PERFECT SOUVENIR Sharon Lam’s NZ memento
Bound for Hong Kong after a visit to New Zealand, author Sharon Lam unpacks the tricky task of choosing an honest and meaningful memento of Aotearoa.
Recently, I went on “book leave”, taking three weeks off from my job in Hong Kong to return to New Zealand to assemble, bind, and launch my first novel. This was all very fun and exciting, but a huge decision loomed at the end of my trip: what to bring back as a souvenir for my co-workers. What item would show off all that Aotearoa has to offer? What would win them over? What would convince them that this country is more than what Hong Kong thinks it is – green and boring?
In Hong Kong, no one knows that two-thirds of New Zealand’s waterways are not safe for swimming, or that of our native species, three-quarters of fish and a third of invertebrates and plants are facing extinction. In Hong Kong, the 100 percent pure, Crowded House-soundtracked dream lives on. I make little effort to dispel this fantasy. I want people in Hong Kong to think New Zealand is good, just as in New Zealand, I want people to think Hong Kong is good. In Hong Kong, I say, “New Zealand’s not boring, you just need a few friends and good weather.” In New Zealand, I say, “Hong Kong’s not all polluted city, there’s beaches and mountains, pink dolphins and wild boars.”
But at the same time, in New Zealand I’m also saying, “There’s only two good restaurants and the bus is $7 and never shows up,” and in Hong Kong I’m saying, “All I ever do is endlessly buy things and no one cares that the pink dolphins are dying out.”
This situational patriotism is of course, quite silly and reductive. The clean green image that New Zealand projects to the world results in the people in New Zealand being less aware of the facts themselves, just as Hong Kong’s image as a bustling world city is used to hide its massive social inequalities and its ridiculous carbon-emission levels, with last year’s readings 78 percent short of the 2030 target.
So where does this impulse to blindly defend the country I’m not currently in come from? Growing up across different countries has played a huge part in who I am, and I suppose I interpret poor national representations as poor
representations of myself. When you move to a new place, where you were before becomes the defining backdrop of who you are as a person. The two become easily conflated. Which is why I find buying souvenirs so hard – they’re key props for that backdrop.
In my quest for the perfect prop, I thought hard about what actually makes a good souvenir a good souvenir. The key attributes seemed to be 1) The souvenir is something the home country yields in high quality, and 2) The souvenir is difficult, or even impossible, to find in the country it’s being gifted in. So I thought of things that are good in New Zealand and hard to find in Hong Kong. Fresh air. Open spaces. Feijoas. Kereru. The social awareness, shown recently in response to the white supremacist attacks upon two Christchurch mosques. Support shown through vigils, demonstrations and a general eagerness to learn and listen – news sites and radio handing over their airwaves and pages to the voices that mattered most. It’s hard to imagine the same happening in Hong Kong, where an extreme political apathy hangs over the whole city. It was briefly broken during the Umbrella Revolution, but today, the only sign of it having ever happened is the occasional update of the movement leaders’ court case.
There was no way to fit a dramatic shift in public values into my suitcase, nor could I pack the fresh air, open space or any kereru. And it wasn’t feijoa season. All I could bring back to Hong Kong with me was an increased need to search out ways and people who are trying to lift the apathy. And I finally remembered the perfect souvenir for my co-workers – something that 1) New Zealand yields in high quality, 2) Is impossible to find in Hong Kong, and 3) Could actually be put into my suitcase – a few jars of Pic’s Peanut Butter.