Christchurch

Eleven days after much of the Christchurch city centre and many people’s lives there and in neighbouring areas were shattered by an underground upheaval in this earthquake-prone country, the New Zealand media remain saturated with news of the disaster and its consequences. The rising death toll but diminishing number of missing persons; collapsed, precarious or demolished buildings; countless tales of tragedy, bravery, heroism, miraculous escapes; liquefaction and the huge amounts of toxic silt that spread far and wide; solidarity, people coming together, disaster funds, fund-raising events and collections, and so on have filled newsprint columns, radio and television programmes seemingly without end. Not everyone admires it all.

One columnist has written about ‘disaster porn’ that the media have been wallowing in. There have been objections to some of the more meaningless questions that have been asked. Have there been invasions of privacy? Intrusion into other people’s grief? On the other hand, many of those affected have clearly felt a need to speak out, to express emotion, to make their feelings known. Relief aid was not equally distributed. People in the eastern suburbs were aggrieved. Districts that had suffered less had received more. One street had but a single portable toilet for all its residents, though more were reportedly on their way. Water and power supplies have been getting back to near normal, but not sewage.

For me, the most incongruous feature of reporting from the stricken city has been the sight of on-the-spot television anchormen dressed in dark suits, spotless white shirts and neatly knotted ties, while behind them is a scene of utter devastation. And this in a country that has always had a reputation for being laid back and informal.

Now that the search and rescue operation has given way to ‘recovery’, with no survivors found since the day after the earthquake struck, other questions are being asked. How is it that quite modern buildings were unable to withstand a 6.3 earthquake (although the Richter Scale doesn't tell you how deep it was and this one was shallow, and close). Were the relevant standards adhered to? It has been stated many times that the fault lines in the area were not known until the earlier quake last September, which caused much damage, though not on the present scale, but no loss of life. This too has been queried. Were buildings adequately reinforced after September? How come that a building given a clean bill of health then, collapsed now?

If there was no known danger, the regulations wouldn’t have been as strict as in known danger zones - like the one I’m in right now, Wellington (we’ve had two sizeable quakes this week, 4.5 and 4.7 on the Richter scale, and smaller ones very often). But the building standards were revised in the 1970s. Old buildings would not have been covered, but as a letter-writer in Wellington’s morning newspaper The Dominion Post points out, most of the deaths were caused by the collapse of two of the more modern buildings. There are now realistic fears that all the city’s old and historic buildings will be pulled down and that it will lose its soul. There is also consternation that the Government intends taking advantage of the situation to push through unpopular measures, which include cutting welfare benefits and the partial sale of state assets on the pretext of having to raise money to cover the disaster costs, running into billions of anybody's money.

However, there is a General Election coming up in November, which puts the Opposition in a quandary. The nation must pull together at this time of emergency, so criticism of the National Party-led Government under former currency trader John Key, which cynics might say with some justification, is getting a lot of mileage out of the situation, is very muted. Labour leader Phil Goff barely gets a mention these days. So what is he to do?

Binny and Belloe

Intended for both children and adults, Binny and Belloe is basically about racial prejudice. It is perhaps the Animal Farm of our times.

Here is an excerpt:

