Mates

  How important are friendships to these characters?

Friendships are extremely important for the Aditi and Wei as they were both lonely and constantly bullied. They had to face bullying every day at school and with no one to support them or to express their feelings to. Both of them had to tolerate the bullying and keep their feelings to themselves, which would have made it extremely difficult for them to cope on a daily basis. Hence, after becoming friends, Aditi and Wei managed to pull it through at school and regain happiness, living a normal life of a child.  If they had not made any friends due to Barry West’s bullying, it would most likely have led to depression.

2.     Different expectations of friends and enemies are revealed in these stories. What are they and how do they contribute to the character’s understandings of relationships with their peers?

An unexpected situation for Barry West, the bully, would be having Aditi to stand up to him by bashing a rock against his head as she was always in a weak position against Barry. From Wei’s point of view, his unexpected situation was having Aditi defending him from getting beaten up by Barry. The different expectation that Barry received allowed him to understand that Aditi wasn’t afraid to stand up to him anymore and that she wasn’t such an easy victim anymore. For Wei, he understood the moment that Aditi rescued him that they were going to be friends.

3.     What are the attitudes, values and beliefs of your character?

Although Aditi was the victim of constant bullying, she’s described as to be screaming and yelling back at the kids who call her names. This shows that she isn’t as timid as would describe a stereotypical victim of bullying. Her attitude is quite strong and she values the friendship she forms with Wei, as she understands what Wei had been through and can empathise with him. She believes that you should never let yourself get bullied and you should stand up for yourself and others against those who choose to pick on you.

4.     What type of journey does your character go on? Pick one line from the story that tells you this.

Aditi goes on an inner journey as she mentions, “At night we would sit on scrappy vinyl-covered chairs in a bar...and…rant about how we hated homogeneity and longed for difference.” This shows that despite Aditi and Wei’s being racially discriminated by Barry as only a couple of young kids, they have gone on an inner journey, overcoming the fact that they were bullied for simply having a different cultural background. They didn’t allow this to grow hatred for their identity and they know that all races are equal. The fact that Aditi mentions that they rant about how they hated homogeneity, in other words, uniformity, proves that she knows they are all equal and that being different, as in being an individual self, is very significant her and her friends.