I have listened to This American Life for years. I enjoy the way Ira Glass, and all of the people who work on the show, capture, well, this American life. I find that the format they have created is, quite probably, the very best story telling on the radio, or maybe even anywhere. Since becoming an ex-pat, it has become my very favorite way of staying in touch with the country that made me who I am. If you do not listen, I highly recommend it.
In January, This American Life broadcast a story about working conditions in factories making Apple products in China. The story was, largely, an excerpt from a monologue performed by Mike Daisey. Sarah and I were driving to New Plymouth when we listened to the show. It was captivating. It was one of the most memorable TAL shows I have heard. Without a doubt, The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was perfect for the show.
Some aspects of the monologue seemed impossible, yet when viewed through the lens of a performer, travelling to China on a whim, and seeing, what must have been an alien world to him, not unreasonable. This week, Sarah sent me a link to a New York Times blog post regarding the episode. In many ways, I did not want the story to be untrue. I do not want working conditions in China to be appalling, but the story was so captivating, well told, and emotionally enchanting, it had to be true.
I read the TAL retraction statement. Then I read Mike Daisey's statement. I re-read both, and they did not seem to jive. Something had to be missing. I started thinking, maybe this is a mistake. It seems like Daisey did not talk to the n-hexane folk, but does that matter? Does that make it untrue? Does that make it worth retracting? I waited for the podcast to download, and now, I have listened to it.
It seems clear that Mike Daisey was not truthful with TAL staff when they did the fact checking, and that is, undoubtedly wrong. Further, Rob Schmitz discounts much of what Daisey said happened to him. The translator, whose credibility is only slightly better than Daisey's, is paramount in discrediting the story, and again, I wonder how well Daisey and the translator actually communicated. How much was honest misunderstanding? No one will ever truly know, saving Mike Daisey, buy misunderstanding aside, it is without a doubt, that Daisey was not completely honest with TAL.
Listening to Daisey re-interviewed by Ira Glass, I heard students and professors talking about cheating. I have been accused of cheating when I did not. I have gotten away with cheating. I have also witnessed people being accused of cheating, suspected students of cheating, and accused students of cheating. People always regret being in the situation, but almost never regret doing the cheating, and this is exactly how Daisey seemed to feel.
I do not know if I would have been honest about cheating when I was guilty. Looking back at the times I was "academically dishonest" I think that was the goal of the people who made the rules. In undergrad, we were given more work than a person could do. One of two things happen when you give people an impossible task, they quit, or cheat. Everyone who has succeeded has cheated, including Mike Daisey.
Mike Daisey saw an impossible task. He saw the need to make people care about people they never met. I recall a story, that was based on "Button, Button," by Richard Matheson. Rather, what I recall seems based on the Twilight Zone episode of the same name (for all I know it could have been an edited version of one of the two, as it was in a literature class that I was exposed to it). In "Button, Button" the protagonist can push a button, and receive a large sum of money. The catch is that when you push the button, someone you do not know dies. In the story, this is a major moral dilemma, but in reality, if offered this device the only question would be how many times you can push the button (yes, there are some twists in the story that makes this a bad option). Mike Daisey found a way for people to care, momentarily, about the person who died more than the reward when they pushed the button. Because, to be honest, every single comfort of life is afforded us by the discomfort of another person, and we never give those people a second thought.
This American Life thought they were airing a journalistic account of working conditions in China. Unfortunately for everyone involved, they were mistaken. They were airing a story about pushing the button. They were airing a story about the essence of being American, about having more than everyone else, and pushing the button everyday, without consequence. Mike Daisey, regardless of truthfulness, did an incredible job with his story. TAL captured, unknowingly, the essence of living this American life, better than they ever have. I do not regret or begrudge either entity for what they did, when they did it. In fact, I quite appreciate the whole occurrence as a happy outcome. The only regret I have is in the situation. Daisey's monologue would have been an excellent act one for a story about getting the American Dream by taking the dreams of others.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
The Northern Circuit Trip Report
By Google Earth measurement the track was closer to 45 km than 55 km, and it seems unlikely that the trail twists, turns and rolls for an additional 10 km. Regardless, the walk was pretty great, and my first Great Walk of New Zealand. Pictures are posted in Picasa, and a Google Earth image with elevation profile is included below.
