What a real honour to promote my reo! Thank you, Dr Grace Gassin and Te Papa for spearheading the Chinese Languages in Aotearoa project and for this incredible third instalment, where I get to speak and promote Cantonese!
Obviously I couldnât say anything earlier, especially during Chinese Language Week, but I am extremely grateful the very distinct Chinese languages are being given their due with this project!
My participation began with Grace and I having a kĆrero last year, and how Chinese Language Week was not inclusive. The organizers of that make the mistake of equating Chinese with Mandarin, and claim that Cantonese and other tongues are dialects, which is largely like saying Gaelic is a dialect of English.
Do read more at the Te Papa blog as Grace goes into far more depth, and brings everything into the context of the history of Aotearoa.
It turns out that Grace had been thinking about this for quite some time and had already shaped ideas on recording the Chinese languages here in Aotearoa as part of her job as curator, Asian New Zealand histories. She is a fluent Hokkien speaker, a dialect we Cantos often write as Fukkien, though that can lead to unfortunate puns with Anglophones. She also has some command of Cantoneseâcertainly far, far more than any Hokkien I know.
There was such an amazing crew on this, with Yong-Le Chong (who is a Cantonese speaker, incredibly learning the language from television!) directing and prompting me off-camera and Tim Hamilton as DOPâplus Grace and Daniel Crichton-Rouse from Te Papa producing and supervising. Luckily I said nice things about Timâs work in Lucire (not knowing he would be the DOP) prior to this!
I was a bit under the weather when we filmed, having had a cough for many weeks and dodgy eggs at a café two days before. Big thanks to the crew for putting up with this and for believing me when I said it was not COVID (a test had confirmed that, and it was just before the August 2021 lockdown, when the notion of COVID in the community was unfamiliar).
My thanks to Kent Favel and Erica Harvison for their permission to film at my Alma Mater, St Markâs Church School, and to my darling partner Amanda.
Note that the MÄori terms in this post are only italicized because of the international readers who form the larger part of my visitors; in New Zealand these are words that are commonly used, and are not italicized.
Posts tagged ‘Alma Mater’
On Cantonese, for Te Papa’s Chinese Languages in Aotearoa project
26.10.2021Tags: 2021, Alma Mater, Aotearoa, blogosphere, Chinese, culture, Daniel Crichton-Rouse, Dr Grace Gassin, family, history, home, Hong Kong, identity, immigration, Jack Yan, language, museum, New Zealand, personal identity, St Markâs Church School, Tawa, Te Papa, Tim Hamilton, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara, Yong-Le Chong, YouTube
Posted in China, culture, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Wellington | No Comments »
Don’t give the keys to the company Twitter to just anyone
02.02.2020A few thoughts about Twitter from the last 24 hours, other than âPlease leave grown-up discussions to grown-upsâ: (a) itâs probably not a smart idea to get aggro (about a joke you donât understand because you arenât familiar with the culture) from your companyâs account, especially when you donât have a leg to stand on; (b) deleting your side of the conversation might be good if your boss ever checks, although on my end âreplying to [your company name]â is still there for all to see; and (c) if your job is âChief Marketing Officerâ then it may pay to know that marketing is about understanding your audiences (including their culture), not about signalling that your workplace hires incompetently and division must rule the roost.
Iâm not petty enough to name names (I’ve forgotten the person but I remember the company), but it was a reminder why Twitter has jumped the shark when some folks get so caught up in their insular worlds that opposing viewpoints must be shouted down. (And when that fails, to stalk the account and start a new thread.)
The crazy thing is, not only did this other Tweeter miss the joke that any Brit born, well, postwar would have got, I actually agreed with him politically and said so (rule number one in marketing: find common ground with your audience). Nevertheless, he decided to claim that I accused Britons of being racist (why would I accuse the entirety of my own nationâI am a dual nationalâof being racist? Itâs nowhere in the exchange) among other things. That by hashtagging #dontmentionthewar in an attempt to explain that Euroscepticism has been part of British humour for decades meant that I was âobsessed by warâ. Guess he never saw The Italian Job, either, and clearly missed when Fawlty Towers was voted the UKâs top sitcom. I also imagine him being very offended by this, but it only works because of the preconceived notions we have about ‘the Germans’:
The mostly British audience found it funny. Why? Because of a shared cultural heritage. There’s no shame in not getting it, just don’t get upset when others reference it.
