As always in ‘Te Ao Hou’, the views expressed in this article are those of the author alone. And as always, we hope that you will write to let us know whether or not you agree with him. FOUR QUESTIONS by Kaiwhakaako There she goes, stilting along like a rare bird, pretty and strange, a little sad maybe—not a girl and not a woman wholly. You wonder about her. You wonder about all the eighteen-year-old girls. How are they making out you wonder, down there in Eighteen, the country you left so long ago. Is the sun as bright, is life as much fun—surely there are no worries. A while ago I told a girl of this age (call her Mary or Pat, or Margaret), I was writing for ‘Te Ao Hou’ and that maybe she would tell me what to say. She thought of a lot of things, why it was that her parents were so old fashioned, and didn't want her to have fun … all that jazz. I tried to defend us, the oldsters, but, you know, there were some questions that were pretty hard. Perhaps we haven't explained ourselves too clearly to the young. Maybe they have a right to make us account for our actions. We got down to four questions in the end. Here they are with my answers. How would you answer? Question 1 There's a lot of trouble in the world … I've read about the fighting in India and the Cuban thing, I read about people trying to stop James Meredith going to the University of Mississippi … how did we get into this mess. H bomb tests, the cold war, race discrimination. What sort of future have we got? Who would want to have children to grow up in the world the way it is now … A. All right—the only answer I've got is ‘If you think you can do better, have a shot!’ But it isn't a good answer. Here in New Zealand we are a long way from trouble—at the moment. But how long have we got … well the cold war isn't the best but we've got to live with it, you can't hide in a shelter in case there's a war—you can hate injustice. violence, lies … Listen honey why don't we just skip this one, I don't have an answer on the cold war—what happened to Meredith was a crime but, chalk it up, the U.S. Government was prepared to send an Army to see that he got his rights, that the law was upheld. Would we do so much? I wonder. Question 2 This is tied up with the one before I suppose. Sometimes people are rude to my mother, I'm sure that it's because they think she's just an old Maori. Mum says that if it happens to me I have to take it—I don't see why. A. Your mother has good manners. Some other people haven't. Maybe the shop assistant's corns were hurting. If you are sure that an assistant is treating you badly on account of your being a Maori, then you have a right to complain, but not to the assistant—find the floor manager. Be dead sure though; a nice smile and a polite request will usually win the sourest shop assistant. Try these first. Perhaps, however, your mother means that you have to be able to take it, that you mustn't let them hit you where you live. She's right. You will have to put up with a lot of this—the Nazis, like the poor are always with us. Question 3 Another thing, my mother is always critical of any pakeha boyfriends I have. Why can't I go round with a Maori, she says. Why the objection? A. Search me. This looks like question 2 the other way round (personally I've always thought your boyfriends a dopey lot, but that's