• China is Australia’s largest two-way trading partner.
• In 2008 there were 66,000 Chinese nationals studying in Australia, the largest contingent of Australia’s international student population.
• Only 2.5% of Australian year 12 students study Chinese, and 94% of them are first language speakers

Source: Asia Education Foundation (2009) “An Australian curriculum for the 21st century”, winter 2009.

Jack has a good chance of becoming the next Mayor of Wellington City. If you google “Wellington mayor”, you will see Jack’s campaign site displayed prominently on page 1 (after the official Wellington site and Wikipedia), further demonstration of Jack’s internet marketing prowess. Jack is impressive not just because of his amazing business credentials. I remember chatting with him a few years ago and discovering he is one of very few Kiwis who can speak both French and Cantonese – and putting his language skills to good use in business.

I hope Jack’s story will inspire you to learn another language, perhaps to finally work on the new year resolution that keeps reappearing on your list every January.

In the 1970s, New Zealand was a far more monocultural place. When I was four, two of my cousins, who were slightly older, were attending primary school and started speaking English at home, instead of our native Cantonese. I asked my parents if I could do the same.

My parents were usually pretty good at rationalizing things to me. Mum explained, ‘No, because it’s important that you speak Cantonese at home, and leave English for outside. Wouldn’t it be better to speak two languages well rather than one?’

That sold me.

A similar argument came at age six, when my parents asked if I would like to learn an extra language.

The choices offered in 1978 at St Mark’s Church School, Wellington, were French and Japanese.

‘Wouldn’t you like to learn Japanese?’ asked Mum. ‘The Japanese have some characters that are the same as ours, and you can learn to write your own language.’

While none of my Japanese friends would like to hear this, the thought that went through my mind at that age was, ‘I’m not learning a form of Chinese with the wrong pronunciations.’ Hey, I was six.

However, I never regretted that decision.

Of all my travels, I only have visited Japan once. Few business opportunities ever availed themselves in that country. However, I have visited France over half a dozen times, with most of those times for work.

It’s especially handy given I own a fashion magazine, Lucire, and Paris is very much the centre of that industry in so many respects. Even things as simple as filling in a form present no challenges.

At the Medinge Group, a think-tank where I am a director, we hand out Brands with a Conscience every year. We do so from Paris, rather than our usual Swedish location.

Even back in Wellington, French is very useful when chatting to expatriates or dealing with the diplomatic corps.

It’s been a good foundation for other countries. For example, I was able to travel through Italy and understand the locals. The languages are dissimilar, but there are enough common roots that you can get pick out key words and get about the place.

I would hate to think where I would be without these languages. Certainly in business, I would have lost plenty of opportunities dealing with French designers, photographers, and make-up artists. I would not have been able to develop business in Hong Kong, my home town, where Cantonese is the norm. I would have been pretty lost in various American Chinatowns, unable to get proper medicine if I was sick, if I did not have any Taishanese.

I also have a limited grasp of Swedish, which has helped my work at Medinge and some of the work I do in Sweden.

While 90 per cent of Swedes speak English, Swedish is still the language in which they conduct most of their lives, so being able to read and write some of it, even if my comprehension has some way to go, has been incredibly useful.

With understanding a language comes understanding a culture, often the biggest barrier in international business.

The extra language is an extra means to get inside the other side’s mindsets, and attempt to find that common ground where you can do business or form a friendship.

As a mayoral candidate, I have discovered that the skills you acquire in learning languages come into play in politics.

Over the 18 months, in preparation for my mayoral run, I have attended more diplomatic events, in part to pave the way for better relations with other countries should I be elected.

You can’t just go and demand sister-city relationships with others if you don’t lay the groundwork first. To do that, you must have some accord.

In all these conversations, you are acutely aware that you are an ambassador for Wellington and New Zealand, and you are finding a way to promote us in a way our foreign visitors understand.

They respect you in return because you know your own language and heritage, those of the country which you have adopted as your home for 34 years, and you have extended your goodwill by embracing theirs.

Beyond business, arts, cultural exchanges and politics, multilingualism gives a person one extra thing.

