Life Between Two Worlds
“Slow” Living in Luang Prabang and Reconnecting in New Zealand My home has been the charming UNESCO World Heritage city of Luang Pang, nestled along the banks of the Mekong River in northern Laos. It’s a far cry from the rolling green hills and coastal vistas of New Zealand, although at times the landscape does […]
Mocking the haka: The Haka Party Incident and ‘casual’ racism in New Zealand
For 20 years Māori had written to the engineering school at Auckland University asking them to stop an annual event where students would dress up in grass skirts and perform the university haka ‘Akarana’ as a capping day lark. By the 1970s it had morphed into a grotesque mimic, where the engineers would draw penises and curse words on their body – a caricature of tā moko – get very drunk, charge around the university causing chaos, and stop traffic up and down Queen Street to perform the haka.