Whoops!

First published in Column 8 on the 13^th October, 1993

Whoops! My column last week brought two phone calls about two different matters, both of which proved that I don’t know everything. Yet again. Naturally, I’ve since spent several sleepless nights evaluating my worth as a human being.

There was a third whoops (!) regarding an earlier column. In that one I said that the small Canadian town of Chemainus had only 32 murals. In fact, it now has 40. The brochure my wife brought home is the first edition, available at a more reasonable price only because it’s out of date.

To get back to the other two whoopses (!) Last week I talked about the success of Business Grow in Christchurch, wondering why Dunedin hadn’t picked up on the idea. Two days later Business Grow was launched in Dunedin! No credit to me, of course, since the first I heard about it was when the co-ordinator, Lynne Harrison, rang to tell me, but marvellous serendipity all the same.

I’m glad we’ve got in on the act, and hope Business Grow a la Dunedin is a soaring success.

My other phone call was from a European New Zealander. (That police word for Europeans, ‘Caucasian,’ gets up my nose.) He told me that October 10 (the day I thought there was little point in keeping in the calendar), had actually been a day of considerable importance in the history of the New Zealand Chinese community.

The Chinese called the day the Double Tenth, and always had a holiday on it until a couple of decades ago. The anniversary began with the dethroning of the last Chinese Emperor in 1911, when China became a republic.

New Zealand Chinese celebrated the day by shutting up shop completely, and holding a memorial service. Chinese children took the day off school, much to the envy of their European counterparts, and all the Chinese families went on a picnic at which sports and games were played.

One Chinese lady I spoke to said her family always had their portrait taken on that day, in the morning, before going off to Logan Park for the picnic.

By the 1950s the sporting side had become the major emphasis, according to Ng Bickleen Fong, the author of The Chinese in New Zealand and the sense of fellowship was being lost. The sporting aspect became a national affair; travel to the tournament was paid for by the Chinese Association.

In due course the Chinese people shifted the tournament to the Easter break so that more time could be spent at it.

The Double Tenth itself was stopped in 1972, write Dianne and Peter Beatson (in their book Chinese New Zealanders), because our Government decided to recognise the Communist Government in China. However, some Chinese still remember the day with a nostalgic warmth, though they celebrate it in a rather quieter way.

A similar commemoration takes place on November 18, but since it is a very much smaller ethnic group in New Zealand, the Latvians, most of us Europeans won’t have heard of it.

I’ve only ever known two Latvian New Zealanders, one of whom was the wonderful Lily Latisheva, an artistic and operatic lady of considerable presence. Her talents were rather unappreciated in her adopted town. (The other Latvian, conveniently, is married to my Chinese consultant.)

November 18, anyway, was when Latvia won her independence after World War I. Being squashed between other large hungry nations, she lost it again – until the recent demise of the Soviet Union.

Unearthing all these matters hitherto hidden to me makes it worthwhile writing a whoops (!) or two.

Puyi, the last Emperor of China

In 1996 I met Lynne Harrison. She came to the shop I was running to give us some advice on how to use Business Grow, which she was still involved with. I made mention of this in my diary at the time, but had forgotten about it until I checked for any references to ‘Business Grow’ in my own business life.

The full title of Ng Bickleen Fong’s book is Chinese in New Zealand – a study in assimilation.

 

Creating jobs?

First published in Column Eight on the 6^th October, 1993

The third anniversary of my first Midweek column comes midway between today and next Wednesday, on October 10. I could say this gives October 10 something to be proud of each year, but with due modesty, I won’t.

October 10 doesn’t seem to be a day on which other things of great note have happened, though it was the day Liz Taylor and Richard Burton got married for the second time – somewhere in Botswana. Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union on this day, and a British QC called Igor Judge rose to the High Court and became, confusingly, Mr Justice Judge.

Fascinating stuff, huh? At least the Pankhurst item has some topical relevancy.

Three years of finding column ideas have included hair-tearing when the Sunday evening clock is ticking on towards bedtime and I still haven’t written anything. On other occasions someone has spoken no more than a sentence and ideas have tumbled out too fast to keep up with.

The bit of the brain that produces ideas is a fairly enigmatic corner. It constantly cries, ‘Need more input!’ But having received aforesaid input, it’s just as likely to ditch the lot into some miscellaneous brain bin and inquire why you haven’t fed it today.

Thus, while feeding my brain from my 1988 collection of clippings, I came across a couple of items related to job creation ideas, both of which came from (good grief) Christchurch.

I hear on the news that Canterbury is now the fastest growing area for job creation in the country. Business Grow, the scheme which uses a business adviser to link businesses with a wide range of assistance to help them with expansion, began there. Four hundred have come out of this idea alone. (Has Dunedin begun Business Grow yet?)

Back to the 1988 clippings. On October 12 that year James Maddren, a Christchurch businessman, suggested to the South Island Local Bodies Association that they consider selective immigration to the South Island (like about a million people), to increase our population base and improve our economy. (A new job is supposed to be created for every five new people.)

The association’s executive committee was to investigate the proposal. I guess it did, but I haven’t seen droves of skilled immigrants arriving. Did the Government scotch the idea with its usual anti-immigration approach?

In another clipping a Christchurch law tutor named Owen Dennis ran an ideas seminar in Dunedin for the NZ Institute of Management. What he presented wasn’t new, but the first paragraph of the report reads, ‘Here’s a great idea: start an ideas competition to generate jobs and activity in Dunedin.’

I can’t remember anyone taking this up, although not being the most organised collector of detail, I may easily have missed it. Has anybody tried an ideas competition here in town?

We could do with an ongoing ideas presentation on a public basis, perhaps as a weekly column in one of the newspapers. A list of all sorts of ideas might well stimulate local brains dulled by too much occupation with incomes and outgoings.

The bright, witty, foolish and downright silly ideas would all need to have a home in such a list, because even though a particular idea may have no merit, it may spark off something really useful. They’d need to be ideas, though, not just criticism of the status quo.

Thomas Edison is said to have a goal of coming up with a minor invention every ten days and a major one every six months. He was one man. What might a similar city-wide goal in the job creation area achieve? And if Christchurch can do it, anyone can…I mean, can’t we?

 

Justice Igor Judge, courtesy of the BBC

As things do over 36 or so years, there have been some changes. I don’t know that the ideas idea has ever taken off, but immigration has, at least as far as the North Island is concerned. And Christchurch is a sprawling city nothing like its former self. So maybe the ideas idea worked well there.