It shows that you are complete, and you have a sense of self. That equates best to the Māori concept of mana. It is the greatest advantage one has over others in so many facets of life.

Signing of Malaysia NZ FTA; (L-R) Tim Groser, John Key, Najib, Mustapa

Monday 26 October 2009 was a historic day for Malaysia – New Zealand relations. 10 years of trade negotiations culminated in the official signing of the Malaysia New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. A group of 45 businesspeople from New Zealand, coupled with another 15 or so New Zealanders residing in Malaysia accompanied Prime Minister John Key to Malaysia for this historic event. I had the privelege of joining the NZ delegation to Kuala Lumpur. The irony is I am Malaysian and KL is my hometown, and it felt a little weird being on the other side. Nevertheless it was an amazing experience being part of this momentous occasion.

Free Trade Agreements are highly beneficial for New Zealand. Relatively speaking, New Zealand is already a very free country, with few tariffs and trade barriers, making it very easy for foreign businesses to do business in NZ. However, the same is not true for most other nations.

Pg 2 of The Star on Malaysia NZ FTA

Many countries impose significant tariffs on imported goods, and have convoluted non-tariff barriers designed to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.  This is why it is easy for NZ to sign up to a free trade agreement because these agreements most definitely result in net gains for NZ businesses. The real difficulty is in convincing foreign nations to give up long standing tariffs.  The Kiwi trade negotiators have very few bargaining chips to play with, a key reason why I have a lot of respect for these guys.

This is why I’m unhappy with the negative people who complain that FTAs are useless and are merely tools for select few businesses to make more money. The reality for exporters is that because of this FTA, tariffs for kiwifruit exports to Malaysia will go from 15% to 0%. Fonterra will see liquid milk quotas increasing significantly to 2.1m litres p.a., and a reduction of the  20% inquota tariff for liquid milk to 0%. Considering Fonterra’s market share in Malaysia for the adult milk category is 77% and 80% in prenatal dairy products, this is a huge win.

PM's motorcade with police outriders, view from coach I was in

Education institutions can secure 70% shareholding (up from 49% currently) in Malaysian-domiciled joint ventures by 2015.  Fran O’Sullivan (who was in Malaysia with the trade delegation) discusses benefits for NZ education providers in her 28 October editorial “Malaysia the key to unlock other doors“.

Ultimately, the Malaysia NZ FTA is all about enhancing already strong and long enduring ties between the two nations. As politics and economics are so intertwined, the partnership of two nations via the FTA symbolises the mutual commitment of both parties.

As I have never been on a New Zealand trade delegation signing an FTA, this trip was a real eye-opener for me. NZTE and MFAT did a great job putting the programme together. We certainly enjoyed the ride in the PM’s motorcade. The 60-strong trade delegation were put in two coaches, behind the PM’s car and security detail (probably half the cars carried security personnel).  I sat behind the bus driver and could see the speedo hitting the top speed of 120 kmh, the driver struggling to keep up .

invite from Malaysian Prime Minister

Knowing KL traffic, it’s amazing to see the motorways cleared, with the entourage going from KL to Shah Alam in record time. They even sent an ambulance along to accompany the motorcade. My guess is this is because they don’t want any delay in despatching medical assistance should anything happen to visiting heads of state. We managed to visit the new Datacom office in Bandar Utama and the new Fonterra yoghurt factory in Shah Alam, had lunch and got back to KL Hilton within 4 or 5 hours. Under normal traffic conditions,  driving time alone would already take that long. The other bonus for me personally is to have received a dinner invitation from the Malaysian Prime Minister (extended to all visiting New Zealand delegates).  Had I stayed on in Malaysia and not moved to NZ, I don’t know when I would receive a dinner invite from the Malaysian PM’s office.  The other interesting irony is that I received a New Zealand Prime Ministerial invite before the Malaysian one (18 months ago, to celebrate the signing of the China NZ FTA).

