UK foreign secretary jokes about New Zealand greeting
Boris Johnson visits as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with former colony
thanked townsfolk for looking after tourists, including 200 Britons, who were stranded in the town after the quake and for teaching him a Maori greeting called a hongi, in which people press noses together.
“I think it’s a beautiful form of introduction, though it might be misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow,” Johnson joked, in a reference to a headbutt.
Prime Minister Bill English later said he didn’t think New Zealanders would be offended by Johnson’s comment.
“A hongi is a fairly unfamiliar ritual to almost anyone else in the world,” he said.
Later yesterday, Johnson travelled to Wellington where he unveiled a British memorial at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park. Johnson said it was his first visit to New Zealand. “This is the most mind-blowingly, mindnumbingly beautiful country that I have ever seen,” he said.