and the challenges and responsibilities of representing cultural heritage.

GBB: I think it’s a big question. For me, maybe because we’re very recent migrants — we just arrived here eight years ago — I think we honour our culture by just being ourselves. Because we’re still very rooted in our own culture. In terms of honouring that, though, I think the best way to honour it is to pay it forward with other Filipino migrants who are not yet settled here. Cause in a way they are our ancestors … we don’t need to look far away!

CB: They’re still here!

GBB: They also hold the culture because they’re here, they just migrated recently to Aotearoa, and to be able to help them get settled is the best way of honouring my culture as well as also giving back to the people in the Philippines. Because I feel like if we just use our ‘cultural identity’ as capital and then we call that ‘decolonising’ or trying to reclaim our identity, then we’re not really any different from the capitalist culture that we’re trying to fight against. I think that we need to use culture as a way to give back. That’s what I’m thinking about. How about you?

CB: Ooh I think Grace already said all the things that I should say. But I just had this internal conflict while I was working in the garden. I’ve been growing food for how many years now — six or nearly seven? Started 2018. My biggest realisation is: growing food is part of the solution, but not the solution. In terms of honouring our cultural practices, I think it’s really important to dig into the roots of the problem. You know what I mean?

MB: Yeah.

CB: There was that phrase that really stuck in my head from the first international peasantry conference that took place in the Philippines in 1986. And somehow it arrived in our house — the only known copy of the proceedings of the conference!¹ But there was a phrase that I really liked from Lin Shien: ‘Search for the root cause and it shall be found in the land.’

But there was a phrase that I really liked from Lin Shien: ‘Search for the root cause and it shall be found in the land.’

MB: So true with what’s happening in the world right now. Which is what we were talking about …

CB: Yeah, because all this cultural loss, it’s because of that land dispossession. It’s always been land. In Aotearoa — here in a settler colonial country — the issue is always about land. Because where are they going to establish their colonial capitalist institutions, like dairy farming, right? You need more land to establish that system so they can feed the world with —

GBB: — powdered milk.

MB: Well, you know, there are powdered milk ads on billboards in Myanmar every time I go there. New Zealand powdered milk, that’s a really big thing. And no one wants powdered milk from anywhere else. New Zealand powdered milk is the best powdered milk.

CB: Yeah. In the Philippines we developed this perception that New Zealand is like a European landscape. So many hills, and there’s a cow on that hill with a boy — white, blonde boy — as part of the landscape. But it’s actually a contradiction. Like it’s a degraded ecosystem. But when you’re in the Philippines, you develop the perception. But anyway …

I came from a country that gained independence and I live in a country that didn’t.

GBB: How about you?

MB: For me, I think, firstly, I feel very grateful that I have the ability to live here and that I get to raise my children here. Growing up, I always wanted to move back to Myanmar and to live there. That is definitely not going to happen. It’s too unsafe. And I also see that my family who live there don’t have the same opportunities that I do.

I think it's really hard owning a Burmese restaurant when you are sort of capitalising on your culture, which is sort of what you guys are touching on. So the way that I try to make myself feel at ease is by fundraising, raising awareness, sharing. Myanmar is sort of known as a country where there are a lot of problems and there’s a negative mentality about it, so just wanting to share our culture and cuisine and give people some awareness. Like a lot of people that come into my restaurant don’t even know where Myanmar is. I literally see them getting their phone out and googling Google Maps! Myanmar is the biggest mainland country in Southeast Asia. And that’s why there are so many different ethnic tribes there, because it’s such a big country. I’m of such mixed heritage because it is such a big country and because it was so accepting. I have so many different ethnic tribes in me. I am Shan and Karen and Bamar, and then I also have Thai and Chinese and Polish and Indian in me. I always identify myself as Burmese, but I think it’s really important for me to share that, because people think there are so many problems there due to the civil war, but it wasn’t always like that. It’s really hard for me, being Burmese and seeing how the Burmese have treated other minority peoples. It’s like colonisation with an extra layer of colonisation from the Europeans on top of that.

And I feel very humbled that I live in a country that was colonised by the same people. I came from a country that gained independence and I live in a country that didn’t. And it’s interesting to see how that has formed what those two countries are today. In Myanmar our culture is still a huge part of who we are. The country has been so closed off to the Western world — that’s why no one knows where it is. We still wear traditional clothing, we still have our Buddhist religion, we still have our cuisine, and we still have a lot of those Burmese values. Whereas here, we have so many different people who can immigrate here — like us, for example. But you have to also take knowledge of the fact that that’s at the cost of the people who were here before, you know?

But I think, for me, one of the coolest things I’ve had in the restaurant is people who say, ‘Oh my grandfather was Burmese.’ And they’ve got no connection to the language or to the country, or may have never been there, but they’ll eat something and they’ll feel like they’ve got to know that grandparent better. Which I think is isolating in New Zealand, because there are no Burmese spaces or Burmese people to easily find. And I think that’s the reason why I named the restaurant after my grandmother, because she was so community driven. She helped start the Buddhist monastery here in Wellington.

CB: Wow.

MB: The only piece of Burmese architecture in this whole entire country is because my grandmother insisted we build a Burmese temple here in Stokes Valley, which is up the road for me. And I think, when you’re young, you don’t really understand the impact that has. But given that I have two children that are half Burmese, for them to be able to see a piece of my Burmese culture and architecture — I think my grandmother doesn’t realise what she has done for me in that regard.

Also to be able to share that cuisine with people, even though it is through a capitalist sort of platform — you know, I don’t think we’re doing it to make money. I know for sure we aren’t! So for me it’s more about sharing something I love with everyone else. And being able to give jobs to other Burmese people. We have one Burmese chef in particular who sends a lot of money back home to his family, and he is a former refugee. So to be able to give him the resources and tools to help provide for his family … To me, the restaurant is just bigger than me. It actually has so many people it impacts. And I think people kind of lose those stories and connections when they think they’re just going out for a dining experience and expecting a certain experience that they want. But at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is just share our culture and whether that customer wants to be open minded or not is up to them.

GBB: Mmm. Yeah, that’s really beautiful.

CB: That’s beautiful. Yeah, and what you just said is embodied in the food when you get to taste it. It’s beautiful.

MB: Same as you, though: growing your own food, putting all that love, time and dedication into it and then being able to share that with people. And that’s, I think, sometimes quite lost on people, even me, when things are so accessible to buy at the supermarket. I used to grow a lot of veggies and things before I opened the restaurant. Now I don’t have time! So it’s not easy.

CB: Yeah, it has to do with time. And money and space.

MB: Absolutely. Is there anything else we need to touch on?

CB: I think we’re good. Maybe later I’ll add something about my grandma.

MB: I love Asian grandmas. I could write a whole book about them.