NZ trade delegation to Malaysia, with members of Malaysia NZ Business Council

Malaysia and New Zealand have strong historic links dating back to the 1940s with New Zealand soldiers helping Malaya fight the communists, and students from Malaysia arriving in New Zealand in the 1950s and 60s under the Colombo Plan.

Several New Zealand Army officers served in Malaya while on secondment with British units from 1949. New Zealand became more directly involved in the Malayan Emergency operations in 1955, following its decision to contribute forces to the British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve.  In total, 1300 New Zealanders served as part of a Commonwealth force including army, air force and navy.

The Colombo Plan was a plan for Cooperative Economic Development of South and South East Asia and was conceived at a meeting of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers held in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in January 1950. All aid was given on a bi-lateral basis and the negotiations were conducted between the donor and the receiving government. No conditions or strings were attached to any aid provided and there was no expectation of a return by the donor country.

Petronas Twin Towers

More than 300,000 recipients benefited from this scholarship during the period 1951-1989. Scholars were trained in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and United Kingdom.  Many New Zealand graduates are now in senior and influential positions within the government and private sectors in Malaysia.

During the KL trip, I took  two of the New Zealand delegates to the Petronas Twin Towers. On the way there, we stopped at the mosque behind KLCC as they were fascinated with the architecture. It was almost midnight, and we bumped into 3 security guards at the mosque. They were very friendly and asked me in Bahasa (Malay language) where the guests are from. I said New Zealand. They immediately smiled and were very friendly, even asking if we wanted to take photos inside the mosque.  They knew the All Blacks (it would be difficult to find one Malaysian who doesn’t recognise this most famous of Kiwi brands), and one of them mentioned Jonah Lomu. My Kiwi friends were most impressed with the Malaysians they have met, and were very keen to explore what can be done in Malaysia. This is why I am optimistic that Malaysia New Zealand relations will go from strength to strength.

[Update 3/11/09: Full report on the signing of the Malaysia NZ FTA]

Seeing Brazil has now beaten Chicago and Madrid to the hosting rights of Olympics 2016, it’s certainly time to consider learning Portuguese. We’re often asked which are the most popular languages learnt by Kiwis.  Spanish and French are high on the rankings, and even German and Italian would be ahead of Portuguese.

Brazil is often overlooked. This despite Brazil being the fifth largest country in the world by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America,the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world, according to Wikipedia.  Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until its independence in 1822. This is why Brazilians speak Portuguese.

Looking ahead, I can imagine the Portuguese language would only be more popular.  In the same way that we saw a steep rise in interest in Mandarin leading up to the Beijing Olympics, I envisage we will see the same interest in Portuguese.

It’s not a hard sell. Anyone who have had personal encounters with Brazilians will know why. Portuguese is a cool and sexy language. I’m surprised we don’t already have people queuing up for Portuguese lessons.

Here’s the list:

1. Pig’s Blood Cake; Taiwan.

Also known as Ti-hoeh-koe, Pig’s blood cake is made of pork blood and sticky rice. steamed for a snack. You dip pig’s blood cake with a layer of peanut powder and spread some cilantro/coriander.  Apparently, the aroma of the chewy rice cake makes everyone’s mouth water. In case you were wondering, yes, the pig’s blood is literally that.

2. Live Octopus; South Korea – If anything this is fresher than the usual calamari so I don’t think I have huge issues with eating this. I wonder how long they stay alive after you cut them up.

3. Grasshopper; Uganda

4. Pigeon; France – yummy, but don’t think you can order this in a New Zealand restaurant.

5. Durian; Malaysia – my favourite fruit from my home country; I can never have enough of this. Just looking at the picture makes me drool…

6. Lutefisk; Norway – Marinated in lye, this gummy fish takes days to prepare and is described as one of the most vile-tasting foodstuffs ever created.

7. Grubs; Australia – These white, high-in-protein snacks are actually the larvae of moths and an important insect food of the desert, once a staple in the diets of some Aborigines.

8. Snake Wine; Vietnam

9. Donkey; Italy

10. Ostrich; South Africa – what so unusual about this? If ostrich meat is on this list, surely crocodile meat and kangaroo meat should be too…