There was very little running, but the pace was enjoyable (approximately 11:20). I think doing it as a run would be phenomenal, saving the western leg from Whakapapa Village to Mangatepopo, which is a dull grind with poor trail conditions. My cohort would be welcome on future endeavors, so hopefully I have found someone who is interested in continuing to go outside.
I think the photos capture the scenery fairly well, so I'll leave the trip report there.
Friday, March 16, 2012
The Northern Circuit
I convinced a coworker (with surprisingly little effort) to do the Northern Circuit tomorrow. The conversation went something like this:
"Want to do the Northern Circuit on Sunday"?
"Do you mean the Crossing? Isn't the Circuit multi-day"?
"No, I mean the Circuit. The website says it is multi-day, but I think we can run it in a day."
"How far is it"?
"Like 55 k."
"How far is that in miles"? (She is from Juneau.)
"Like thirty something."
Officemate: "34."
"Okay."
"Really? I was getting ready to have to persuade you."
"The most I've ever done in a day before was 26, but let's do it."
"Righteous."
In further discussions, the date was moved from Sunday to Saturday, and she agreed to do an early start. As such, I will leave my house between 03:30 and 03:45 tomorrow (about 7.5 hours from now). We'll drive from her house, and should be on the trail about 05:00, headlamps blazing, for sunrise high in Tongariro National Park.
You can track our progress via my SPOT page. SPOTs do not do too well in thick cover here, so some of the legs might not show up, but overall, I'll be beaming my location to the internets via satellites every ten minutes or so.
To clarify a few points, I do say righteous, and bitchin', which does not get near enough use. The conversation began on email, but was simplified in the interest of story telling. There was also a lack of enthusiasm for the running aspect of the trip, but I'll work on that as long as she doesn't decide to do it in boots. Lastly, the Department of Conservation describes it as a four day trip, but really, 55 k in four days?
"Want to do the Northern Circuit on Sunday"?
"Do you mean the Crossing? Isn't the Circuit multi-day"?
"No, I mean the Circuit. The website says it is multi-day, but I think we can run it in a day."
"How far is it"?
"Like 55 k."
"How far is that in miles"? (She is from Juneau.)
"Like thirty something."
Officemate: "34."
"Okay."
"Really? I was getting ready to have to persuade you."
"The most I've ever done in a day before was 26, but let's do it."
"Righteous."
In further discussions, the date was moved from Sunday to Saturday, and she agreed to do an early start. As such, I will leave my house between 03:30 and 03:45 tomorrow (about 7.5 hours from now). We'll drive from her house, and should be on the trail about 05:00, headlamps blazing, for sunrise high in Tongariro National Park.
You can track our progress via my SPOT page. SPOTs do not do too well in thick cover here, so some of the legs might not show up, but overall, I'll be beaming my location to the internets via satellites every ten minutes or so.
To clarify a few points, I do say righteous, and bitchin', which does not get near enough use. The conversation began on email, but was simplified in the interest of story telling. There was also a lack of enthusiasm for the running aspect of the trip, but I'll work on that as long as she doesn't decide to do it in boots. Lastly, the Department of Conservation describes it as a four day trip, but really, 55 k in four days?
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Violent Crime
There is a notion that nothing happens in New Zealand, making it intrinsically safe here. Conversely, it is generally assumed that the US is relatively unsafe (based on violent crime for a modern, western nation). Theft is common in New Zealand like most places, though it seems more common here than other places I have lived. Home robberies happen, and a few exquisite examples from Taupo include a robbery where the people left town for a vacation, and came home to their house entirely empty, as if they had been moved out. Prowling is also common, as it is in most places with a lot of tourism. While being robbed is an incredible violation, things, for the most part, can be replaced. Trying to filter these reports through the exaggeration of scuttlebutt is difficult, but it seems clear, robberies happen in New Zealand, like everywhere else.
