Thursday, February 2, 2012

Two takes on Maori pride

Our new blogger friend, Gwan, who we were introduced to by our friend Mary Kay, who blogs from Paris, has come up with some great recommendations of things to do and see while we’re in New Zealand. Gwan, who lived in Wellington for a year, got into an email exchange with Peter about music to help get us into the Kiwi spirit.

One of those songs, called Poi E, is now stuck in my head (thanks, Gwan!). It’s performed by The Patea Maori Club, and Gwan says that although it’s not a traditional Maori song, it was a hugely successful one-hit wonder in the mid-80s. In fact, it was on the charts for 22 weeks in New Zealand, including four weeks as the #1 song in the country. “It was written to encourage Maori pride... you should watch the video - very 80s!” said Gwan. And very 80s it is!

With no further ado, may I present Poi E. (Check out the kid at about 1:07 - a proud face, or what?)

 

And on YouTube, because one thing always leads to another, Peter and I found this video of JGeek and The Geeks performing Maori Boy, a little more contemporary slice of the Maori culture.

 

Anybody else out there have any recommendations on music to listen to (or books to read or movies to watch) to get ready for our big trip?

5 comments:

  1. I'm so pleased that Peter and you have been in contact with Gwan! From reading her blog, I thought that she would be full of all kinds of interesting information about NZ.

    The proud Maori kid is priceless but what caught my attention is the dog running away with the ? (balls?). Good thing that you're not taking Otis. He would go crazy in that environment. ;)

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  2. Hmm...I'm not too knowledgeable on New Zealand music, but keeping with the 80s theme, how 'bout some Kyle Minogue's "Locomotion"? Hey, she's from Australia. Close enough.

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  3. How about OMZ? they sang "How Bizzare".

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  4. Hey, thanks for the link, glad you liked the song!

    Mary Kay - the balls are the poi of the title. They are traditional to dance with. I think they probably came out of some dexterity/weapons training, but I could be wrong.

    "How Bizarre" was OMC, which stands for Otara Millionaire's Club. That's either aspirational or a bit of black humour, since Otara is a suburb of South Auckland (Manukau City) which is notorious for poverty and social problems (unfortunately).

    I won't comment on Australia being "close enough" to NZ :0

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