Looking back with hatred can be hazardous to your future.

Oscar Temaru

Tame Iti

I don’t usually stand out in a crowd, and I prefer it that way.

OK, yes, there was that one time when I somehow managed to spill a box of McDonald’s gift vouchers on the basketball court at Walnut Grove Secondary during a Langley Times-sponsored tournament. That was a wee bit embarrassing but, fortunately, the play was at the other end at the time and I managed to grab up all the bits and pieces before the action came thundering the other way.

While in the employ of assorted North American newspapers, I was simply referred to as “that reporter guy.” Nobody special. A white face in a sea of white faces.

And then I moved to Rarotonga. Here, in the heart of Polynesia, I am a visible minority. I am a white face in a sea of brown faces. I stand out.

That was not a good thing during my first stint with the Pitt Media Group in 2001. At that time, a fellow named Jason Brown worked for the rival Cook Islands News. Jason, allegedly, was infamous for misquoting his sources and getting his facts wrong. (He has since mercifully taken his skill set to New Zealand.)

Jason was younger, taller, stockier and blonder than I was. Didn’t matter. All the Cook Islanders saw was a white face with a notebook. I had a difficult time convincing people that I would not make them look bad in print. That they could trust me.

Things have gone smoother this second time round. Maybe those whom Jason (allegedly) burned have moved on. Maybe seeing me on TV has added a personality to my name. Maybe I just have an honest face.

But just when I was starting to feel like a local, like I was fitting in, I had two reminders this week that I will always been the foreigner. The invader. The unwanted.

The occasion was the visit of two men to Rarotonga, both of them fiercely nationalistic, to the point that the White Man, any white man, is pretty much a sworn enemy.

The first of these was Tame Iti, he of the tattooed visage, whom I’d seen on the New Zealand news often stumbling along the line in the sand that marks the boundaries of the law.

Iti is a New Zealand Maori but I say that only to differentiate him from the Cook Islands Maori. When I was introduced to the man, I played dumb and asked if he was from New Zealand (if I needed a first clue, it was this: Cook Islanders don’t feel the need to disfigure their features).

“I’m from Aotearoa,” came the answer, as I knew it would.

Iti, of course, was using the NZ Maori name for the country. Loosely translated, it means “the land of the long white cloud.”

I see it used a lot in the Cook Islands, even in the CI News, in place of New Zealand. I’m not sure why, because the last time I checked my atlas, that grouping of three islands southeast of Australia was still labeled New Zealand.

The second man I met was Oscar Temaru, the former president of French Polynesia. Except, during our interview, Temaru referred to his country as Tahiti Nui.

“You mean, French-occupied Polynesia,” he responded when I asked him about this discrepancy.

Iti and Temaru – two men from different countries with the same dream: to see every white face leave their respective country. Two men who are all about Poly Power. All about xenophobia.

Two men whom I took great pleasure in making shake my hand. My white hand.

I’m from British Columbia, you see. Canada’s gateway to the Orient. I’ve seen the future. It arrives on every flight from Asia. It’s taken over entire communities in B.C.

Tame Iti doesn’t understand that it’s not the White Man he needs to worry about. It’s the Chinese.

For his part, Oscar Temaru is openly courting China to fund all manner of civic projects. He has obviously not visited the two buildings on this island that China built in exchange for Cook Islanders waving the “Taiwan sucks” banner.

The justice building and the police headquarters are twin disasters, infested with so many architectural and construction problems that it would be a small mercy to just bulldoze them into rubble.

These are the sort of problems Temaru is inviting in, opening his country’s doors like a willing victim ushering the vampire across the threshold, all while praising the sharpness of its fangs.

Needless to say, it’s going to end in tears.

Iti is equally misguided in the venting of his spleen. While ‘European’ New Zealander politicians have tripped over themselves to apologize to NZ Maoris for something that happened several centuries ago, Asians in New Zealand feel no such compunction to play nice. They simply work hard, pay their taxes, let the Maoris rant and rave, and then import all their relatives.

While Iti and Temaru shake their fists at the White Man, vowing to drive the entire Cacausian horde into the sea, they are so busy looking backwards at past slights to see what is bearing down on them like a human tsunami.

By the time these two misguided flagbearers of jingoism turn around, it will be too late: their great-grandchildren will be speaking Mandarin.

What do the Chinese call New Zealand and French Polynesia? We’re about to find out.

Calendar challenge a lot like herding cats on a beach. You need to tread carefully.

I’ve always enjoyed taking photos, even before I started earning a living as a reporter who also knew his way around a camera. I count myself fortunate to have worked with the likes of John Gordon, Rob Newell and Ted Colley at the Langley Times, and could only hope some of their magic dust settled on me and my beloved Nikon.

Digital photography – no more counting the cost of film and developing – and a blog with which to showcase my work – bitemymoko.wordpress.com – only deepened my love for the art of painting with light.

A return to the Cook Islands has been this photographer’s dream come true. You can point a camera in practically any direction on Rarotonga and capture an image to rival the postcards.

So you can imagine my excitement at being recruited to take eight of the 13 photos needed for the 2011 Miss Cook Islands calendar. Beautiful young women, exotic locales: a match made in heaven, right?

Only if they herd cats in heaven.

To date, it’s been an, um, interesting assignment, as evidenced by the “blooper” photos I’ve included with this posting. But make no mistake: this is a job. As much as I envied those shooters who worked on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Editions, I now understand that it’s not all sun, sea and skin. There is also sweat. And, on occasion, swearing.

Of course, those elite photographers have an army of assistants working for them and, so I imagine, have little more to do than glance through the viewfinder and trip the shutter.
For the most part, I’ve had to put in most of the effort on this project, short of styling hair and applying makeup.

The majority of the models – all former contestants in the Miss Cook Islands pageant – have been absolute dreams to work with. Some of them have not, which probably explains why an assignment with a May 31 deadline has now drifted into June.

Mind you, I’m not complaining. I’ve taken some wonderful shots – I humbly call them “happy accidents” – of some stunningly beautiful women whom I felt privileged to work with. But I’ve come to realize that, if I hope to continue shifting my career arc away from journalism and into fashion/beauty photography, I need to get serious about my craft. This calendar project has been a wakeup call and I appreciate the lessons I’ve learned.

With three different photographers contributing images, the final product should have a very interesting look to it. I hope the Miss Cook Islands organizing committee sells thousands of calendars and raises all the funds needed to help sponsor the next event.

But, more than that, I hope I emerge at the other end with new skills and a new outlook and a new appreciation for how difficult even the easiest-looking task can be.

While aiming my camera at pretty girls, I’m also aiming to be a better photographer by the time the final shot is taken.