‘You going along to this meeting?’ Nippy asked Gruffy.
Gruffy turned to look at Len.
‘May as well find out what all the fuss is about,’ Len said with a shrug. ‘You never know what might be budding with those fools. If you ask me, someone’s been up to something.’
Several of the younger squirrels were waiting at the meeting place long before Oggy was expected. Others gradually turned up in twos and threes, chattering busily among themselves. Many were afraid, especially those who had not been to the far edge of the woods. A few, like Bushie, remained obstinately doubtful. Most were excited and all were very curious.
‘Just think! You’ll be telling the youngsters about this in times to come,’ more than one squirrel told another.
‘After what I’ve seen today, I don’t think they’ll believe me,’ came one reply.
‘And who could blame them?’ added someone else.
More and more squirrels crowded into the clearing where the speech was to be made. There was much jostling for position and the surrounding trees swarmed with furry creatures.
At last, Oggy appeared, moving slowly. A path was made for him up to a large oak that stood alone in the middle of the clearing. Slowly, he climbed up to and along a low bough, tearing away some of the leaves so that he was in full view. Conversations broke off as one nudged another and nodded towards the branch where the elderly animal sat.
Oggy waited until it was perfectly quiet. ‘My friends ... ’ he began. ‘My dear friends ... ’ His voice had become weak with the years and those farthest away had to strain hard to hear. ‘Today is a day that will be remembered and spoken of long after I, and you, and your children ... have vanished from these woods ... and passed on to the Great Everlasting Forest ... that happy and plentiful home of all who have gone before us ... of our dear departed friends and relations.’
‘Doesn’t half like to blab, doesn’t he?’ Len murmured to Gruffy, who grinned back at him.
‘Shhh!’ said someone just behind them.
Oggy spoke very slowly, with many pauses between his words. ‘We, my friends ... who are here today ... must count ourselves very fortunate ... for we are the ones who were present when a discovery was made that none of us has ever dreamt of before ... and that some of us may still have difficulty in believing ... even those who have seen for themselves.’
‘When’s he going to get to the point?’ Len muttered.
‘But it is true,’ Oggy went on. ‘My friends ... in this great and wonderful world in which we are so fortunate to live ... there are squirrels with very little colour in their coats ... and who therefore appear strange to our eyes.’
Animals around Bushie turned towards her with ‘I-told-you-so’ looks on their faces. She stared ahead, pretending not to notice.
‘Like many of you ... I have seen these animals. But I have also had talks with some of the leaders of the fairly small group that arrived in these woods early today.’ He took a much longer pause for breath. ‘There is one thing I want to assure you my dear friends, and that is this – these creatures are neither gods nor ghosts ... but squirrels like you and me.’ A murmur went round the clearing and it was some time before Oggy said any more.
‘Yes, my friends ... these are nothing other than ordinary, mortal squirrels.’
‘What’s all the fuss about then?’ mumbled Len.
‘But as such, let us welcome them ... for they are our brothers and sisters.’
‘Are they going to stay?’ someone called out. And everyone waited expectantly for the answer.
‘Oh I do hope they’re going to stay, at least for a little while,’ Stocky whispered to Skippy.
Oggy cleared his throat, showing his old, worn front teeth. The speech was putting a great strain on his voice. ‘Our brothers and sisters who arrived here today ... are indeed looking for somewhere to live. My friends ... they have travelled far and would like at least to rest. But the woods in which we have the greatest good fortune to dwell ... are large and plentiful enough ... to support a much greater squirrel population than they do at present ... Thus there is no reason ... as I see it ... why our new-found relations should continue on their way. I, my friends, have already told their leaders of my view ... But before going any further ... I should like to know whether you agree ... I think we should ask them to stay here and live among us.’
‘Hooray!’ shouted one of the younger squirrels, and there was an immediate chorus of cheers and shouts of excitement. Binny leapt into the air with joy and Stocky and Skippy danced round delightedly. Everyone was jabbering or calling out at once and much time went by before Oggy, who sat quietly smiling from his branch, tried to say any more. At last, he raised a paw.
‘Shhh,’ said one squirrel after another. ‘Shhh! Be quiet there!’
‘I am overjoyed,’ Oggy said, ‘to find you so keen. But perhaps, nevertheless ... there are those who have doubts or objections ... If so ... now is the time to speak.’
The rustling of the leaves suddenly seemed to grow loud. Squirrels stared from one to another. Len looked down, his lips pressed tightly together.
Oggy waited. And waited. Finally he said, ‘My friends ... my very dear friends ... we have reason to celebrate. Let there be feasting in the woods ... feasting such as we have never known before.’
And with that he began to climb down amid calls from above, below and all around.
‘Three cheers for Oggy,’ a voice shouted from a high perch in one of the trees. ‘Hip hip ... ’
‘HOORAY!’
‘Hip hip ... ’
‘HOORAY!’
‘Hip hip hip ... ’
‘HOORAY!’
-------------------
But how will relations between the two groups develop?

