Media e-newsletter

Kia ora, namaste and welcome to the September edition of the Asia New Zealand Foundation media newsletter. There are plenty of upcoming highlights including the Media Women in Asia seminar in Auckland as well as a range of cultural events and publications. In October, look out for news of the spectacular cultural talent that will be visiting from India and performing at the hugely popular Diwali festivals in Wellington and Auckland.

In this issue:

- Fantastic four at Media Women seminar

- New CEO to bolster NZ-Asia relations

- New journalists get Jakarta practicum

- Curators for Korean conference

- Asians on TV ride with the devil

- Lolita subculture lands in Auckland

- Meeting China in the global marketplace

- Gold mining and cross cultural love

- Dance master to put on Diwali show

- Taking it on the Chin Woo

Fantastic four at Media Women seminar

Al Jazeera’s Veronica Pedrosa has just been confirmed as one of four speakers at the Media Women in Asia Seminar in Auckland on September 26.

Ms Pedrosa, who is a news anchor and journalist at the network’s Kuala Lumpur-based news centre, is also a CNN and BBC news veteran who has worked in London, Atlanta and Hong Kong.

While at CNN she was named Best News Anchor at the ninth Asian Television Awards in 2004.

She is the daughter of Filipino journalist Carmen Navarro Pedrosa who wrote an unauthorised biography on then-First Lady Imelda Marcos that led to the Pedrosa family’s exile in London.

You can view recent reports by Veronica Pedrosa at this link: http://bravenewfilms.org/topics/pedrosa

Other speakers at the half day seminar are Sagarika Ghose, Trish Carter and Charlotte Glennie.

Sagarika Ghose is senior editor and prime time news anchor of the Indian English television news channel CNN IBN. She has worked as a journalist in India since 1991 and has also travelled extensively in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

She has been a correspondent for the Times of India and Outlook Magazine and senior editor of The Indian Express newspaper and is the author of two novels, The Gin Drinkers and Blind Faith.

Ms Ghose regularly fronts the daily Face the Nation current affairs programme. You can view Face the Nation at this link: http://features.ibnlive.com/show/face-the-nation.html

Trish Carter is a former deputy head of news and current affairs at TVNZ who was recruited by Al Jazeera English to be its Asia Pacific bureau chief in Kuala Lumpur.

Ms Carter established a 24 hour regional news centre employing over 130 staff with bureaux in Sydney, Jakarta, Beijing and Manila. She resigned earlier this year and is now based in Auckland.

Charlotte Glennie needs little introduction as TVNZ’s former Asia correspondent who won the supreme Qantas Media Award for her Boxing Day tsunami reporting and a Special Service Medal.

She is now based in Beijing as the China Correspondent for the Australia Network which broadcasts in 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Media Women in Asia Seminar begins at 9am on September 26 at the Heritage Hotel in Auckland. For more information, visit http://www.asianz.orgnz/node/1005

To attend, email pmclaughlin@asianz.org.nz

New CEO to bolster NZ-Asia relations

A distinguished career diplomat has been appointed chief executive of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

Dr Richard Grant is currently New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Singapore and has been responsible for the bilateral relationship with Singapore as well as providing policy advice to the government on East Asia’s economic, defence and political architecture.

Dr Grant is also responsible for liaising with multi-national companies based in Singapore that are dealing with New Zealand, while assisting New Zealand companies and individuals develop closer ties with the Singapore government and business establishment.

In 2002 he was appointed deputy secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade with responsibility for the management of the full range of New Zealand’s economic interests in the region. This involved extensive engagement with key trading partners and with the New Zealand business community, including all major exporters.

Foundation chairman Philip Burdon says he welcomes the appointment of Dr Grant who will bring a wide range of experience, particularly on the changes taking place in the Asian regional environment.

“I welcome Dr Grant’s aggressive ambition to engage with Asia. We have a huge challenge ahead and his recent experience in Singapore will be invaluable.”

Mr Burdon also noted that the last Census figures identified the rapid expansion and importance of our Asian communities.

Dr Grant, originally from Palmerston North and a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Clermont-Ferrand in France, will resign from MFAT to take up his new role at the end of the year.

New journalists get Jakarta practicum

For the first time, three New Zealand journalism students have been accepted into the 2008 ACICIS Journalism Professional Practicum (JPP) in Jakarta beginning in January.

They are Aroha Treacher who is in her final year of an AUT University Bachelor of Communication Studies; Dylan Quinnell also in his final year of an AUT University Bachelor or Communication Studies; and Will Robertson who is on the current Massey University School of Journalism course.

ACICIS stands for Australian Consortium of ‘In Country’ Indonesian Studies. The Murdoch University-based consortium was established as a non-profit organisation in 1994 to develop and coordinate high-quality study programmes in Indonesia for Australian university students.

