It’s never too late to start learning Te Reo

exciting as a trip to church, which the old man pushed in the faint hope one of us would wind up Catholic.

So I spent my life mangling the Maori language as badly as I did poor old English, which once the 1990s were in full swing became American English. When I left to see the world in the early 2000s, ‘‘Rangi’’ still rhymed with ‘‘tangy’’ and the only te Reo I’d use was the Ka Mate haka, which Kiwi bogans abroad have been subjecting the world to since Te Rauparaha first climbed out of the kumara pit.

During my time overseas I got to see how aboriginal people of other countries had survived and it wasn’t a pretty story. I’m mainly thinking about Australia and Canada, where I saw a people utterly decimated by colonisation.

When I returned home it dawned on me that we had pretty good relations between the two signatories of our Treaty. A Maori renaissance was under way and positive Maori figures were everywhere in the public sphere.

Then my mates’ kids started going to school and coming home with a better understanding of Maori culture than I had. They’d perfectly pronounce names and scold me for my old-fashioned take on speaking Te Reo. I began to feel like a dinosaur. I began to feel like my nana, who said ‘‘Parapram’’ with that specifically Kiwi twang.

So I changed. I made a real effort to pronounce Maori words properly, even though it felt awkward and strained. I visited Waitangi and attempted to understand the Treaty, our country’s founding document. I even studied a bit of Maori history, which provided me with a much better understanding of how this nation was created.

I don’t want to end up as an old dinosaur stuck in my past and bitter about the future. When I think of my grandfather and his insistence of holding on to racism against the Japanese, I find myself desperate to adapt to a modern world where Maori culture is a defining part of Kiwi culture.

In this world people sometimes pitch changing your mind as a sign of weakness. They call it flipflopping when politicians do it. But changing position on something can be liberating. It can be that you’ve been wrong about something for so long that you don’t even know why you hold a position. That’s how the Maori language was for me. So I’m making an effort to change and embrace a part of our shared culture that sets us apart from the rest of the world. Q. I see earthworks are under way on land adjacent to the southern motorway and Awatea Rd. What is happening there and are there any plans for land on the other side of the motorway beside Wigram Rd? – Peter Waller. A. The Government signed a development agreement for the construction of 237 homes as part of its affordable housing project on the 11.5-hectare Crown-owned site in Christchurch. Fletcher Residential was chosen as the Government’s private-sector partner for the project, which is expected to be fully complete by 2017. – Govt.