A litmus test for what kind of Kiwi you are

What did Te Wiki o te Reo Ma¯ ori mean to you? Personally, I think the annual celebration is a litmus test for a certain type of person. They have an illness of sorts. It’s perfectly fine to have some of the symptoms, but if you have all of them then you should probably catch a quarantine boat to Australia, in time for Australia Day.

In essence, they live in opposite land. They are angered by Lorde. Dave Dobbyn is untrustworthy. Sam Neill lost all credibility after he did that wilderness-people movie. They reluctantly support the All Blacks but turn down the volume during the Ma¯ ori part of the anthem. And they pine for the days when the haka was performed in a vigorously non-Ma¯ ori fashion – more civilised, like Morris dancing, without the shin chimes. After all, Morris dancing isn’t all about assault, and murder and domestic violence and the Crimes Act.

They were disgusted when someone threw mud at Don Brash. They were appalled by the dildo-on-the-cheek thing with Steven Joyce. Other New Zealanders were sniggering, but they heard an empire’s decline in that single rubbery be-doingg that echoed around the world.

Our real life history is unsatisfactory, so they keep a spreadsheet on their desktop (not a computer, just their desktop) compiling evidence that New Zealand was settled by Vikings or Celts or Atlanteans. Anybody, really, as long as they were susceptible to sunburn.

The real New Zealand with all its blemishes and imperfections and incipient brownness is a ghost to these people. I can tell them with absolute certainty that no other nation in this crazy, about to be climate-changed-to-death planet celebrates a week for the Ma¯ ori language. But they just see this as a good thing. New Zealand should ditch it as well.

There are a near-infinite number of ways to be a real New Zealander, and they dislike all of them. But, they think to themselves, they are among the few true New Zealanders left.

Don’t tell them, but last week I wrote a large part of my column in te reo Ma¯ ori. Spring has arrived, and last week was the first Wiki o te Reo Ma¯ ori when I could write something substantial (entry-level substantial) in the language of my tu¯ puna. It was a great feeling.

The language used to be a complete mystery, and the worst kind of mystery. No solutions, just a strange stain on the carpet and nobody owning up to putting it there.

Therefore, my hope was that somebody scanned that Ma¯ ori text last week and decided this was their last year spent staring at a mystery – a foreign language; one which is in fact their language, in the official week set aside for that foreign language in its homeland.

In one sense, the Ma¯ ori text was possibly my simplest published work. It was the toiling work of a kid who always draws pictures of his favourite Transformer then only writes about drawing pictures of his favourite Transformer. Starscream has blue hands!

But I hoped some people might look at those words and really consider them. They were alien, but perhaps they were also part of their heritage. For me, the need to bridge the gap to my own culture was the start of my journey.

So, simple or not, they were without a doubt the words I was most proud of having published in my life. I read them and I felt hope. They were my best work. Even where I failed, they succeeded. Maybe that’s what last week was about to me.

If you were opposed to Te Wiki o te Reo Ma¯ ori, what kind of New Zealander are you?

There seem to be a lot of other people out there who were excited by the week. Stuff, for instance, had a terrific raft of content. People genuinely embraced things Ma¯ ori, which made me extremely happy. For once, social media cheered me up rather than depressed me. The sight of people sending out messages in te reo Ma¯ ori was heartening. Even when it was a bit glitchy, like my own efforts, it was in a sense necessary.

After all, one of the things I’ve learned during this year of studying te reo fulltime – maybe the most important thing – is that you need to fail occasionally. If learning is a type of magic, then you need to saw your assistant in half a few times and not be embarrassed by the screams. I hope people get busy learning the language now that the week and the party are over. Don’t let the brilliance fade till next year, again.

And to those other folks I mentioned: if you were opposed to Te Wiki o te Reo Ma¯ ori, what kind of New Zealander are you?