Respect and appreciate the culture of Papua New Guinea

I REFER to the letter “Let’s seize a lifetime opportunity” (The National, Oct 7) by Reginald Renagi of Gabagaba-Kemabolo.
Let me give an analogy here: Person A has a dispute with person B which does not concern the writer in any way. Neither person A nor person B is related to the writer.
However, person A decides to tell everybody that person B looks like the writer’s mother who is a witch. How would the writer feel?
Our culture and tradition is our life, our source of belonging and identity which all Papua New Guineans have high regard of.
It is like a mother to us.
We should respect and appreciate our culture which makes us unique.
It is an offence for others to make a fool of our culture when they have no idea what these cultures mean to us.
I am a Highlander living overseas and have always adored and respect the magnificent body art and decoration of the Huli wigman.
However, I would not call this as a “lifetime opportunity” to gain publicity in what the Tea Party in US have done by depicting president Barack Obama as a witchdoctor in a Huli wigman outfit.
This is total mockery of the Huli culture.
Yes, the Tea Party may or may not apologise but the message must get across to them that we, Papua New Guineans, do not appreciate this stunt.
You will never realise how important your culture is until you get out of PNG and to a far away place.
Such incident hurts you from deep inside.
There are other ways of promoting our culture and gaining recognition abroad but not this way.
Please respect our culture.

David Kiza
China