Another type of crime catches my attention more. Everyone talks about theft, and it is easy to exaggerate, or accept, this type of crime as something that "happens." Violent crime, on the other hand, is a bit easier to quantify, but maybe harder to understand. Cars get broken into, but assessing the probability of your car getting broken into is complex, as I am sure the reporting rate is proportional to the value of what is stolen. One could make some assumptions, that reporting rates are similar, average tourist and non-tourist areas, etc., but in the end common sense would still be the best method of prevention. With violent crime, while one has to make many of the same assumptions, and common sense is still a good preventative step, one can assume, that with the exception of domestic violence and sexual assault, reporting is pretty good.
Violent crime, I assert, is harder to understand, because it is fairly rare. New York City in 1990 had 2245 murders. That is the population of a small town! However, the population of New York City in 1990 was 7.3 million. Dividing the number of murders by the population would give the per capita murder rate (a very small number), then multiplying by 1,000, or 100,000 gives a murder rate (per year, while a rate needs a unit of time, it is generally left off). I will use rates per 100,000 people, though New Zealand statistics are generally given in per 1,000 (thus, I multiply their numbers by 100 for ease of comparison). Running this calculation, the murder rate in New York City in 1990 was 30.6. This is very high. Not on a world scale (countries with ongoing drug wars approach 100), but very high for a country like the US. The number is nebulous though. It no longer seems as frightening as the population of an entire town being murdered in a single city.
The other trick to rates is that a small town, say population 1,000, would have one murder every hundred years to have a murder rate of 1 per 100,000 (remember, the rate is per year). For this small town to have the same murder rate at the peak of NYC's murders it would need one murder every three years. Same murder rate, but one murder every three years seems a lot safer than 2,245 murders in one year. The population of New Zealand is 4.4 million, just over half the population of New York City, or about the population of the San Francisco metropolitan area. Thus, the number of violent crime in all of the country of New Zealand would be equal to the number of violent crimes in San Francisco for the crime rate to be the same.
The next issue in comparing all of this is that every jurisdiction counts crime differently. For example, rape is a violent crime in the US, but a sexual offense in New Zealand. I tend to think of rape as a violent crime, so I will add those data to those of the violent crime rate for New Zealand. I will then compare the total violent crime rates. Obviously, there are a lot of assumptions here, and I am doing this for fun on a Sunday morning, which means my methods are probably rife with statistical errors, but I think the point and the trend will be obvious and meaningful.
My curiosity on this subject has stemmed from two things. First, I compared safety data for industries in the US and New Zealand, and the results were surprising, but that might be a good topic for another post. Second, there seems to be a lot of violent crime here. A tourist was beaten to death with a bat by a teenager one night in Taupo. A five year old girl was raped and beaten by another teenager in Turangi (population 3,240). These are small places, which means the violent crime rate is going to increased a lot by single incidents. There is also, it seems, a very large problem with domestic violence in this country (as I have previously blogged about). Thus, I have begun to doubt the safety, or supposed low crime rate of this island nation as commonly touted.
In 2000 (the most recent data I found for New Zealand), the total violent crime rate for the US was about 500 per 100,000. For a discussion of what violent crime is in different countries (including the US and New Zealand), the Wikipedia Violent Crime page is pretty good. In New Zealand, the total violent crime rate in 2000 was 567 (obtained by summing crime rates for the following categories; grievous assault, serious assault, other (including homicide), robbery and sexual attacks). If the entire violent crime rate for New Zealand is used (this adds the categories of minor assault and intimidation/threats) the violent crime rate rises to 1,154 per 100,000.
A Lonely Planet guide (I think), described New Zealand as being "relatively safe." My first question here is relative to what? Relative to Detroit (violent crime rate: 1,887/100,000), New Zealand is pretty safe. I doubt anybody really makes their safety decisions based on the safety they would expect in Detroit. Contrast with Honolulu (violent crime rate: 268/100,000), and New Zealand is relatively unsafe. Perhaps, tourism guides should instead say, "New Zealand is about as safe as Philadelphia" (violent crime rate: 1,189/100,000).