Itâs the classic ploy of ignoring the core message, getting angry for the sake of it, and when one doesnât have anything to go on, to attack the messenger. I see enough of that on Facebook, and itâs a real shame that this is what a discussion looks like on Twitter for some people.
I need to get over my Schadenfreude as I watched this person stumble in a vain attempt to gain some ground, but sometimes people keep digging and digging. And I donât even like watching accident scenes on the motorway.
And I really need to learn to mute those incapable of sticking to the factsâI can handle some situations where you get caught up in your emotions (weâre all guilty of this), but you shouldnât be blinded by them.
What I do know full well now is that there is one firm out there with a marketing exec who fictionalizes what you said, and it makes you wonder if this is the way this firm behaves when there is a normal commercial dispute. Which might be the opposite to what the firm wished.
As one of my old law professors once said (Iâm going to name-drop: it was the Rt Hon Prof Sir Geoffrey Palmer, KCMG, AC, QC, PC), âThe more lawyers there are, the more poor lawyers there are.â Itâs always been the same in marketing: the more marketers there are, the more poor marketers there are. And God help those firms that let the latter have the keys to the corporate Twitter account.
I enjoyed that public law class with Prof Palmer, and I wish I could remember other direct quotations he made. (I remember various facts, just not sentences verbatim like that oneâthen again I donât have the public law expertise of the brilliant Dr Caroline Morris, who sat behind me when we were undergrads.)
Itâs still very civil on Mastodon, and one of the Tooters that I communicate with is an ex-Tweeter whose account was suspended. I followed that account and there was never anything, to my knowledge, that violated the TOS on it. But Twitter seems to be far harder to gauge in 2019â20 on just what will get you shut down. Guess it could happen any time to anyone. Shall we expect more in their election year? Be careful when commenting on US politics: it mightnât be other Tweeters you need to worry about. And they could protect bots before they protect you.
Since I havenât Instagrammed for agesâI think I only had one round of posting in mid-Januaryâhereâs how the sun looked to the west of my office. I am told the Canberra fires have done this. Canberra is some 2,300 km away. For my US readers, this is like saying a fire in Dallas has affected the sunlight in New York City.
Iâve had a big life change, and I think thatâs why Instagramming has suddenly left my routine. I miss some of the contact, and some dear friends message me there, knowing that doing so on Facebook makes no sense. I did give the impression to one person, and I publicly apologize to her, that I stopped Instagramming because the company is owned by Facebook, but the fact is Iâve done my screen time for the day and Iâve no desire to check my phone and play with a buggy app. Looks like seven years (late 2012 to the beginning of 2020) was what it took for me to be Instagrammed out, shorter than Facebook, where it took 10 (2007 to 2017).
Tags: 2020, Alma Mater, Aotearoa, branding, Brexit, Eurosceptics, Germany, humour, Instagram, Jack Dee, law, marketing, Mastodon, nation branding, New Zealand, reputation, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, stereotype, Tawa, Twitter, UK, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington
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The newer the Instagram, the clunkier the video
07.12.2018
It’s been nearly one week with the new Meizu M6 Note.
It’s the “international” model, which means it’s not Chinese-spec, and there was no way to turn it into a Chinese one.
One observation is that the international one is far buggier than the Chinese one. Either that, or Android 7 is far buggier than Android 5.
For instance, if I leave my old phone as a USB media device, it would stay on that mode. The new one will always change by itself to ‘charge only’, meaning each time I plug it into USB, I now have to waste time doing an extra step.
Secondly, there’s no drive assistant on the new phone, which may have been a Chinese-only feature. I guess they don’t know we have cars outside China.
I’ve mentioned the app shortcomings in an earlier post.
But here’s one that I doubt is related to the Chineseness of my phone: Instagram simply performs better on the old phone than on the new.
A Meizu M2 Note on an old Flyme (on top of Android 5) running a version of Instagram that dates back seven or eight months uploads smoother videos than a Meizu M6 Note on the latest Flyme (atop Android 7) running the latest Instagram.
The issue then is: is it the phone, the OS, or the app that’s to blame?
My first clue was my attempts at uploading a haka performed at my primary school. It took nine attempts before Instagram made one publicly visible, a bug going back some time.
When it did upload, I noticed it was clunky as it advanced.