Cake Tin Sevens

Among several other things, the rules say no nudity or near-nudity, no devices resembling, or which can be used as, a weapon, and, of course, no alcohol. There’s an ocean of bottled beer to buy inside, but don’t try to bring your own because you won’t get it in, a regulation which, I would say, is more strictly enforced than some of the others.
Yes, it has come and gone for the tenth or eleventh year in succession, the International Rugby Sevens weekend in Wellington, when the streets are roamed, the pubs raucously filled to overflowing and the ‘Cake Tin’ as it is popularly known, long since sold out to outlandishly fancy-dressed, overwhelmingly older-teenage and young adult throngs, some with an occasional eye for the rugby, most responding far more enthusiastically, with arms waving, a dark bottle clutched in one hand, hips swaying to the disco music resounding around the stadium at every opportunity, which means very often.
The police were quite happy with the outcome at the end of the first day. Only twenty-eight arrests, mostly for fighting and similar ‘minor offences’ (!), while eighty-two people were ejected from the stadium. Figures for the second day were a little higher, while sixty-to-seventy arrests were made during the all-night street party in town, a result with which the officers of the law were well content.
Afterwards it was congratulations all round. Wellington had done it again. All agree that this weekend is like no other on the International Sevens circuit, which includes Hong Kong and, believe it or not, Las Vegas. The great party had been held once more, with only one dissenting voice to be heard in the correspondence columns of the capital city’s morning newspaper, from a Kiwi resident abroad but who timed his visit home to coincide with the great event. Never again would he subject himself to such a beer-swilling masquerade that used the pretext of the rugby for a rave.
Now most New Zealanders take their rugby very seriously and one can safely assume that other true lovers of the game stay well away, though doubtless following events on the pitch in front of their television sets, where one can assume there is considerably less disturbance. So their voices are not heard in the great chorus of self-congratulations. But wait a moment. Something soon happened to disturb the party-goers and all those who support them - the weekend is worth millions of dollars to the city.
Wellington’s application to hold the New Zealand leg of the Sevens circuit permanently was turned down by the New Zealand Rugby Union Board. The bidding will be open to others after next year’s event, and Auckland and Dunedin have already expressed an interest. This caused great consternation in the capital city, tempered eventually by the confident assertion that no one else could possibly put on such a show.
Auckland and Dunedin evidently can’t rave as well - indeed, their ravers come to Wellington for the weekend and seem happy to continue doing so.

