The first chicks are hatching and we were so relieved to have gotten the podcast off the ground before they did.
Generally speaking, podcasts get easier to make as you go along, but the teething period can be quite a lot of work. Sorting out the format, the music, the pacing, the post production sweetening.. then massaging those pieces as you go along.
Eventually you build up somewhat of a template and everything becomes easier.. the writing, the sound effects.. you get much more of a feel of where things need to go and as long as the workflow doesn’t change (using different mics etc), you can also typically use the same post production sweetening effects without having to rebuild them from scratch.
Some podcasts lean into their templates a little too heavily, to the point where you can’t tell one episode from another. So as this production improved, I tried to push for themes and certain silliness to come through and give individual episodes their own feel.
However there were smaller hurdles to get over first..
It was my Mum who initially pointed out my terrible pronunciation from Episode 1, so I immediately started working hard to rectify it.
In all honesty, I probably never nailed it, but I tried hard.
I’ve spent time in several countries and at least attempted to expand on the basics of the local language wherever I was, whether it be the Middle East or Scandinavia.
Typically the locals have been really encouraging, even as I butchered my way through their dialects, and it made me want to learn more and try harder.
New Zealand’s colonial history however has had a serious effect on attitudes to learning te reo Māori.
In the very early days of sharing the country, everyone spoke te reo. However as the colonial population grew and English-style schools were established, the Māori language was taken out of the cirriculum to make pupils more European, before te reo was outright banned and its use resulted in canings and corporal punishment.
I grew up in the 1980’s during efforts to revitalise the language and had no idea about this fraught past.
I was always a keen learner, especially as my Mum always lamented not being allowed to learn it when she went to school.
I only stopped learning when I got to High School because to take up the language lessons also meant joining kapa haka. The thought of my shimmering tiny white frame lining up alongside many of the people who’d spent the preceding years bullying the snot out of me was enough to make my mind up to quit.
I was never happy about having to make this choice, but it turns out I was one of the lucky ones.. it wasn’t until my late 20’s that I found out my South Island friends hadn’t had lessons at all!
Still, it rankled me for years and when I went to work for Māori TV, I tried hard to use small amounts of te reo and fit in.
I naively thought this would be appreciated, but was instead the butt of many jokes and discouraged from trying.
This was not a thinking I understood.
I thought encouraging the use of the language and anyone trying to use it should be a high priority, especially for Māori.. but I was wrong.
I was bitter and felt excluded, I was annoyed I wasn’t being encouraged like I had been overseas to speak other languages. I felt the hyperfocus on pronunciation was at once officious and overbearing, the feeling being if you couldn’t get it right, you shouldn’t bother at all.
What I didn’t initially understand about their being protective of their native language was that in many regards it was all they had left of a culture which had been decimated by settlers.
I felt learning the language made the country whole and they felt like my learning and mispronouncing it was another white man taking their culture from them.
You just don’t know what you don’t know, and understanding another person’s point of view can sometimes be a very long road.
I remembered this hard lesson vividly when my Mum pointed out how bad my pronunciation was with a giggle. It had been more than a decade since, but those feelings of shame at my myopic viewpoint came flooding back.
Personally, I feel my homeland would benefit enormously from being bilingual, I really do. However I have a newfound respect for the pronunciation.
When it came to this podcast, I tried my best, I really did.
I know it’s not perfect, but I hope it really did get better over the course of the series and that in future, it will improve further too.
EP 02: Puff Nuggets