Now Hear this.

Author: Literacy Waitākere

  • I am who I am.

    We are all different. Each one of us is unique. Nature made us individuals. No two of us are exactly the same.

    Some of us are old, while others are young, and there’s nothing we can do about that. Well, some people lie about it. For different reasons, they add years or take them away. Some of us are tall and some are short, and apart from high heels, there’s no remedy for shortness.

    Nature made some of us fat and others thin. When I was a kid, I was very thin and it made me unhappy, because other kids would point at me, laugh and call me skinny. I hated that. I think the same goes for fat people. Fat and thin are only words, but they can be very hurtful.

    Of course, different cultures look at fatness differently. For some cultures, big is beautiful, which is why I’m showing you these photos. They’re in Aotea Square until February 16. They’re by a Chinese artist, Xu Hongfei, and they celebrate large ladies. The message is Be who you are and be happy!

    If you haven’t seen them yet, they’re well worth a look. And they’re a great selfie or group-photo opportunity.

    And a skinny man to end off!!!

  • Happy New Year!

    It was recently the lunar new year … the Year of the Snake. This is a very special time for people with an Asian background. According to the 2023 census, 31.3% of people in Auckland said they were of Asian ethnicity. And among people who live in the centre of Auckland, 50.4% also said the same. Big numbers!

    One way to mark the occasion in Auckland is this three-metre tall lucky cat or maneki-neko in Aotea Square. Here’s hoping it’s a very lucky year for one and all.

  • Figs and Flock

    Every Saturday morning, there’s a farmer’s market at Britomart in the CBD. Last week, I went there to buy something, the same thing I buy once a week in summer. There’s a stall that sells fruit and vegetables, and when figs are in season, that’s what I buy.

    Supermarkets sell figs, too, but they only sell them singly, one at a time, and they’re expensive. Sometimes, they can ask between $3 and $5 for one! But at the farmer’s market, you can buy a big punnet of them. As you can see in the picture below, they come in a 3-litre ice cream container. 

    The figs are big, and there’s maybe a dozen per punnet. If I was buying twelve single figs in a supermarket, I’d pay over $30. That’s expensive! Last year, the guy at this stall was selling punnets for $15. This year, the price has gone up to $20, but it’s still good value.

    Figs have a short season, so it’s a good idea to enjoy them while they’re here. Just like people.

    As I was walking home, I saw the windows of this empty shop, but I didn’t know what it was. I thought HOKA was the company name. In the window on the right, I thought the top shape was a big, white bird, and birds land when they leave the air and come to the ground, so I thought maybe it was a pet store.

    But another way to say landing soon is coming soon. I took the picture in January, so next month was soon. But I still didn’t know what HOKA was.

    The window on the left asks us to join the flock. Well, flock is the name for a group of animals, for example a flock of sheep or a flock of birds, so again, I thought it might be a pet store.

    But flock has another meaning when it’s a verb. It refers to when people go somehere in large numbers, so I guess the shop wants lots and lots of people to go there and buy stuff.

    But it’s not a pet store. I checked on the internet, and if you don’t know what HOKA sells, follow this link.

  • GOING FOR GOLD!

    The three things in the picture above are connected, but how? There’s a phone, a pack of pocket tissues, and a Gold Card. One thing that connects them is that they’re all mine, but there’s another connection, and here it is.

    I was going home on the bus, and I tagged off outside the car lot in the picture below. As I was getting off, I put my Gold Card into my trouser pocket. I was listening to music on my phone at the time, and the phone was in that pocket. Also in the pocket was a pack of tissues. When I put the card in my pocket, it must have gone between the phone and the tissues, like a sandwich.

    I wanted to change the song that was playing, so I took my phone out. However, this wasn’t easy because the pocket was tight. I had to fiddle about a bit, but I finally got it out.

    Now let’s pause here for a moment for some background.

    When I was getting off the bus, a man was coming out of the car lot, just where the arrow is in the picture. As I was trying to get my phone out, I didn’t want to bump into him, so I moved out of his way and walked on. I still had my ear buds in, but I thought I heard someone saying something behind me. I thought it was that man, but when I turned around, I couldn’t see him.  