A cup of green tea

A cup of green tea cost four New Zealand dollars. I handed over a twenty-dollar note and waited for the change.
The plane from San Francisco is due in Auckland at ten minutes past five in the morning, but was half-an-hour early. So here I was in town having deposited my luggage, but with a lot of time to kill. This coffee bar was one of the few that were open so early.
The man behind the counter put a ten-dollar note in my hand, plus a one-dollar coin. I stared at the money through overtired eyes, then at him. “Four dollars,” I said.
He looked at me uncomprehendingly for a moment. “Oh,” he said suddenly, as though just remembering something, and produced another five dollars from the till. There was no apology.
It is only the second time anyone has tried to cheat me in New Zealand and sad to say, it was by non-native New Zealanders on both occasions, both in Auckland and at the same chain of coffee bars. This has never been a crime-free society, but in my previous experience, such behaviour was unthinkable here.
This is the country where when I phoned the Auckland-dwelling cousin of a Stockholm colleague to convey his regards, I was passed after a chat, to her husband, who asked me where I was staying. I told him.
“You’re not!” he stated emphatically. “You’re staying here!” And despite my protestations, within an hour they had come to collect me. I’d never met them before.
This is the country where, when we once turned up in Invercargill in the evening with our then three-year-old son and couldn’t find anywhere to stay, the chairman of the local motel-owners’ association, whom I had turned to as a last resort, assured me everywhere was full.
“We have a three-year-old child with us,” I said. “So what do we do?”
“You come round here,” he replied. “There’s no room in our motel, but we have a spare room in our house. We have a young child too.”
He later asked where we were going after Invercargill. We told him we’d really like to go to Stewart Island for a few days, whereupon he arranged it for us.
When we got back he had a room for us in the motel. This time we told him we were aiming to go next to Queenstown.
“My wife’s parents have a bach (holiday home) in Queenstown,” he said. “You can stay there. There’s no one in it at the moment.” They gave us bedding to take with us.
This is the country where, much more recently, I booked a bed-and-breakfast weekend in a small township about an hour’s train ride from Wellington, was met at the station by the host, fed afternoon tea by his wife, shown round the area, introduced to a number of people, taken to the biannual fair in a neighbouring town the next day, and given lunch the day after that before being taken back to the station.
Five days later my erstwhile host phoned me in Wellington and asked what I was doing that weekend. Surprised, I explained I was busy the next day, a Saturday, but had made no plans for the Sunday.
“I’ll come and pick you up,” he said. Which he did.
This is the country where I met some friends from Sweden who were on a cruise ship that called in at Wellington and who decided to take a taxi into town. When we got there, they gave the driver a tip - which he refused to take. (I had told them that normally you didn’t tip people here.)
I could go on. So it is doubly sad when someone from another background in the country’s biggest city, which has about one-in-three of the entire New Zealand population, tries to cheat me out of a few dollars.
------------
PS But incidently, the taxi driver I mentioned wasn’t a native Kiwi either.

Carbon footprint

As a keen supporter of public transport (though someone who will walk rather than ride whenever possible), a non-car driver and a person who would claim to be environmentally aware, I have a horrendous carbon footprint!

It has been created been far above ground level. In the past year I have flown from Stockholm to Chicago, Chicago to San Francisco, San Francisco to Auckland, Auckland to San Francisco, San Francisco to London, London to Stockholm, Stockholm to London, London to San Francisco, San Francisco to Maui (Hawaii), Maui to San Francisco, San Francisco to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Stockholm, Stockholm to London, London to Stockholm, Stockholm to London yet again, London to San Francisco and San Francisco to Auckland once more!

No, I haven’t suddenly gone to work for one of the airlines, though I am certainly providing some of them with business at a time when they are most in need. I plead special (and very sad) circumstances this year, plus the fact that those closest to me live six thousand miles from my northerly habitat, but must also acknowledge an inceasingly irresistible urge to pack my computer and escape from Swedish winters, of which I have had my very fair share.

So now I’m in New Zealand again.

Surprise, surprise

Some recorded voices are full of warmth and a joy to hear. This one said her name was Åsa and she was phoning from the Stockholm morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, DN. She left what under the circumstances was a remarkably glowing message on my answering machine promising me that although for some reason they had not yet received payment of my bill, the paper would continue to be delivered as usual. She assured me I need have no worries about that, though they would naturally expect payment in the near future.

“Have a nice day,” concluded the amiable Åsa.

Why then did I not appreciate her bonhomie? Why indeed, did I feel as though the walls had given way, the ceiling had fallen on my head, the ground given way from under my feet? Answer: I happened to be twelve thousand miles away and had cancelled the paper more than three months earlier!

Recorded voice number two had none of Åsa’s affability. Instead, this was a stern lady from the landlord’s company wondering why my payment slips for the next quarter had been returned by the PO as undeliverable.

Åsa, I don’t want you to believe your good wishes are not appreciated, but I think you should know I had a thoroughly rotten day, with a succession of thoroughly rotten days to follow, overshadowed by visions of important mail being sent back to people, organisations, authorities and others who would be convinced I’d moved or done a bunk without leaving a new address; of payments, tax-return forms and vital information disappearing into the blue; of thieves lining up to break in, overjoyed to find an abode that was clearly not just empty, but had been so for a long time.

