My First Waitangi Day



On Feb 6, SB and I made a journey out to Tung Chung, where our friends Semi and Liz live, to celebrate Waitangi Day. For my fellow Americans, I will briefly describe what I learned about it:

Waitangi Day celebrates the Treaty of Waitangi, that was signed on Feb 6, 1840. It is a day similar to our Fourth of July. The Treaty of Waitangi was important because it made New Zealand a part of the British Empire, but also guaranteed Māori rights to their land and rights of British citizens. Of course, similarly to treaties made with native inhabitants in the Americas, it was ignored by a lot of the white settlers and has very little legal standing today. However, in NZ it is celebrated now as a national holiday and is a good opportunity to educate us about New Zealand history and Māori culture.



It was a fun filled celebration, with lots of eating, drinking, and singing. Coming from undergrad in Texas, I love love love to gather around a guitar with people who can sing over my tone deafness. We also had the various rugby teams represented (Valley, DEA, Causeway Bay) come up and sing a silly song to everyone. The Causeway Bay team hit a hiccup because SB and I did not know the songs that the NZ members proposed, and none of us understood the newer songs proposed by the younger members. The only thing most of us knew was John Denver's Country Roads.

In the end Keith and Jarrod, who are from the same small town, went up and did their haka. I had never heard it before and felt chills listening to Keith's voice ringing out. I noticed that patrons from other parts of the restaurant stopped their meals and were standing up, watching the two of them. After this, the whole group of men got together to do the Ka Mate haka that we often hear the All Blacks performing.



The evening finished out with a lot of folk singing. A Samoan man, Malama, took over the guitar for the last part, and I was able to sing along to a Hawaiian song that I recognized, as well as learn the words to a popular Samoan song that everyone else seemed to know (I think it is taught in New Zealand schools).

I guess that time really does fly when you are having fun because before we knew it, the clock had struck 4 AM and SB and I were scrambling home. I can't remember such a late night in quite a long time, and especially a late night where the two of us were not exhausted.

Comments

Jennifer W said…
Wait - are you in New Zealand? Where have I been? How did I miss that information? I want to go to NZ someday...
architart said…
me too! No, we celebrated it here in Hong Kong.