I kinda forgot to tell some international customers that I was skiving off work yesterday to celebrate Waitangi Day… After apologising, there seems to be a general interest in Waitangi day and what it’s all about.

Why describe it myself, when we have Wikipedia?

“Waitangi Day is the national day of New Zealand. It is a public holiday held each year on February 6 to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document, on that date in 1840.”

Waitangi day has been a little controversial over the years because the treaty itself was a little confusing. If you study NZ history at school, you quickly learn the chances of having two very different cultures, speaking two very different languages, with two very different belief sets sign the same document and think it means the same thing. They are quite low.

Add to that the fact the key signatories were probably quite good friends and wanted to do the deal as nicely as possible, maybe some of the legal issues were smoothed over and the whole document becomes open for a lot of different interpretations.

So we have had some dramas over the years, and often the news coverage is focused completely on the protests and the conflict, but for most people, Waitangi day is a day to celebrate being a New Zealander, and doing New Zealand things.

We don’t really do fireworks here, but we do do big concerts in parks, like ‘One Love’, where I was at yesterday, which is just a lot of music and dancing and hanging out in the sun celebrating peace and unity (which had this really awesome ’silent club’ where everyone wears headphones and dances to their own beat so when you take them off, all you see is a bunch of crazies dancing around to no music - totally awesome!).

Other people go to the beach or other concerts or more formal ceremonies at Waitangi and other spots around the country.

So there you have it, I think I fairly awesome excuse for slacking off yesterday ;)