In New Zealand, something does happen. That something is violent crime. Can a place be beautiful with a high crime rate? Yes. I enjoy D.C. I am not sure I would want to live there, but that is related to a dearth of mountains, more than the crime rate. Does the violent crime rate make me want to leave New Zealand? No. That said, on the matter of public safety, the nation fails to deliver upon the utopian mythology that the rest of the world has developed for the most isolated nation on the planet, which does not make me particularly want to stay.
Note: To obtain data from charts regarding New Zealand crime statistics I used Data Thief, for US crime data I used visual estimation.
Another type of crime catches my attention more. Everyone talks about theft, and it is easy to exaggerate, or accept, this type of crime as something that "happens." Violent crime, on the other hand, is a bit easier to quantify, but maybe harder to understand. Cars get broken into, but assessing the probability of your car getting broken into is complex, as I am sure the reporting rate is proportional to the value of what is stolen. One could make some assumptions, that reporting rates are similar, average tourist and non-tourist areas, etc., but in the end common sense would still be the best method of prevention. With violent crime, while one has to make many of the same assumptions, and common sense is still a good preventative step, one can assume, that with the exception of domestic violence and sexual assault, reporting is pretty good.
Violent crime, I assert, is harder to understand, because it is fairly rare. New York City in 1990 had 2245 murders. That is the population of a small town! However, the population of New York City in 1990 was 7.3 million. Dividing the number of murders by the population would give the per capita murder rate (a very small number), then multiplying by 1,000, or 100,000 gives a murder rate (per year, while a rate needs a unit of time, it is generally left off). I will use rates per 100,000 people, though New Zealand statistics are generally given in per 1,000 (thus, I multiply their numbers by 100 for ease of comparison). Running this calculation, the murder rate in New York City in 1990 was 30.6. This is very high. Not on a world scale (countries with ongoing drug wars approach 100), but very high for a country like the US. The number is nebulous though. It no longer seems as frightening as the population of an entire town being murdered in a single city.
The other trick to rates is that a small town, say population 1,000, would have one murder every hundred years to have a murder rate of 1 per 100,000 (remember, the rate is per year). For this small town to have the same murder rate at the peak of NYC's murders it would need one murder every three years. Same murder rate, but one murder every three years seems a lot safer than 2,245 murders in one year. The population of New Zealand is 4.4 million, just over half the population of New York City, or about the population of the San Francisco metropolitan area. Thus, the number of violent crime in all of the country of New Zealand would be equal to the number of violent crimes in San Francisco for the crime rate to be the same.
The next issue in comparing all of this is that every jurisdiction counts crime differently. For example, rape is a violent crime in the US, but a sexual offense in New Zealand. I tend to think of rape as a violent crime, so I will add those data to those of the violent crime rate for New Zealand. I will then compare the total violent crime rates. Obviously, there are a lot of assumptions here, and I am doing this for fun on a Sunday morning, which means my methods are probably rife with statistical errors, but I think the point and the trend will be obvious and meaningful.
My curiosity on this subject has stemmed from two things. First, I compared safety data for industries in the US and New Zealand, and the results were surprising, but that might be a good topic for another post. Second, there seems to be a lot of violent crime here. A tourist was beaten to death with a bat by a teenager one night in Taupo. A five year old girl was raped and beaten by another teenager in Turangi (population 3,240). These are small places, which means the violent crime rate is going to increased a lot by single incidents. There is also, it seems, a very large problem with domestic violence in this country (as I have previously blogged about). Thus, I have begun to doubt the safety, or supposed low crime rate of this island nation as commonly touted.
