multiculturalism PNG context

Last night I went to the fundraiser for the Mt Hagen Secondary School at the Chinese Restaurant off Milfordhaven Rd. There were a hundred or so people there and a singsing group of six students performed several dances. The MC said that the school draws on a multicultural community of islanders, Morobeans, Highlanders and other coastees. I found it interesting to consider people from the same country as being "multicultural" but in context, in a geographical space which is made up of people from different language and cultural traditions, they all are of course multi-cultural. Europeans are different from each other in a multi-cultural context of course but in Australia we normally think of multi-cultural as encompassing a more global perspective - Middle Easter, East European, Mediterranean Europe, Sub Continent and East Asia. Tolai, Motu, Redmen, Blackmen, Highlander, Coastal there are so many different traditions. In Church we have services in English because most of the congregation is of Milne Bay and Popondeta origin. Other Churches with different cultural congregation have Tok Ples and Tok Pisin as the liturgical language.