The programmes were extended to include media placements in 2002 and this year New Zealand journalists were invited to join the 2008 JPP programme which will be led by senior Sydney Morning Herald foreign correspondent Louise Williams.

All three New Zealand candidates are supported by Asia:NZ. Ms Treacher and Mr Quinnell will be reporting for AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre Online (www.pmc.aut.ac.nz) during their six-week practicum.

For more information about the ACICIS Journalism Professional Practicum, go to: http://www.acicis.murdoch.edu.au/hi/journalist.html

Curators for Korean conference

Two New Zealanders have been invited to attend a curators’ conference on contemporary Korean art in Seoul next month.

The two New Zealanders are Scott Potham, the director of the Whangarei Art Museum, and Louis le Vaillant, a curator in applied arts at Auckland Museum.

The curators’ conference is organised by the Korea Foundation and consists of an intensive programme of lectures and site visits within South Korea for about 20 curators from museums around the world. The event will run from October 4-12.

The visit by Mr Potham and Mr le Vaillant is supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation cultural programme which established its museum and gallery initiative in 2000 to foster and develop better understanding between New Zealand institutions and their Asian counterparts.

For more information, contact Asia:NZ culture director Jennifer King at jking@asianz.org.nz

Asians on TV ride with the devil

Sex, drugs, violence and street racing, Ride with the Devil has earned its 11pm Tuesday night screening time on TV2.

The local drama is now up to its third episode and it is well worth a look for all the above reasons but also because it makes a little piece of broadcasting history by being the first New Zealand television drama with an Asian playing the leading role.

Andy Wong plays Lin Jin, a young student from Beijing who gets caught up in local boy racer culture – a kind of Tokyo Drift in Auckland. He is supported by an experienced and able cast that includes Caleigh Cheung, Xavier Horan, and former Shortland Street regulars, Lynette Forday, Angela Bloomfield and Anna Hutchinson.

The NZ On Air Innovation Initiative that funded Ride With the Devil was created to foster new and innovative television. The series writer Murray Keane told the NZ Herald: “We weren’t trying to be culturally sensitive, we were trying to be culturally representative.”

The trailer is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1ZbXHR7VYw
For more information: www.bebo.com/ridewiththedevil or read this article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1501119/story.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10460972

Lolita subculture lands in Auckland

Asian popular culture and fashion has forever changed the look of downtown Auckland and a new exhibition explores one of the edges of this culture: the Japanese gothic Lolita phenomenon.

The pulse of Asia beats strong in Auckland. This was reflected in the 2006 census which identified 24 percent of Auckland residents as Asian of which 31 percent are in the 15-29 age bracket.

This thriving youth culture has made its mark on the city as Auckland Museum’s Loli-Pop exhibition explores the origins of gothic Lolita and its place in Japan’s pop culture.

Curator Kathryn Hardy Bernal says the gothic Lolita style is designated by fashions inspired by the Rococo, Romantic and Victorian periods. “It is based on a particular notion of the gothic, represented by historical mourning garb, maidservants’ wear, children’s dresses, and dolls’clothes.”

The exhibition was also assisted by Auckland Museum staff member Bevan Chuang who features in the publicity photographs. Other models include AUT University students, Emily Huang, Shangshang Cookie Wang, Emily Wang, Shiahung-Wen Sean Kuo and Yanling Wang.

The Loli-Pop exhibition runs from September 14 until November 18 at Auckland Museum’s Tamaki Gallery. For more information, visit www.aucklandmuseum.com

Meeting China in the global marketplace

While the twentieth century may belong to the West, the twenty-first century has the potential to be the Asian millennium.

In a new book Understanding China: Building Bridges for Business Success, Dr Ed Weymes, with 25 years' experience of travelling to and working in China, offers New Zealand businesses seeking to enter this huge market practical guidance on establishing mutually beneficial relationships and understanding just how things work.

Dr Weymes who is executive director international at Waikato Management School and visiting professor at Shandong University in China, suggests that it is time to shift New Zealand thinking to survive in a globally interconnected world.

“Relationships more than rigid processes define success, and people define relationships. Asian organisations focus first on their people and then on systems and control. In the West we develop the systems and then consider the people.

“We don’t have to agree with all of these different approaches but through understanding and possibly adoption we can build organisations which generate an economic return while respecting their employees, society and the environment.”

He says during the 1980’s the West went to meet China, lured by the size of the potential market but many companies left disappointed. Now China is coming out to meet the West.

Chinese students studying overseas have changed the demographic profiles of many western tertiary institutions, university towns and cities. Western manufacturing facilities are relocating to China. Chinese companies are becoming significant global players.

Dr Weymes says over the past 25 years China’s real gross domestic product has increased on average by 9 percent each year. Foreign trade has averaged a 15 percent annual growth and in 2004 China became the largest single recipient of foreign direct investment with over $US1.0 billion flowing into the country each week.