In 2000 (the most recent data I found for New Zealand), the total violent crime rate for the US was about 500 per 100,000. For a discussion of what violent crime is in different countries (including the US and New Zealand), the Wikipedia Violent Crime page is pretty good. In New Zealand, the total violent crime rate in 2000 was 567 (obtained by summing crime rates for the following categories; grievous assault, serious assault, other (including homicide), robbery and sexual attacks). If the entire violent crime rate for New Zealand is used (this adds the categories of minor assault and intimidation/threats) the violent crime rate rises to 1,154 per 100,000.
A Lonely Planet guide (I think), described New Zealand as being "relatively safe." My first question here is relative to what? Relative to Detroit (violent crime rate: 1,887/100,000), New Zealand is pretty safe. I doubt anybody really makes their safety decisions based on the safety they would expect in Detroit. Contrast with Honolulu (violent crime rate: 268/100,000), and New Zealand is relatively unsafe. Perhaps, tourism guides should instead say, "New Zealand is about as safe as Philadelphia" (violent crime rate: 1,189/100,000).
In New Zealand, something does happen. That something is violent crime. Can a place be beautiful with a high crime rate? Yes. I enjoy D.C. I am not sure I would want to live there, but that is related to a dearth of mountains, more than the crime rate. Does the violent crime rate make me want to leave New Zealand? No. That said, on the matter of public safety, the nation fails to deliver upon the utopian mythology that the rest of the world has developed for the most isolated nation on the planet, which does not make me particularly want to stay.
Note: To obtain data from charts regarding New Zealand crime statistics I used Data Thief, for US crime data I used visual estimation.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
"How much would you pay for the Universe"?
A video compilation of Neil deGrasse Tyson speaking about NASA, an eloquent variation on the theme of a previous post, shared with me by Denise.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Toe-paw
As with any colonizing language, local names can look pretty intimidating. Tonopah and Roanoke come to mind. Yet, generally, if you know the phonetics of the colonizing language, Spanish and English for Tonopah and Roanoke, respectively, one can pronounce (or nearly pronounce) the name. It should be noted that Tonopah is not Spanish, and Roanoke is not English, these are Native American words written using Latin letters, and European languages. The same cannot be said of the English created/derived Māori language.
I live in the city of Taupō, on the shores of Lake Taupō, with a population of Kiwis who generally refuse to pronounce the name correctly. I find it inexcusable that people know the correct pronunciation, yet refuse to use it just to be culturally insensitive. In addition to purposeful cultural insensitivity, I discovered recently that many people seem to lack the knowledge of how to pronounce the word in general. I made this discovery recently chatting with a woman who had grown up in Taupō. The conversation went something like this:
"You grew up in Taupō"?
"Yeah, people are always surprised when I say that."
"It doesn't seem like you meet many people from here."
"I think lots of people move away because there isn't much here for young people."
"So, why don't you pronounce it correctly"?
"I don't know, I just never got around to changing it. I should."
"I don't understand why more people don't, lots of folk look at me like I'm crazy when I say Toe-paw."
"That's because you're saying it wrong."
"Really, I was told it is toe (pointing at my foot), paw, like an animal foot. Toe-paw."
"No, keep the toe, but say poor, rather than paw."
"Say what"?
"Poor, like you don't have any money, Toe-poor."
"I don't think there is an r in the word."
"No, but that is how people say it."
It turns out that people say it many incorrect ways. If you are curious about how it is mispronounced, and how to correctly pronounce it, the tourism board actually made a video to help. It is totally corny, but I think it gets the point across, Toe-paw. Admittedly I speak with a strong Western US accent, which means I enunciate the words of the English language, which does confuse Kiwis a bit (in Kiwi, wit=wit, wit=wet, wit=wheat, etc.), but Taupō is pronounced Toe-paw, pretty simple.
The interesting bit about Māori is that it was created at Cambridge University, is Latin letter based, yet written Māori does not use English phonetics, or seemingly, any phonetics at all. This tells one a couple of things. First, there is a reason it is the Oxford English Dictionary, and not the Cambridge English Dictionary. Second, that the English love to make languages that are difficult to learn owing to a plethora of exceptions to rules.
