Cross-Culture

Rodney offered a few days ago a piece of commentary that I feel compelled to refer back to, due to the fact that I found it to so skew the perceived response to the issue in question. What happened, according to the Herald article, is that on 24 November a Dutch tourist allegedly cracked a "nervous grin" during a traditional Maori welcoming ritual. Other reports suggest that he was showing an expression of disrespectful amusement towards what was going on. One performer in the welcome, Richard Minarapa Mitai-Ngatai, impulsively took the latter to be the factual case and proceeded to assault the tourist by headbutting him in the face.

The performer has been sentenced to one hundred and fifty hours' worth of community service, with the judge having agreeably stated that although he understands Mitai-Ngatai's feelings of cultural pride, an attack on a tourist would have been unacceptable no matter the circumstance; whether the tourist was silently ridiculing the ritual or not. It would appear that no conclusion has yet been reached as to whether the tourist was intending to convey the offense that was perceived. The Herald article mentions that the judge covered the idea that it is important that tourists are able to feel that they are safe when they visit New Zealand.

It would appear that Rodney made leverage of that last point with the intent of painting Maori cultural performers as some kind of public health risk. "Traditional welcomes need to include a government health warning and tourists need an education programme before arriving in New Zealand," he says. "The call follows Dutch tourist Johannes Scheffers being headbutted 'backwards with blood ejecting from his nose' following his nervous grin." Rodney refers to "the call" in such a way that could provide the impression that it's a position being taken on by the court when, amusingly, it is in fact nothing but his own dishonourable attempt to paint Maori culture as primitive and savage on the basis of one man's kneejerk reaction.

Today is my last full day in the country before I leave for Australia tomorrow morning. I'll be there for two weeks. I must say that now that the time has almost come to leave, in retrospect it somehow feels thoroughly rewarding to have sold my summer of 2004 and 2005 in order to secure a bit of money. It's all about to pay off. Having not been overseas since 1999 I am very much looking forward to the experience; I feel that it's really going to mean something to me to spend some time in a different, albeit comfortingly similar, society. During the previous times I've been to Australia, I haven't had the maturity to understand the significance of my being overseas. This time it's going to be a thoroughly interesting personal growth experience. As if the fact that I'm travelling internationally under my own financial power isn't enough, I'll have more-or-less free boarding with my cousins, which is sure to make the overall experience all the more enjoyable! I hope you all have a great two weeks and that I don't miss out on anything too major. Take care!