He says India and China together with other Asian countries are on a mission: to catch up to and surpass Western economies.

Understanding China: Building Bridges for Business Success by Dr Ed Weymes is published by Dunmore and available later this year. For more information, visit http://www.dunmore.co.nz/action.php?action=view&category=0&id=336

Gold mining and cross cultural love

Dunedin author Maxine Alterio says she has long fantasised about having a novel with an orange penguin on the spine. She has come a long way since by signing a two-book contract with Penguin last year and publishing her first novel Ribbons of Grace.

Set in China, Orkney and New Zealand between 1870 and 1895, it explores the themes of alienation and friendship through three characters: Ming Yuet, a female Chinese sojourner who has taken on the identity of her dead brother; Conran, a Orcadian stonemason; and Ida, an English settler with aspirations to be a nurse.

The novel centres on the relationship between Ming Yuet and Conran which other settlers think is not only interracial but also homosexual. Their love affair develops amidst suspicion and hostility as communities of British settlers and Chinese sojourners attempt to live alongside each other in Arrowtown.

Ms Alterio says Ribbons of Grace is an important book for her – “one I had wanted to write since childhood when I was present at a party in Arrowtown and overheard an adult conversation about a Chinese miner who was discovered to be female after he died.”

Maxine Alterio has also published a short story collection Live News. Her stories have appeared in literary journals, the NZ Listener and on Radio New Zealand. Ribbons of Grace will be available from October 1. For more information, visit www.maxinealterio.co.nz

Dance master to put on Diwali show

As part of the Diwali celebrations in Wellington this year, the respected classical Indian dancer, teacher and choreographer, Vivek Kinra, will be performing a one-off show.

Originally from India where he graduated from Kalakshetra, an academy for the study of the classical Bharatya-Natyam style of Indian dance, Vivek Kinra has performed in India, Russia, China, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.

He has been based in Wellington since 1990, establishing the New Zealand Academy of Bharata-Natyam. The school now has a large number of students and is a foremost institution in this country for classical Indian dance.

Vivek Kinra has given lectures and demonstrations to the New Zealand School of Dance, the New Zealand Drama School, Victoria University of Wellington Music Department and the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

Each year he creates a new thematic dance production with a blend of traditional and innovative concepts which he performs with the dancers of the Mudra Dance Company.

The Press said: “One gets the impression of the universe dancing along with him. To watch Kinra dance is to become aware of just how much the human body can express and accomplish and the human being can experience and feel.”

Vivek Kinra will be performing Bharatam: An Inspirational Solo Journey Through dance on October 14 at Victoria University’s Memorial Theatre. The event is supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation. For more information, visit www.mudra.co.nz

Taking it on the Chin Woo

“Let a hundred flowers blossom.” is a popular Chinese saying that conveys the intention to bring out the best from a multitude of practitioners in any undertaking.

The fourth annual martial arts competition, organised by the NZ Chin Woo Athletic Association, will for the first time invite competitors from other clubs and associations that are practising various forms of martial arts.

They will be joined by students from Chin Woo’s regional districts in Auckland, Central North Island, Waikato and Wellington.

The event is held on Saturday October 6 at the Farm Cove Intermediate’s Gymnasium in Pakuranga. Apart from the traditional Chin Woo forms, competitors from other clubs are encouraged to enter the categories specified by the International Wushu Federation.

There will be competition for medals in 17 different routines (including bare-hand sparring), short weapons (sabre, sword and broad-sabre) and long weapons (staff and spear).

The association’s chief coach is George Guo, a former national champion in China. He says the students will be in a great position to qualify for the 2009 World Chin Woo Competition to take place in Kuala Lumpur.

For more information, visit www.chinwoo.org.nz or call Tom 0274 482 680 or Lucy 09 267 5968. The competition is supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

The next Asia:NZ media newsletter will be available in October. The views expressed by various contributors to the newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views of the Asia New Zealand Foundation. If you are interested in contributing to the newsletter, please contact Asia:NZ’s media adviser Charles Mabbett at cmabbett@asianz.org.nz

Toitu he kianga; whatungarongaro he tangata - people are transient things but the land endures.

Subscription
To retrieve and change your subscription details, go to http://www.asianz.orgnz/newsletter-signup.

Articles may be reprinted with acknowledgement of Asia New Zealand Foundation

Level 7, ABN AMRO House, 36 Customhouse Quay, PO Box 10-144, Wellington, 6143, New Zealand
Telephone: +64 4 471 2320, Email: asianz@asianz.org.nz

To find out more about Asia New Zealand Foundation please visit our website: www.asianz.org.nz

Asia New Zealand Foundation is grateful to its key sponsors - Fonterra, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade - for their commitment to the Foundation's activities.

ENDS

© Scoop Media