M.R.6 Whale Rider

This is a story about Maori culture in New Zealand. The main character is a girl named Paikea. Paikea is also the name to man’s who came to New Zealand on a whale a long time ago. At the very first part of the story, Paikea was born, and her mother and her twin brother died. Paikea’s father lives in Germany, and she stays with her grandpa and grandma. Her grandpa, Koro is really strict about tradition. He wanted a boy to pass the tradition down from generation to generation. Paikea was kind of special. She did many things than other boys do, and she was interested in learning the traditions like taiaha. However Koro didn’t let her do that because Paikea is a girl. Koro always follows the old tradition, and doesn’t like breaking the traditions. I think that it is a really difficult problem. The traditions are important, but sometimes you need to break the traditions to do new things, and it makes things better sometimes. The existence of Paikea shows that to Koro.


At first, Koro wasn’t happy about Paikea’s birth, and he didn’t seem sad about Paikea’s mom’s death. I couldn’t understand that. Sometimes it is difficult to understand the culture for people who have a different culture. However I think it’s really interesting there are so many different cultures in the world.
I liked when Paikea and Koro ride a bicycle together. However the scene was very sad when Paikea was going to leave her grandma and grandpa with her dad.


I also felt the family love as I watch this movie. Even when they couldn’t understand each other, they don’t hate each other. For example, sometimes Koro yells at Paikea, and sometimes Paikea does things which are really bad for Koro, but they still love each other. I believe that the love among the family is the strongest! (314 words)