    I kept looking, and I saw him on the ground. He was bending down and picking something up. It was my Gold Card! It fell out of my pocket when I was fiddling with my phone, but I didn’t realise. I didn’t see it and I didn’t hear it.

    I was lucky because the man saw what happened. He could have said nothing, but instead he did the right thing by telling me. Actually, the man didn’t say anything, because we both understood what happened. There was no need for words. 

    I like to think that I would do the same thing. It’s a simple thing to help people. If that man hadn’t acted, I would have gone home none the wiser, and when I went to pull out my Gold Card again, I’d be scratching my head wondering where it was.

  • Look behind you!

    Street signs need to be big and colourful to make you notice them. These ones are near where I live, and I see them every day when I’m walking home from the supermarket. But just like every story, street signs have two sides, too.

    One day, I looked behind me at the back of the small blue sign that says Begins, and this is what I saw.

    At first, I thought it was an advertisement for Burger King, but I didn’t know what SQWEK meant. It’s a word, and you can say it easily, but you won’t find it in the dictionary.

    I was sure I had seen it somewhere before, but I couldn’t remember where. Then it came to me, so I went there and took this photo.

    It’s on a roller door in Cross Street behind K Road. I like it, and I think it looks pretty cool, but maybe the building owners have a different opinion.

    I was happy that I’d remembered where I’d seen it, but I still didn’t know what it meant, so I jumped online and asked Mrs Google for help. The first thing that I found was this image about Palestine, but you’ll notice that it’s spelt slightly differently.

    If anyone has any info, I’d be glad to hear.

    PS: A few hours after I posted this, I went for a walk through my local park before dinner. I usually walk here every day. I do a loop, walking from the bottom to the top and then back down again. I’ve walked here for years and years, so I think I know it pretty well.

    At the bottom of the park, there are public tennis courts where anyone can play. You just turn up, and if a court is free, you‘re good to go. Both courts are usually busy, especially during summer when the weather if nice, but in the picture below, the courts were unoccupied.

    Yesterday, when I was nearly home, I looked at the fence at the back of the tennis courts and saw the picture below. This banner is not new, but I never noticed it before, so maybe I don’t know the park as well as I thought! It’s our old friend SQWEK.

    That was yesterday, but today I was walking past a building site in the city and I saw this. The picture above is old, but the one below is new because if you look closely, you’ll see 2025 at the foot of the leg of the letter K. This guy SQWEK gets around!

  • And stuff like that

    I was walking home from the supermarket, and he was walking towards me on the same side of the street. He was alone. He was wearing a backpack, and he was holding it by the straps. It was early in the day, so he was going to work. He was talking, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was on a call.

    As he came closer to me, I heard a snatch of what he was saying. This is what he said: “The people paint their houses beautiful colours and stuff like that.”

    Because I’m a language teacher, I started to think about his words. I only heard a little bit of his conversation, but I knew he was talking about a holiday overseas.

    He said the people. If he was talking about this country, I think he would just say people. And when he said the, I think he meant everybody, not just some people, so there are many colourful houses.

    You can find pictures of lots of colourful houses in other countries on the internet, but I haven’t seen anything like that in Auckland. Yet.

    But back to the language. I found the man’s last few words interesting: “… and stuff like that”. 

    Stuff  is a general word that can mean many things. In this case, the man knew the person he was talking to. He knew that the other person understood him, so he didn’t have to give any more details.

    And stuff like that is a useful phrase that is similar to you know what I mean or etc. or I don’t need to give you any more details.

  • Just a minute, please.

    I always start my day the same way. At breakfast, I read a newspaper online, have some black coffee and two crumpets. This is what my breakfast looks like. 

    I toast the crumpets, spread both of them with butter, put jam on one, and because it’s breakfast, marmalade on the other.

    But one morning, I knew I was going to have a problem the next day because I only had marmalade left. I had run out of jam.

