Yvonne van Dongen
Veteran NZ journo incredulous gender ideology escaped the lab. Won’t rest until reality makes a comeback.
How did that visit to Whanganui go, you ask (I’m back now).
Honestly? Incessant arguing. Morning to night. About anything and everything. Polar bears (not endangered), Matariki (cringe), academia (untrustworthy), New Zealand history (colonisation good), public sector bureaucracy (bloated), Left Wing White Women (annoying), and TOP (party for useful idiots).
Brackets are my views of course; hers the opposite. My Whanganui mate is one of the last remnants of my formerly large lefty friendship group and she left Auckland six months ago. To her immense credit, she hasn’t cast me asunder as the majority have, courtesy trans. And, God love her, she is a TERF.
The ceaseless sparring was mostly good-natured and reminded me that there are masses of people out there like her – and you know what? They’re nice!
Whanganui seemed full of them. There were masses of nice people at the launch of Airini Beautrais’ new poetry book, Salt Quilt in Whanganui that week. The kind of people who supplied lamingtons, chocolate drops, club sandwiches and cups of tea served by smiling volunteers as part of the event. The kind of people who stood in a line to buy her book and then in another for her to sign said book. The kind of people who don’t sigh inwardly when a welcome is begun in Māori, even though everyone looked as white as the salt quilt on the cover of Airini Beautrais’ book.
She had earned a nice, big turnout. Bug Week, her previous short-story collection, won the top fiction prize at the 2021 Ockham awards and for once I thought the win was deserved. Her work was utterly original: an unexpected mix of the wry, comic and poignant. The story about the albatross stumbling into a local pub and performing at an open-mic night has stayed with me ever since.
The evening reminded me of a New Zealand I don’t see in Auckland any more. High trust, community spirited, gentle, masses of home-made, old-fashioned sweet treats (love cake) and largely homogenous, although who can tell given the ‘identifying as’ trend where those identified look as pale as any Pākehā. In any case, this was a gathering of folk who clearly felt a strong sense of belonging to their river city.
Auckland was more like that when I arrived there last century, but these days I am increasingly struck by the notion that I might as well be in the arrival room of an international airport. It feels transient, filled with new inhabitants, many perched lightly, maxing their financial advantage before winging their way elsewhere or, at the very least, only employing one another and sending packets of money back home.
No one talks about assimilating. About belonging. About being part of the team of five million. Such notions are superfluous in this new hyper-mobile, bring-your-culture-with-you world.
My Auckland-transplant friend is thriving in her new home. Even though she lives in a fantastic, spacious apartment in the centre of the city, she’s out all the time. Everything she needs is no more than 15 minutes away. She’s joined art groups, gardening groups and a writing group, each one lively and welcoming. I came with her to the best of the lot – the Heritage Food Crops Research Trust group – where volunteers work to protect, sort and classify seeds from rare heritage plants that are then grown and given away in a bid to spread the range of these precious plants.
While she opted for a vigorous turning of the cold sods outdoors, I chose to plonk myself indoors, joining the team at the counting and packaging table in front of a roaring fire. In between companionable chat, I learned that orange tomatoes are better for you than red, that the original carrots were black and purple (also better for you) but the Dutch favoured orange because yes, they were from the House of Orange (plus they do look better) and that this bustling hive of purpose started with the discovery of a unique seedling apple tree in a remote part of central North Island. That apple, called Monty’s Surprise, was the catalyst for the formation of the trust.
Proof of the longevity benefits of heritage plants was encapsulated in the tiny person of an 81-year-old former baker called Louise who not only bought in half a dozen large containers filled with biscuits and cake (my favourite food group) but also provided mac’n cheese and vege pasta for lunch. As we drove away later that day I saw her in the rear vision mirror, on her haunches, stabbing at the earth with a gardening fork.
My friend’s art group had entered print works in an exhibition on wetlands currently showing in Hastings so midweek we motored across the island to see them. Lovely drive, through swooping green McCahon-shaped hills and valleys, many decorated with the spinning blades of wind turbines. Some view them as spooky. Perhaps it’s my Dutch heritage, but I just see whirling elegance.
The Hastings gallery hosting the wetland exhibition was closed by the time we arrived. “Bloody Matariki,” scowled my friend, one of the few times we shared the same sentiment.
But it would open the following day so we continued on to Napier and vowed to return on the way back. Compared to low-key Whanganui, Napier looked bustling and prosperous. Happy families frolicked in the hot pools at the Ocean Spa complex on the waterfront as darkness fell. Not for the first time that week, I wondered why Auckland didn’t have something similar on its waterfront.
Again and again I was struck by a sense of loss as I wandered through a large thriving health food store and cafe, lush eateries with sumptuous cabinet food and friendly bookstores. Napier displayed an abundance and optimism missing from my home.
Every city goes through cycles. Auckland is currently dragging its carcass through a protracted slump. Not surprising I suppose in a city whose wealth has been largely fuelled by house prices currently going nowhere and that has lately morphed into a transit stop, courtesy low-value migration. Over 200 vape stores add nothing to a city’s allure.
After a week, it was time to go home, even though by then I’d proper fallen out of love with the city of sails. There had been a moment, earlier this year, when my friend wondered if she’d made the right move, shifting from a metropolis to a small city. Needless to say, that moment has well and truly passed.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
