Posts Tagged ‘Blogsphere’

Soulless city of Auckland

An Australian couple has upset Kiwis with an online expat guide which warns that Auckland is a "horrible soulless city" and its inhabitants are "hobbits" who cannot dress properly. (Via New Zealand Herald)

Well I have spent a bit of time to read that guy's blog. I'm not a serious traveller therefore I can only comment on Auckland. What that blogger blogged is indeed bit over the top,but most of the comments, although somewhat exaggerated, are also facts.

Auckland indeed lacks a bit of culture, that's how I feel at least. By "culture" I mean not just the presence of culture diversity, but ... how do I put this, a community that respect, cherish, and upholds "serious" culture (not just the culture of get drunk in a pub every Friday evening.) as one of the important life aspects.

What I was really surprised about is not the whines from this Aussie expat, but how Kiwis reacted toward those comments. I mean, it's just a blogger, like myself (possibly you as well), everyone is entitled to have, and publicly express he or she's opinion, and it is a fact of life that no matter how beautiful the Big Sister Helen or the land of Aotearoa is, it is not possible to win a 100% approval rate - that only happens in North Korea, even the Chinese parliament got more nay votes nowadays.

It's not even a news, there are more than a million blogs out there and I believe a fair amount of them is about New Zealand. Single this blogger out only means that 1) marks the new low of NZ journalism, 2) maybe the view of that blogger is not uncommon and there's a need to discuss it on a higher public forum.

So I was really surprised that many "serious" organisations, like Destination Rotorua or New Zealand beer brewery , treated the comments that seriously, even " took exception to an open letter on the site" ... oh I just see a short cut for bloggers who want to get famous. I actually quite liked the smell of Rotorua, but if I badmouth them once maybe I can generate a bit of traffic to my site as well, but I'll only do that after I put up Google Adsense:)

BTW, wonder where's the sense of humour, or it's just like the Nationalists can make fun on everyone else, but when others make fun of Nationalists, their feelings are hurt.