“A BLOKE”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1943, Page 4

“A BLOKE”

SYRIAN WHO VISITED NEW ZEALAND STORY TOLD IN LEBANON. RETURN TO DOMINION PLANNED. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) By Air Mail. CAIRO, November 20. Above one of the few remaining groves of cedars still clinging to the hillsides of the Lebanon, on a ledge beside an ancient church looking out across miles of the stony terraces, the green orchards and the red roofed villages clinging to the cliff edges, under a canopy of vines, I listened to a man in the high boots and baggy trousers of the typical Lebanese peasant discuss pre-war New Zealand politics as I have heard other men, in very different places, discuss the same politics on forms outside the pub or the blacksmith’s shop or the township grocery store.

He rather likes to be called “a bloke” himself, but his name is George Symeon and he is a native of Becharre, topmost village below the final rampart of the Lebanese mountains. Forty years ago. like many another of his adventurous countrymen before and since, he packed his worldly goods on his back and went out into the world to seek his fortune. His wanderings brought him to New Zealand in the early years of the present century, and for thirteen years more, with his horse and van, he roamed the Central Otago and Southland districts as an itinerant hawker. George Symeon knew these districts when there were still Chinese gold diggers living in their little sod huts in the gullies of Central. He carried a rifle presented to him by a friendly storekeeper to protect himself against “stick-up men,” and he still treasures a faded photograph which shows his van pulled up beside the road near Waikaia" township while he drank two bottles of beer with the village constable. It is true, because one can still discern the Constable in the picture, and also the beer, and the writer can still remember enough of Waikaia to believe that it once looked like that—and probably still does. ‘ I

When Armistice bells were ringing in New Zealand after the last war George Symeon decided to re-visit his native mountains in faraway Syria and he is still there. But now he is waiting, like so many more, for Armistice bells to ring again *so that he can go back to New Zealand—and this time he means to stay there. For George is firmly convinced—and the occasional New Zealanders whom he has encountered on leave during the past three years have reinforced his conviction—that New Zealand is a land flowing with milk and honey and peopled by kindly and hospitable pub-keepers. “These blokes,” he said, indicating two of his Lebanese compatriots standing by as an audience, “they work here all their lives; but me, I want to go back to New Zealand. Another story could be written about George Symeon’s present occupation, for he is the guardian of the tomb of the famous Lebanese poet, artist and philosopher, Khalil Gibran, Becharre’s most famous son, whose remains are buried in a crypt above his native village. Gibran, whose writings are reminiscent, in their depth and vision, of those of the Indian poet, Tagore, and whose portraits have been compared to those of Rodin, died in America in 1937, and at his express wish his remains were brought back to Becharre where the royalties from his books have formed a fund to establish a museum and school.