The first thing to learn is that wh makes the f sound. So in Māori, who would be foo (ignoring vowel sounds for now). This can make for some giggles because many words are spelled Whaka-, for example, the coastal town of Whakatane (faka tawny). Next, ai is y. This will be familiar to Americans who dream of going to Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. These two tricks put you off and running.
Unfortunately for English speakers, the macron (the bar over the vowel) indicates that one should hold the vowel sound. Kiwis will tell you it indicates that you make it "long." It has been a long time since Hooked on Phonics, but if I recall correctly, the macron, makes a vowel "hard" or "long," meaning A not ah, or I not ih. What they mean by long here, is that you hold it for an extra beat. I think this would generally be done with an h in English, maybe a couple of them if you really wanted to prove the point. Ah, or ahh, or ahhhhhhhhhh would be ā. So Māori is pronounced Mah-ori (when I was being instructed on this matter the r sounded almost like the Spanish rr. I am not sure if that was intentional, or simply to illustrate how to say the word to a Yankee), not May-ori. From Māori, one also gleans that o is essentially pronounced o, and thus ō would be oh. You can listen to the Māori vowels at Maorilanguage.net, where indeed, o is pronounced O.
Those of you who want consistent vowel sounds will recognize the issue here. If Māori is Mah-ori, then Toe-paw would be Topā, maybe Tōpā, but not Taupō. Alas, Taupō is pronounced Toe-paw, and it is challenging to figure out the correct pronunciation of Māori words that do not follow the rules, or rules that are complicated.
Another Kiwi piped in during the conversation about the the pronunciation of Taupō, that the word is not English, but Māori, so one could not expect English phonetics. Further, she pointed out, that there were lots of local dialects, so one written language could not possibly cover all of the Māori words adequately. Interesting that the English were able to do it for the Eastern Seaboard; the French for the Hudson Bay and Great Lakes area; and the Spanish for the Southwest US, Latin America, and half of South America. Thus, the Spanish were able to apply their phonetics, albeit not perfectly, to the native languages of on the order of 5 million square miles, but one written language could not be created to cover the dialects of two islands that cover one hundred-thousand square miles. In numbers, Spanish was sufficient for 5,000,000 square miles, while written Māori is insufficient for 100,000 square miles.
Kiwis, I find, are always piping up with this kind of wisdom. Whereby, they come up with some explanation for why they cannot do something correctly, without understanding that every other nation on the planet deals with these same issues at a grander scale. The effect is that when you think about what they just said, it makes them seem even more feeble and sad than you had previously thought. When there simply is no explanation, they, beaming with pride, will defend it as how it is done here.
The pronunciation of this little town is a great place to begin to look at this little country. Travelers and travel guides will make claims about this country like, "it is like the US 50 years ago." Kiwis will brag about their country with things like "the possum is the only animal that Greenpeace says is okay to kill for fur." (I have not verified that claim.) Kids who grew up in downtown London will marvel at the "wilderness" they find in managed forests, and clear-cut farmlands. A question starts to emerge though.
"Are these good things"?
Over the next month or two, I will try to find the answer.
I live in the city of Taupō, on the shores of Lake Taupō, with a population of Kiwis who generally refuse to pronounce the name correctly. I find it inexcusable that people know the correct pronunciation, yet refuse to use it just to be culturally insensitive. In addition to purposeful cultural insensitivity, I discovered recently that many people seem to lack the knowledge of how to pronounce the word in general. I made this discovery recently chatting with a woman who had grown up in Taupō. The conversation went something like this:
"You grew up in Taupō"?
"Yeah, people are always surprised when I say that."
"It doesn't seem like you meet many people from here."
"I think lots of people move away because there isn't much here for young people."
"So, why don't you pronounce it correctly"?
"I don't know, I just never got around to changing it. I should."
"I don't understand why more people don't, lots of folk look at me like I'm crazy when I say Toe-paw."
"That's because you're saying it wrong."
"Really, I was told it is toe (pointing at my foot), paw, like an animal foot. Toe-paw."
"No, keep the toe, but say poor, rather than paw."
"Say what"?
