Lucky Kiwi . . .

I'm a big believer in creating one's own luck. I also believe in the Law of Attraction, karma and paying things forward. When I'm functioning at full strength (I get caught up in negativity sometimes and fall down a black hole that can take some work to climb out of, but positive is my default), I expect the Universe, God, Gaia, Buddha and people to be kind to and with me, and they usually are. When life bites, as it does at times, I try to accept it, learn any lessons I need to learn (and I'm incredibly stubborn about learning lessons, so life gives me constant reminders) and let the bad be the contrast that allows me to treasure how much good I have in my life.

But sometimes, when I expect life to hand me gifts and it does, I can be pretty damned annoying. This may be one of those posts.




You have been warned . . .

Two weekends ago, I returned to Seoul to attend the 6th New Zealand Seoul Wine Festival with a bunch of great friends. It's organized by fellow Kiwi expat Simon Walsh and the amazing Suuny Myung, who run Tiwi Trade and import wines from Aotearoa to Korea, and held in the Waterfall Garden of the Hyatt - one of Seoul's premier spots on a sunny afternoon. I invited the Chudy-Buddy who allows me to use his spare room when I'm in town and puts up with me, Allison invited two of her friends and I arranged to meet up with most of the Seoul-Kiwi crowd while there, plus some honorary members. The only person missing and missed was our ambassador, Patrick Rata, as work called him elsewhere.

A few weeks before the event, Simon started posting links to the vineyards participating, including many of our very best. I had already decided we would start with the Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc and then my friends were on their own. He also posted a list of fabulous prizes for a raffle, the grand prize being a trip for two from Seoul to Christchurch, flying Singapore Air and staying in a gorgeous hotel in Singapore for a night each way. I told my friends I was going to win it.

Which I did, but I'd sampled enough of the 90-odd NZ wines on offer by then to not notice or care. Thankfully, the Chudy-Buddy stepped up and claimed it for me and I learned about it when I read his facebook status update early the next morning. He apparently also won a few prizes himself, and people were booing him by the final time he stepped up to claim one. (Important note: the raffle was not in any way rigged, I bought 13 tickets and that's a lucky number for me.)

So, here I am with a return trip for two to my tangata whenua and no idea who to take. Then I thought of the perfect person - a friend/surrogate family member I stay with whenever I'm in Norfolk, VA, who loves to travel, has recently retired for the second time and loves Aotearoa.

I'm going to bookend Chinese New Year with a week worth of holidays and spend about two weeks traveling my home land. Diamond Harbor, Littleton, Rapaki, Sandymount, Otakou, Cromwell, Wanaka, Alexandria, the West Coast, Picton and Wellington, then drive up the North Island to Auckland. Go sailing, maybe visit Rangitoto Island, then fly back to Christchurch and out.

It will be a grand tour, on a grand scale. I hope to see a lot of my whanaungatanga along the way.


BTW, next year is the Year of the Sheep - where better to see it in than the Land of the Long White Cloud . . .

The ambassadors' spouses: Part 2 . . .

I'm also writing an occasional series on the spouses of ambassador's to China, which started with the Argentine wife of the New Zealand ambassador. Being a New Zealander, she is now acting almost as an assistant on the project and introducing me to other spouses. (Once, again, the benefits of being from a small country, while overseas.)

While I was in Seoul last week, this profile on the wife of the Moroccan ambassador was published . . .

New Zealand on film . . .

another recent article was on the New Zealand Film Festival in China . . .

A still from Eternity

I've once again fallen into doing a lot of New Zealand-related stories, just because I hear what's going on and suggest we cover them.

One of many things I am very happy about at China Daily is that they welcome my stories, and pay extra for them. A win-win situation . . . 

Bicycling Beijing - the column . . .

While I have been rather remiss with this blog of late, I have been writing for China Daily and this column was printed today - complete with my own cartoon . . .

(Apologies to Steve - the editors changed "friend in Korea" to "Korean friend" - it's hard to get good help)

The salon . . .

I have a very awkward relationship with this blog - it's partly a journal, where I store notes for if I ever get around to expanding on them; it's partly, or was, a portfolio of what I can write, but there are other sites for that now; it's partly a place where I can write letters to friends without needing postage; it's partly a response to the few people who hate me (there would probably be more if I got out more); occasionally it's a big fuck you to things I don't approve of . . .

It isn't, and has never been, a means to invite readers, or fans, or whatever we call them these days . . .
I write. I edit. I observe. I help journalists in the country I am in.

I freely admit I could be completely wrong about every observation I make. That is why I don't get paid to editorialize, and the blog is just current feelings.

So, if you're here, welcome to my salon - please be polite in your criticism

I've had responses to things I have written that I found hard to believe, and all I wanted to do was stand in front of those writers and ask if they would say that to someone they knew by name, or even saw in person

but, because you're not being "THAT" person, welcome

PGR's Classy Response to the Death of Fred Phelps Sr . . .