Had they done so, they would at least have performed one inestimable service. They would have forced a passage through the massive, well-nigh immovable, mountain of newsprint that defiantly confronted me when I finally returned, jet-lagged, not having slept for more than thirty-six hours and burdened by all the baggage the regulations would allow (plus some they wouldn’t but that never got weighed). Had the door not opened outwards, it would have had to be removed.

Åsa, I do not wish to burden your conscience with the anguish and frustrations that followed in the frantic damage-limitation efforts of the succeeding days and weeks, nor with the fact that I can never know the full extent of the harm caused. Nor yet am I willing to believe you were the one responsible for not only ignoring my missives about the great unnatural disaster that had darkened my doorstep and my life, accompanied by black-and-white proof of the original cancellation and confirmation of same signed by one of your colleagues. Neither can I possibly imagine it was you who decided to pour salt on the wounds by sending me a new invoice for all the papers I had cancelled.

BUT, pacific though I normally am, that Åsa was what diplomats, politicians and the history books call a casus belli. The gauntlet had been thrown down. Well, if it was warfare DN wanted, warfare it should have. It was for me to choose my weapons and my natural instinct was to go for the keyboard.
So Åsa, I filed a formal written complaint against your company with the Consumer Ombudsman, containing all the irrefutable evidence I had of written cancellation and signed confirmation, and sent a copy to your Managing Director.

Åsa, you may prefer the phone, but it is truly amazing what a fine weapon the keyboard can be, mightier even than the pen. When I entered my flat late one afternoon a couple of days afterwards there were two messages on my answerphone from the head of your department. I’d hardly had time to listen to them when she called again — full of sympathy and understanding.

We had a pleasant conversation Åsa, with just a little bargaining, during which the stakes were raised somewhat. As a result I now have a one-year free subscription to your publication, naturally with all previous ‘debts’ cancelled.
The question now Åsa is what do I do if I go away again before the year is up? Do I cancel a free subscription?? Hmm... I’ll have to think about that one.

Kiwi-speak

"Awesome!" the girl at the cash desk says when I hand over the exact price of my purchase. I smile back at her. "See ya later!" she adds as I turn to go.

I didn’t see her later, nor was I ever likely to. Some expressions seem to have lost all meaning, or taken on vague new ones. The younger generation in particular are influenced by Americanisms of course, but most Kiwi-isms are either distinctly home-grown, many of Maori origin, or shared with big brother across the Tasman Sea.

To learn the local lingo you should know not simply that your mail is delivered by a 'postie', but that the food you eat in the morning is 'brekkie' (many cafés serve it all day), a person driving a lorry is a 'truckie', a dock worker a 'wharfie' and a person with a hobby that keeps him in a little hut in the garden for long periods a 'sheddie', while the boat enthusiast is a 'boatie'.

The land your house stands on is a 'section', and if it’s a little weekend or summer place by the beach it’s a 'bach'' (from bachelor). The field where livestock are herded together is a 'paddock', hikers are 'trampers', if you are not well you are 'crook' and if people are departing, for example to get their OE ('Overseas Experience'), you can 'farewell' them.

Among Maori expressions that are never translated are 'kia ora' (hello, thanks etc.), 'haere mai' (welcome), 'pakeha' (a person of European descent), 'iwi' (tribe), 'marae' (tribal/sub-tribal meeting place) and 'mana' (influence, power, prestige). 'Waka-jumping' is a more recent one, describing an MP who leaves his party while Parliament is still in session (a 'waka' is a Maori canoe and the term was coined ten years ago after Maori MPs left the New Zealand First Party.)

A 'bogan' is a bore, or old fuddy-duddy, a 'monsoon bucket' a container full of water dropped on a bush fire from the air (more common in Australia), 'pingers' is money and anyone described as 'munted' is probably drunk, or down and out.

Awesome! Don’t you think?

Maybe not. Anyway — see ya later!