"Poor, like you don't have any money, Toe-poor."
"I don't think there is an r in the word."
"No, but that is how people say it."
It turns out that people say it many incorrect ways. If you are curious about how it is mispronounced, and how to correctly pronounce it, the tourism board actually made a video to help. It is totally corny, but I think it gets the point across, Toe-paw. Admittedly I speak with a strong Western US accent, which means I enunciate the words of the English language, which does confuse Kiwis a bit (in Kiwi, wit=wit, wit=wet, wit=wheat, etc.), but Taupō is pronounced Toe-paw, pretty simple.
The interesting bit about Māori is that it was created at Cambridge University, is Latin letter based, yet written Māori does not use English phonetics, or seemingly, any phonetics at all. This tells one a couple of things. First, there is a reason it is the Oxford English Dictionary, and not the Cambridge English Dictionary. Second, that the English love to make languages that are difficult to learn owing to a plethora of exceptions to rules.
The first thing to learn is that wh makes the f sound. So in Māori, who would be foo (ignoring vowel sounds for now). This can make for some giggles because many words are spelled Whaka-, for example, the coastal town of Whakatane (faka tawny). Next, ai is y. This will be familiar to Americans who dream of going to Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. These two tricks put you off and running.
Unfortunately for English speakers, the macron (the bar over the vowel) indicates that one should hold the vowel sound. Kiwis will tell you it indicates that you make it "long." It has been a long time since Hooked on Phonics, but if I recall correctly, the macron, makes a vowel "hard" or "long," meaning A not ah, or I not ih. What they mean by long here, is that you hold it for an extra beat. I think this would generally be done with an h in English, maybe a couple of them if you really wanted to prove the point. Ah, or ahh, or ahhhhhhhhhh would be ā. So Māori is pronounced Mah-ori (when I was being instructed on this matter the r sounded almost like the Spanish rr. I am not sure if that was intentional, or simply to illustrate how to say the word to a Yankee), not May-ori. From Māori, one also gleans that o is essentially pronounced o, and thus ō would be oh. You can listen to the Māori vowels at Maorilanguage.net, where indeed, o is pronounced O.
Those of you who want consistent vowel sounds will recognize the issue here. If Māori is Mah-ori, then Toe-paw would be Topā, maybe Tōpā, but not Taupō. Alas, Taupō is pronounced Toe-paw, and it is challenging to figure out the correct pronunciation of Māori words that do not follow the rules, or rules that are complicated.
Another Kiwi piped in during the conversation about the the pronunciation of Taupō, that the word is not English, but Māori, so one could not expect English phonetics. Further, she pointed out, that there were lots of local dialects, so one written language could not possibly cover all of the Māori words adequately. Interesting that the English were able to do it for the Eastern Seaboard; the French for the Hudson Bay and Great Lakes area; and the Spanish for the Southwest US, Latin America, and half of South America. Thus, the Spanish were able to apply their phonetics, albeit not perfectly, to the native languages of on the order of 5 million square miles, but one written language could not be created to cover the dialects of two islands that cover one hundred-thousand square miles. In numbers, Spanish was sufficient for 5,000,000 square miles, while written Māori is insufficient for 100,000 square miles.
Kiwis, I find, are always piping up with this kind of wisdom. Whereby, they come up with some explanation for why they cannot do something correctly, without understanding that every other nation on the planet deals with these same issues at a grander scale. The effect is that when you think about what they just said, it makes them seem even more feeble and sad than you had previously thought. When there simply is no explanation, they, beaming with pride, will defend it as how it is done here.
The pronunciation of this little town is a great place to begin to look at this little country. Travelers and travel guides will make claims about this country like, "it is like the US 50 years ago." Kiwis will brag about their country with things like "the possum is the only animal that Greenpeace says is okay to kill for fur." (I have not verified that claim.) Kids who grew up in downtown London will marvel at the "wilderness" they find in managed forests, and clear-cut farmlands. A question starts to emerge though.
"Are these good things"?
Over the next month or two, I will try to find the answer.
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