Anyone who hasn't had their head in a hole is aware that Fred Phelps, founder of the controversial Westboro Church, was announced dead this week. Not surprisingly, a lot has been said about that on social media, much of it in a spirit of celebration. I've been expecting to hear, "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead" repurposed in Phelp's Sr's dishonor.

What has surprised me are the strongly hateful reactions from those in my social networks whom I know to be fervently Christian, to the point of proselytizing constantly. Their problem with Phelps and his church was the hatred it displayed, yet they seem to see no contradiction in displaying that same hatred toward Phelps. Motes and beams in eyes spring to my mind, as does casting the first stone, but Christianity has no exclusive claim on hypocrisy.

In 2011, on a motorcycle road trip through the U.S., I met with Fred Phelps Jr and a brother, Jon Phelps, at the home of one of them in Topeka, KS. I had tried to attend their service the previous day but, being a little nervous, tried to enter the church at the last moment and found it locked. I then e-mailed, explained I was a writer from New Zealand traveling through the country and had some questions I'd like to ask, and was invited to come back.

The main question I wanted an answer to was what is at the heart of every person and every story - Why? Particularly, why they did the things they do, why they increased the grief of those already suffering, why they thought their God equalled hate?

They had their own agenda, about which they were very forthcoming. They believed any publicity they get benefits what they see as the tasks God has assigned them, even if it was a modern-day gypsy writer from the other side of the world. It was only when I played the interview back many weeks later that I realized what a battle of wits it had been. I was determined to remain calm and ask rational questions, they wanted to argue scripture (which they all know far, far better than I ever plan to) and antagonize me. They had done their homework and knew of New Zealand's liberal stance on homosexuality and tried to link that, through scripture, to a series of earthquakes and aftershocks the Canterbury/Christchurch region had begun experiencing the previous year.

Through it all, what I found scariest was how normal an American family they seemed, if one did not know their religious views.

I was also, while in Kansas, honored to meet and interview some Patriot Guard Riders who told me why THEY do what they do. As I continued to travel through the U.S., I discussed both entities with many people and tried to put together my thoughts on the place of each in the world.

Many months, miles and a couple of countries later, I sat down to reprise some of my U.S. experiences, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and felt that the purpose of the WBC (and I believe everyone and everything has some purpose) was that, "Their presence at such public events [as military funerals] has so incensed middle America that it has made communities take note of the sacrifices made for them by the less than 1 percent that is the military."

I had the honor to ride in a funeral cortege with PGR members while in Chicago, and was moved to tears by not only the leather-clad bikers I expected to see standing strong and silent and escorting the deceased and his family to the cemetery, but by the streets we rode along lined with people standing silently, holding flags or hand-on-heart as the hearse and escort passed.

Perhaps some of that, I thought, is a result of the WBC and what they stood for.

I have regularly received notices from the Patriot Guard and wake most mornings to notifications of too many military deaths, ones I can put names to, tho thankfully not faces. This morning, there was a PGR National Message which, as I would expect of the PGR, was the classiest response I have seen to Phelps Sr's passing. It needs no further words from me:

Patriot Guard,
Let’s first remember our Nation’s true Heroes. Those brave men and women of our military and first responders who gave their life so that we may enjoy the freedom to express our differences.

While it is hard to find anything good to say about his views or actions, we do give our condolences to his family during what must be a painful time for them. We take no joy in the sickness and death of any man. We do not celebrate the death of Fred Phelps. Patriot Guard Riders hope that Mr. Phelps somehow found the peace that seemed to elude him in life.

It is true that the PGR grew out of a response to protests at funerals. That's a fair statement.

However, that was 2005 and the PGR quickly learned that there was something powerful in a gathering of Americans who would simply stand and hold flags and let a family know that they were not alone. That powerful thing became our mission.

We are neither a protest nor a counter protest group. We honor fallen Heroes and those who have honorably served this free America. The presence or absence of a protest does not alter that mission.

If it not for this man and his family we might not have heeded the call to regularly honor the sacrifices of our nation’s true heroes and their families. Nor would we have come to know the brother/sisterhood that has become the Patriot Guard Riders.

Respectfully,
Robbie

Robbie Smart
President
Patriot Guard Riders

An International Palate . . .

The first person I met on my first invite to a function at the New Zealand Embassy, Beijing, was the ambassador's wife, Connie Aldao Worker. I saw her again some weeks later when I went to interview a visiting New Zealand chef and found her helping out in the kitchen.

On finding out she is a professional chef and restaurateur, I asked to interview her and spent a pleasant morning in the temporary residence chatting over coffee, before sharing her homemade pavlova and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

The resulting interview was printed here