Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Holy Mountain

We knocked the bastard off

We decided to spend a couple of nights on the Bay of Plenty, in the little seaside settlement of Ohope, just down the coast from Whakatane. Another perfect setting: a six-mile beach advertised as New Zealand’s Best Beach!

It’s true, over and over, one best beach after another. Beautiful little coastal towns, the charming harbor at Whakatane, the cliffs, and the giant pohutukawas.

“Directory assistance, how may I help you?”

“Oh, hi, this is Beau. How are you?”

He always does that on the phone, no matter whom he is talking to.

“Fine, thank you. Directory assistance, how may I help you?”

“Do you have a number for The Wharf Shed Restaurant in Fu, Fu, Fu—?”

“Fuck-a-tanee! Please hold for the number.”

Some of these Maori names always cause problems for folk not born in New Zealand. Best to just get over it and pronounce the words the way they are meant to be pronounced.

“Wharf Shed Restaurant. How may I help you?”

“Oh, hi, this is Beau. How are you?”

“Fine, sir. How may I help you?”

“I’d like a reservation for two for dinner this evening, say around seven thirty.”

“Reservation for two, seven thirty, Mr. Beau. Do you have a phone number, Mr. Beau?”

“Oh, yeah, let me see, we’re staying at the beach over here in Ohope, let me see. Oh, I’ll just give you my mobile number—”

“Oh, please let me correct you, sir. It isn’t pronounced O-hope. It’s O-hope-ee. It’s Māori, sir.”

O Hope, I thought, and smiled at Beau.

“That’s White Island. Te Puia o Whakaari is the Māori name, The Dramatic Volcano, but everyone since captain Cook calls it White Island. New Zealand’s most active volcano.”

The Wharf Shed Restaurant was nearly empty and we had struck up a conversation with a quite elderly and very dignified woman at a nearby table. Actually, she was the only other patron in the restaurant besides Beau and me.

Just off the coast here at Whakatane — Fuck-a-tanee. Don’t forget that “f” pronunciation of “wh” in Māori.

Just off the coast from Whakatane, about thirty miles away, was the smoldering volcano of White Island, Whakaari.

“Does wuh, wuh—,” stuttered Beau, his face reddening a bit.

“Fuck!” said the elegant, matronly woman. “Fuck Fuck! It’s pronounced Fuck-AAH-ri. It’s not difficult to pronounce. If you know how to roll your ‘r,’ that is. If you speak French or Spanish, it should be easy for you.” She smiled sweetly.

“Does Fu— I mean does White Island always smoke like that? That white steam?” said Beau.

“Continuously. Continuously for the last one hundred and fifty thousand years or so. You can go on tours out there. Spectacular snorkeling and deep-sea diving around the island but the most exciting of all is going down into the crater.

“Exhilarating. It is just like visiting Mars or the moon. Well, not that I’ve ever been to the moon—yet—but you know what I mean. It will give you an adrenaline rush like nothing else, just walking over ground that is steaming and hissing loudly and smelling of sulfur, smelling of hell.

“Though I haven’t been there either—yet.” She laughed genteelly. “But knowing it could all blow at any moment, well, it’s like walking over a taniwha, you know those Maori giants, like walking over a living and breathing, fitfully sleeping taniwha who might wake up any second. An angry, rageful, tormented, white steaming landscape. You should try it, Boys.”

“Maybe we will,” Beau said, looking doubtfully at me.

Maybe we do, I thought. Maybe we all do. We’re just not aware of how everything could all blow at any moment. Not aware.

“Yeah,” Beau said, “or maybe we’ll just commit suicide and get it over quick.”

Our new friend laughed quietly. “And I thought Yankees were brave. Land of the free and home of the brave, isn’t that how the song goes?

“Anyway, I highly recommend Whakaari. It’s the northern tip of the Taupo-Rotorua volcanic zone. It’s safe, as safe as life itself, that is. Let’s face it, Boys, you’ll never get out of this life alive and there’s danger on every side so make the most of it!”

She raised her glass and we did the same, clinking glasses and making a toast.

“To life!” I said.

“To danger!” said Beau.

“Which are one and the same!” said our new friend. “You know, there was a sulfur mining operation out there. Until 1914. When all the miners were killed in a nighttime volcanic disaster.