    I wanted something a wee bit different, so I went into a small shop to buy some black cherry jam. I really like that. But things didn’t go as planned.

    The shop is small, and there are never many customers. The day I went in, I was the only customer. There was a young woman behind the counter, and she was doing some paperwork.

    I said hello, went to the shelves, found the jam, and took out my card to pay. I walked back to the counter and waited for her to set up the PayWave device. I waited, but it was very slow.

    I smiled at her and told her not to worry. I said I had all day but nothing to do, so I wasn’t in a hurry.

    This is the jam I wanted to buy and her trying to complete the sale.

    She kept trying and I kept waiting, but nothing happened. It was getting uncomfortable for both of us, so I said I would come back another time.

    But as soon as I opened my mouth, there was movement on the device, so I decided to wait a little longer. And wait. And wait. Finally, we both agreed to call it a day.

    It’s been three days since that happened, but I haven’t gone back to the shop yet. I got some ordinary jam from the supermarket instead. 

    Technology, when it’s working properly, can make life easy, but sometimes it has a mind of its own and decides to show us who’s boss.

  • Finders keepers, losers weepers? Not today!

    In an earlier post, I told about finding this tennis ball on the street. I took it home, adopted it, and now we’re best friends.

    This afternoon, I found something else in a park. I also took it home, but I’m not going to keep it. It belongs to someone who needs it. It’s a Community Services Card. This card is very important because it can lower the cost of going to the doctor. This is the card, but I’ve blocked out any personal details.

    Fortunately, though, there was a freephone number on the front of the card. I called it and got this recorded message: “Our current wait time is around 79 minutes.” I said to myself: “Thanks, but no thanks!” 

    But all was not lost! There was something else I could try. On the back of the card, there was another number.

    I called it, and a voice gave me this message: “Our current wait time is around 86 minutes.” Guess what I said!

    So I had to think of another way to contact the card owner and let her know. I looked for her name in an online telephone directory, but drew a blank.

    Then I found there was an office on Queen Street. I went there and explained to a security guard, and he said he would take it from there. It’s out of my hands now, and it’s up to someone else to sort it out. I’ve done my good deed for the day.

    Did you understand the title of today’s post?

  • A Second Life

    At the start of the New Year, some people clean their house, and get rid of things they no longer need or want. That’s what I did.

    I got a big blue bag, and in it, I put a couple of pairs of shoes, a couple of books, and a dish rack. I also put in a pair of grey summer shorts that were too small for me (or I was too big for them). Can you see the things in the bag?

    They were in good condition, so I didn’t just throw them out. I gave them to a shop to sell. It’s the Mercy Hospice shop on Ponsonby Road in Auckland. 

    Where do the things in the shop come from? People donate goods to the shop, it sells them at a good price, and the money goes to people who need special help.

    The people who need help are very sick and close to death. They stay in a special hospital called a hospice, and their final days are as pain-free as possible. I remember visiting one of my teaching colleagues there when she was dying. She was a lovely woman.

    I think hospices are a very good idea, not because I might need that kind of care someday, but because other people need it right now.

    Anyway, as I was walking to the shop on a very hot and sunny afternoon, I stopped for a rest, and I saw this. It made me laugh.

    It looks like a person sitting with crossed legs on a bench, but it’s made out of tinsel or a Christmas tree. And because it was very hot, somebody was kind enough to put a cool drink in its hand.

  • Out with the old, in with the new

    This will be a short post.

    Another year bites the dust! Bye-bye 2024. We know what the old year held for us, but what about the new one? What will 2025 hold?

    Looking to the future, we all hope for success, health and happiness in the new year, both for ourselves and our loved ones, but sometimes we have to give those things a helping hand.

    Hopefully, when this time rolls around again, we’ll be able to say that we got all that we wanted in 2025. 

    Auckland celebrated the New Year with a fireworks display from the Sky Tower.

    Here’s the start of the display. You might be able to see a clock on the tower counting down the seconds to midnight while the crowd joins in.

    And here’s the end of the display.