I uploaded it again today on the old phone and there were no issues. It worked first time.
New phone
#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;">View this post on Instagram#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);">#F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;">#f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)">#F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);">#F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);">#F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);">@stmarkschurchschool Year 7 honours the valedictory Year 8 with a #haka, and one is returned. Instagram refused to show the previous eight upload attempts of this video, but they were full-frame. It seems to be fine with a square one. Apologies to anyone cut off the ends because of Instagram's strange limits. #almamater #Aotearoa #Wellington #whanganuiatara #NZ #stmarks #raumati #summer #été #longinstagramvideo
Old phone
#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;">View this post on Instagram#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);">#F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;">#f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)">#F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);">#F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);">#F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);">@stmarkschurchschool Year 7 honours the valedictory Year 8 with a #haka, and one is returned. I used my old phone to upload this, as I believe there is something wrong with either the modern app or with the way the app works with Android 7. Compare the two (just go back a day on my Instagram): this is heaps smoother. #almamater #Aotearoa #Wellington #whanganuiatara #NZ #stmarks #raumati #summer #été #longinstagramvideo
Now, the two are on different aspect ratios so you might think you’re not comparing apples with apples. How about these two videos? Again, Android 7 required repeated attempts before Instagram would make the video public. Things worked fine with the older phone.
New phone
Old phone
#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;">View this post on Instagram#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);">#F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);">#F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;">#f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)">#F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);">#F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);">#F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);">In my opinion, one of the prettiest small Japanese coupés of the late 1980s and early 1990s: the #Eunos Presso (#Mazda MX-3). Like an Alfa Romeo pastiche but more reliable. #car #waka #Japan #retro #NZ #Wellington #Aotearoa #whanganuiatara #summer #raumati #été #Renault #longinstagramvideo
Anyone know why it’s far, far worse as the technology gets newer? Like servers, which are much harder to manage now, or banks, where cheques take five to seven times longer to clear than in the 1970s, technology seems to be going backwards at the moment.
Tags: 2016, 2018, Alma Mater, cellphone, China, Google Android, Instagram, Meizu, social media, St Markâs Church School, technology
Posted in China, internet, technology | No Comments »
How not to do a rebrand, and feeling #UnWell
27.09.2018A rebrand should be done with consultation, and that should be factored in to any decision-making. In the 2010s, it should consider out-of-the-box suggestions, especially in an increasingly cluttered market-place. It should be launched internally first, then externally. A new logo would surface after months of exhaustive design work. The result should be something distinctive and meaningful that resonates with all audiences.
Meanwhile, hereâs one done by my Alma Mater amongst false claims, poor analyses, and considerable opposition, with the resulting logo appearing a mere week after the powers-that-be voted to ignore the feedback. In branding circles, any professional will tell you that there’s no way a logo can appear that quicklyâunless, of course, Victoria University of Wellington had no inclination to listen to any of its audiences during its “feedback” process. But then, maybe this was done in a hurry:
The result is flawed and lacks quality. Without even getting into the symbol or the typography, the hurried nature of this design is evident with the margin: the text is neither optically nor mathematically aligned, and accurately reflects the lack of consideration that this rebrand has followed. The one symbol I like, the ceremonial crest, does away with the type, and judging from the above, it’s just as well.
I like change, and my businesses have thrived on it. But this left much to be desired from the moment we got wind of it. It supplants a name sourced from Queen Victoria with the name of an even older, white, male historical figure, creates confusion with at least three universities that share its initials if it is to be abbreviated UoW (Woollongong, Wah, Winchester; meanwhile the University of Washington is UW), and offers little by way of differentiation.
Yes, there are other Victoria Universities out there. To me thatâs a case of sticking with the name and marketing it more cleverly to be the dominant oneâand forcing others to retrench. Where did the Kiwi desire to be number one go? Actually, how bad was the confusion, as, on the evidence, Iâm unconvinced.
If itâs about attracting foreign students, then alumnus Callum Osborneâs suggestion of Victoria University of New Zealand is one example to trade on the nation brand, which rates highly.
There were many ways this could have gone, and at each turn amateurism and defeatism appeared, at least to my eyes, to be the themes. #UnWell
Tags: 2018, Alma Mater, Aotearoa, branding, design, destination branding, logo, logotype, nation branding, New Zealand, rebranding, typography, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara
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