“And they say that between 1976 and 1993, the island was more active than at any time since Europeans came to New Zealand. Major eruptions in the 1980s altered most of the island’s landscape. And in 2000, a new crater appeared on the island.”

“Oh, well, then what are we waiting for?” said Beau. “Let’s go out there right now. We can have a picnic and perhaps we’ll be lucky and get to see another explosion close up, right under our picnic blanket.”

“So are you a volcanologist or something?” I asked.

“No, but I am interested in volcanoes. Interested in a lot of things. Actually, I’m a journalist, or was until I retired, so I know a little about a lot of things and I don’t know a great deal about anything.

“I was just a typical journalist, always scratching the surface and then scribbling away like an expert. Except when it comes to volcanoes. You may laugh at my little joke, if you like.” She laughed sweetly again. She had the sweetest little laugh I have ever heard.

“And have you always lived here in Whakatane?” I was brave and pronounced it correctly without hesitation. Beau, I thought, looked at me admiringly. His daring boyfriend, his daring spouse.

“Oh, no, I left Whakatane when I was eighteen. Went to England for my O.E., you know, my overseas experience. Everyone in New Zealand who can manage, everyone tries to go abroad for a year or two of work experience and world experience.

“Down here we are so far removed from the world, well, before TV and now the Internet, we had to get out and go far, far away to experience something other than New Zealand. Or Australia. Most of us have always gone to England for our O.E.”

She sipped her wine and looked thoughtfully out to sea, to White Island.

“No, I left for my O.E. long ago, moved back several times but always left again, except for occasional visits every few years, as I am doing now. Now I’m a Londoner, I guess. Left Whakatane. Left Whakaari. Left fucking New Zealand a long time ago, lads.”

She was so refined that this last statement made a strong impression. Much stronger than that most common of English curse words usually does.

“So you really don’t like New Zealand?”

“Oh, I guess I love New Zealand, but I just got tired of that Tall Poppy Syndrome, you know. And I still do. That is one thing about New Zealand that has not changed. I guess it never will.”

She tapped a glossy magazine on the linen tablecloth beside her glass of wine. I looked at the shiny, black and white cover:

“The immediate past president of the Federated Farmers, and don’t forget New Zealand depends on its agricultural sector as its primary economic sector, he is quoted here in the NBR as saying that ‘we’ve always been a country of clobberers.’

“I suppose it is too ingrained in the society here. Some things never change.” She sighed and looked again toward the plume of white smoke and steam over White Island.

Now, the Tall Poppy Syndrome is about the first thing Kiwis spoke to us about when we first moved here. Knocking high-achievers down, cutting down-to-size the rich or the smart or the successful in any endeavor seems to be a national preoccupation.

People of genuine merit in their fields, whether it be economic, social, or political, are criticized and resented if they stand out from the crowd, if they are “tall poppies.”

It is such a prevalent social phenomenon that the government has inaugurated “Tall Poppy Awards” and is attempting to show the country that excellence is to be admired and rewarded, rather than torn down, leveled, disparaged.

Beau and I were astonished when a day laborer told us he was moving to England because he was sick of the Tall Poppy Syndrome, was tired of being put in his place because he was so successful. He earned twenty-five New Zealand dollars an hour for odd jobs, unskilled labor — that is about fifteen dollars U.S.

It is true that he was a good worker and always did a good job but we were surprised he felt that his fellow Kiwis always tried to bring him down because of this.

“Just examine this fact, Boys. Tipping in New Zealand is unknown. You never tip anyone, a waiter in a restaurant, a cab driver, no one. Tipping, you see, is a pretty widespread custom in the world, patrons giving a sum of money above and beyond the price of some service.

“It is always prevalent in countries that have a strong need for achievement and power. It is seen as a reward and an incentive. Tipping is not used in New Zealand because there is no incentive to get ahead, no desire to reward people for a job well done. No desire for anyone to shine above others.

“On the contrary, if someone does shine in a particular endeavor, they are not merely not rewarded. They are punished. Cut down the tall poppies.

“Boys, gentlemen, who is the greatest and most well-known literary figure of New Zealand? Let me ask you that since you are relative newcomers.”

“Katherine Mansfield,” said Beau.

“Or perhaps Janet Frame,” I said. “Or probably Witi Ihimaera.”

