Post by NZBC on Apr 30, 2007 20:52:05 GMT 12
by Alice Te Puni
GISBORNE Mayor Meng Foon¡¯s ability to speak te reo Maori has influenced many of the district¡¯s people to take up the challenge of learning New Zealand¡¯s official language.
¡°I have heard a lot of comment where some Maori people think I have inspired them to learn their own language.
¡°I believe it is important to know your language in terms of where you come from and who you are. It is vital for the growth of the nationhood,¡±he said. Mr Foon, who is proud to be the district¡¯s
¡°Chinese/Maori speaking Mayor¡±, was in 2001 the country¡¯s first person to be sworn into the mayoral position on a marae.
¡°Mum and Dad travelled from Hong Kong for the event and they along with friends and whanau members who had not experienced Maori culture truly loved the celebration,¡±he said.
¡° The Chinese culture is similar to Maori in terms of celebrations with many, many people ¡ª friends and whanau.¡±
The Mayor is often seen presenting whaikorero at marae and other powhiri. Mr Foon¡¯s first languages are Siyip, his father¡¯s
dialect, and Cantonese, his mother¡¯s. He didn¡¯t speak Maori or English until he was about nine years old. ¡°I started speaking English and Maori about the same time. There were many fluent te reo Maori speaking people in my world throughout my childhood . . . Ngati Porou and Turanganui a Kiwa employees who worked for my father¡¯s business growing kai and customers too.
¡°Our Maori customers would come in and say ¡°pirangi tena - pirau tena¡±(I want that ¡ª that is rotten) when doing business, while others would teach my brother and I naughty phrases.¡±
Mr Foon said he was fortunate to have attended Makaraka School during the 1960s with the principal of that time Pax Kennedy making regular invitations for local Maori people to come and teach the school children how to make piupiu, kapa haka and share local knowledge. This, however, was not the case at Gisborne Intermediate.
¡° The school was totally oblivious to things Maori. There was not one single sentence uttered at Gisborne Intermediate in the 1970s. It was like a vacuum. Engari, kei te pai ... my brother and I had our daily te reo Maori lessons back in the shop after school.
¡°I would often ask my Maori friends to teach me te reo Maori, but they told me they weren¡¯t allowed to. However, I soon realised they didn¡¯t know themselves. In fact most of the Maori boys
and girls didn¡¯t know anything about their reo or culture.¡±
During his years at Gisborne Boys¡¯High School Mr Foon was taught te reo Maori by his teacher Henare Swann and was top of his class in Maori during his third, fourth and fifth form.
¡° Then Eddie Green came from Te Aute and he cleaned us all up,¡±he said. Mr Foon has many fond memories of te reo Maori and kapa haka lessons with Maori language masters, Heni Tau Anau, Ngoi Pewhairangi and Maaka Jones during his high school years.
¡°My advice to anyone learning te reo Maori is . . . have a desire to learn and don¡¯t feel threatened by the process.Try and learn a new word everyday ¡ª your nouns and adverbs. Memorise one sentence structure a week. Use this method and you are likely to gain hundreds if not thousands of words, sentence structures and phrases. It is important to have people positively supporting you. Kia kaha ¡ª be strong.¡±by Thelma Karaitiana
Te Runanga o Turanganui a Kiwa, Special Projects Manager
Ka mau
te wehi
GISBORNE Mayor Meng Foon¡¯s ability to speak te reo Maori has influenced many of the district¡¯s people to take up the challenge of learning New Zealand¡¯s official language.
¡°I have heard a lot of comment where some Maori people think I have inspired them to learn their own language.
¡°I believe it is important to know your language in terms of where you come from and who you are. It is vital for the growth of the nationhood,¡±he said. Mr Foon, who is proud to be the district¡¯s
¡°Chinese/Maori speaking Mayor¡±, was in 2001 the country¡¯s first person to be sworn into the mayoral position on a marae.
¡°Mum and Dad travelled from Hong Kong for the event and they along with friends and whanau members who had not experienced Maori culture truly loved the celebration,¡±he said.
¡° The Chinese culture is similar to Maori in terms of celebrations with many, many people ¡ª friends and whanau.¡±
The Mayor is often seen presenting whaikorero at marae and other powhiri. Mr Foon¡¯s first languages are Siyip, his father¡¯s
dialect, and Cantonese, his mother¡¯s. He didn¡¯t speak Maori or English until he was about nine years old. ¡°I started speaking English and Maori about the same time. There were many fluent te reo Maori speaking people in my world throughout my childhood . . . Ngati Porou and Turanganui a Kiwa employees who worked for my father¡¯s business growing kai and customers too.
¡°Our Maori customers would come in and say ¡°pirangi tena - pirau tena¡±(I want that ¡ª that is rotten) when doing business, while others would teach my brother and I naughty phrases.¡±
Mr Foon said he was fortunate to have attended Makaraka School during the 1960s with the principal of that time Pax Kennedy making regular invitations for local Maori people to come and teach the school children how to make piupiu, kapa haka and share local knowledge. This, however, was not the case at Gisborne Intermediate.
¡° The school was totally oblivious to things Maori. There was not one single sentence uttered at Gisborne Intermediate in the 1970s. It was like a vacuum. Engari, kei te pai ... my brother and I had our daily te reo Maori lessons back in the shop after school.
¡°I would often ask my Maori friends to teach me te reo Maori, but they told me they weren¡¯t allowed to. However, I soon realised they didn¡¯t know themselves. In fact most of the Maori boys
and girls didn¡¯t know anything about their reo or culture.¡±
During his years at Gisborne Boys¡¯High School Mr Foon was taught te reo Maori by his teacher Henare Swann and was top of his class in Maori during his third, fourth and fifth form.
¡° Then Eddie Green came from Te Aute and he cleaned us all up,¡±he said. Mr Foon has many fond memories of te reo Maori and kapa haka lessons with Maori language masters, Heni Tau Anau, Ngoi Pewhairangi and Maaka Jones during his high school years.
¡°My advice to anyone learning te reo Maori is . . . have a desire to learn and don¡¯t feel threatened by the process.Try and learn a new word everyday ¡ª your nouns and adverbs. Memorise one sentence structure a week. Use this method and you are likely to gain hundreds if not thousands of words, sentence structures and phrases. It is important to have people positively supporting you. Kia kaha ¡ª be strong.¡±by Thelma Karaitiana
Te Runanga o Turanganui a Kiwa, Special Projects Manager
Ka mau
te wehi