THE OPENING OF KIWI HOUSE IN LONDON TOWN – TE KARERE NEWS – JULY 2012

Kiwi celebrity, broadcaster and all round good guy, Scotty Morrison, hit Whangarei City this week to report live from the Kapa Haka Nationals for high school Kiwi kids.

The Te Karere News Teams live-cross reporting was dynamic, colorful, vibrant, authentic and lively culture of New Zealand on show.

Our young people really are on another level of absolutely amazing discipline in New Zealand when you watch them perform in kapa haka. So underrated, yet they know how absolutely manawatu mauri amazing they are. The awareness is written in the blueprint of their DNA. It is often ignited through the art of the Kiwi artform of haka and kapa haka (the wider performing arts genre of Maori culture’s distinctive form and expression).

- – -

An earlier story that Scotty had covered off prior in Maori news, featured one of our Kiwi Kaumatua (an elder of New Zealand) Amster Reedy who spoke of the opening of Kiwi House in London. Right on! :)

About this humble and calmly confident man: Born in 1943 Amster’s real name is New Amsterdam Reedy – he and his 17 siblings were all named after places in WWII or people from their iwi that fought in it. (Fancy that?!). That sense of history and respect for his ancestors has seen Amster forge a varied and successful career as a Maori Tikanga consultant.  At the forefront of Maori philosophy and in New Zealand and an expert in ancient Maori rituals Amster has been providing advice to public and private sector agencies on tikanga, protocols and practices for over 20 years.

Brought up in, as he describes it: “the Maori world” on a dairy farm on the East Cape, near Ruatoria, Amster began his career as a teacher before recognizing the growing need for consultants on Maori issues, practices, identity and language.  He has traveled the world in this capacity, including accompanying the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth teams in the Athens and Beijing Games.

Nice one. Take a nohi above.

- – -

Incidentally, Scotty who doubles as the cuzzie bro of Star Wars Maori-Hollywood actor, Tem Morrison (Star Wars, Mt Zion), once tried out for Superman. He didn’t get the part. New Zealand won though as Scotty went on to read our news and educate us in Te Reo Rangatira – The Language of Chiefs in New Zealand. I struggle with the Maori language. I am committed to be fluent though like many New Zealand citizens are today. People under 40 really get it’s importance. That’s one exciting aspect I’ve noticed in New Zealand after being away for five years. There’s a youthful energy right across the board of New Zealand’s young people to use Te Reo Maori more in every day dealings. It’s so humbling to see happening spontaneously all around us. We are a culture in a flow of beautiful poetic rennaisance.

Thanks to Scotty, his family and friends – they’re helping Kiwis just like me, reclaim and relearn the gifts that our founding fathers and mothers bestowed on us and for us, contained in the essence of a rich poetic language we are so lucky to have had created for us, uniquely in Aoteaeroa NZ. Scotty and Stacey Morrison teach us appropriate social etiquette and manners in New Zealand via the Maori language. A good coach are both.

~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 28.7.12~