“No, not Janet Frame. No one outside of New Zealand has ever heard of her. Unless perhaps a university professor. What did you do in America, Aaron? Never mind,” she laughed. “I know the answer to that. And not Witi. People around the world love the film of The Whale Rider but probably have never read the book or anything else by Witi. I doubt if they even know who Witi Ihimaera is.

“But readers around the world know the works of Katherine Mansfield. Or at least, I should say, know of her and her short stories. It is interesting that Witi is gay and Katherine was lesbian. I don’t know what to make of that. Be that as it may.

“Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand’s greatest and most well-known literary figure. Yet she had a hearty dislike for New Zealand, left it and never really came back for any length of time, and she wrote all her major stories about New Zealand while she was living in lovely Menton, on the French-Italian border.”

“And you believe it was because of this Tall Poppy Syndrome?”

“For the most part, yes, indeed. What else? It permeates all classes of society, Pakeha and Māori. Be careful or you two will succumb to the disease.

“In America, the merit system is highly valued, meritocracy over egalitarianism. Not so in New Zealand. Here, and in Australia to a very large degree as well, egalitarianism is the all, the be-all and the end-all.

“Mateship, being a good enough bloke, is far more important than having a good job or, God forfend, a profession, far more important than being smart or successful in any way.

“Only athletes are valued in New Zealand. Reverse snobbery, if you ask me. Part of a team effort, everybody pulling together. If anyone shines too much, watch out. It is the team that counts and the success of the team. Never the individual.

“Intellectuals are too individualistic and Kiwis believe there is no real way of measuring their worth. Consequently, you see, they are not worth much.”

“I guess it has a lot to do with being so far away from the rest of the world,” I said.

“Yes, you are perhaps right. First the Māori were isolated here for hundreds of years. They discovered New Zealand and then quickly lost their seafaring ways, their seafaring abilities. And tribal, communal culture takes care of everybody by keeping everybody at the same, relatively low level.

“Then we Europeans came down and were isolated for a few generations. Yes, I suppose if you are so isolated you soon become quite insular and you reward people for helping the group survive. Merely survive, not advance.

“Any New Zealander who ever achieved anything of real note left New Zealand and never came back to live and work. Tall poppies go away and stay away.

“Something like three thousand Kiwis leave the country every month. Every single month three thousand Kiwis emigrate. Not solely because of the Tall Poppy Syndrome. But largely.”

“What about Sir Edmund Hillary?” asked Beau. “Didn’t he remain in New Zealand for most of his life? And he did a lot of admirable things.”

“He climbed a big mountain,” she said. “Yes, that can be admirable. He would never have done it without that Sherpa, however, Tenzing Norgay.

“Tenzing saved Sir Ed’s life on the way up or he would have been smashed to bits on the mountain instead of being celebrated as the first man on the summit.

“But just look at this fact. Mount Everest — seems I am always writing and talking about mountains — Whaakari just off the coast here, Mount Everest in the Himalayas. So. Everest. In Nepalese, Sagarmatha — Head of the Sky. Chomolungma in Tibetan and in Chinese it is almost the same — Mother Goddess of the World. A holy mountain to the people who live there.

“No one would walk on the highest place. They would stop short of the summit, out of respect.

“Respect. And what did Sir Ed do? Stood on top for fifteen minutes or so, urinated, and then descended. His first words on the way down? ‘Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.’

“A holy mountain. The highest point on the face of the earth. ‘Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.’

“The first man to piss on Everest.”

I thought she had a point. But somehow I had an uneasy feeling that maybe she was cutting this tall poppy, Sir Ed, down to size. Still prey to the syndrome even after all her years abroad.

(Note: In 2019, many years after the events in this chapter 27, White Island — Whakaari — erupted. There were 47 tourists on the island at the time and 22 of them perished. Videos can be seen on YouTube: White Island Eruption )

END OF CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

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Aaron Allbright’s novel in five parts will be published soon.

IN A DESERT OR A CITY

—Aaron Allbright

BOOK I

 ‘PRINCE CARTIER’ or HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE BEING GAY WITH MY SAUDI PRINCE AND TO START WORRYING

BOOK II 

MONSIEUR LE PRINCE, PARIS

BOOK III 

THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS

BOOK IV 

TYROMANCY AND LUCIFER

BOOK V 

WHY WAIT FOR THE LIGHT?