You’re too, too kind, world . . .
Some care needs to be taken not to let perceptions get too unworldly.
Now then, how assiduously should we correct some of the more flattering misconceptions about New Zealand? They’ve arisen in the jolly discussions about perception versus reality that ensued when Helen Clark posted online an image that plonks an in-scale outline of New Zealand into Europe. Turns out we’re perhaps surprisingly big.
Mind you, for a different perspective, if you really want to creep yourselves out when it comes to matters of scale, just look at how isolated our part of the world looks if you view the globe with New Zealand at the centre.
It’s us, Antarctica, Australia, Papua New Guinea and that’s about it apart. Otherwise, sea. The rest of humanity is on the other side of the world and that’s why we are among the planet’s most travelled people.
Cue much talk about the way others see us, as if through the wrong end of a telescope. If, indeed, people are even looking.
Some misconceptions that our travellers report are, for sure, worth gentle correction. They’re just ignorant. Yes, our cars run on petrol, yes, we use cutlery, and to our American friends, no, sorry you can’t walk here from there.
Given half a chance, it’s an easy, agreeable matter to address goofy notions about our location, size, and perceptions we’re primitive.
Perhaps less easy to bestir ourselves to correct the record when what people are picturing is a 100 per cent pure social utopia nestled in an environmental paradise.
We do promote ourselves well, through tourism, our Jackson-led film industry – and, to be fair, some pretty good example-setting by our domestic and travelling citizenry. There’s nothing wrong with accentuating the positive. We have many
positives to work with. But some care needs to be taken not to let perceptions get too unworldly.
It’s not just that The Lord of the Rings movies weren’t a complete aerial survey, or that our tourism footage inexplicably neglects to zoom in on the vibrancy of Auckland traffic, or that our picturesque river scenes are selected with some strategic care, or that when Antarctic southerlies come to visit we tend to put the promotional cameras away.
We have some shaming social problems, inequalities and poverty. It would appear that we’re seen as a country with good safety regulations. So what of Tyler Nii, Emily Jordan and murdered tourist hitchhikers?
These are not in themselves the entirety of ‘‘the real truth’’ but they are part of it and we should acknowledge our issues out loud. Not only by muttering among ourselves.
Better to carefully address, rather than tactically suppress, such realities when we’re considering our place in the world. We have so much going for us that we needn’t – mustn’t – let it be fictionalised.
That said, we’re Kiwis and it’s our cultural right to throw a bit of teasing into the mix.
Consider the Southlander of Dutch heritage who, while on a return visit to the Netherlands, was asked if he could speak Ma¯ ori and replied that he could. Invited to translate a few comments he did so with exquisite fluency and cadence: ‘‘Waikato, Waitomo, Taupo¯ , Taumarunui, Taihape, Whanganui, Manawatu¯ . . .’’ and the rest of the oh-so-familiar National Radio weather forecast, minus the Northland-Auckland giveaway bits.
That was just yanking their chain. Nothing wrong with that.