Tweeting ambassador captures history

Kiwi diplomat and keen photographer Carl Worker (above) with his wife Connie Aldao.

Having a name which has overtones of the proletariat, it was perhaps destiny that diplomat Carl Worker should end up in China.

He did, three times in fact, but Mr Worker's term as ambassador in Beijing is about to end.

He and his Argentine-Kiwi wife, Connie Aldao, will take their two boys, aged 10 and 7, back to New Zealand and, after six years, it's time, he says.

"We will always have a deep affection for China, but the age the kids are at, they won't know what's hit them when they find they can have as much green grass as they want in New Zealand and as much ocean. It will be a great age to get back home."

One of his sons played a part in the flag-raising ceremony at the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Australian Embassy in Beijing.

Mr Worker met Connie while he was ambassador to Argentina and she was head chef and business manager of a famous restaurant in Mendoza.

"She is the proudest new Kiwi," he says. "She learned all the Kiwi favourites, pavlova and ginger crunch and scones the right way."

Mr Worker said she has managed the menus for up to 2500 guests a year through the residence for their local chef. Occasionally she does the cooking herself such as the time Prime Minister John Key hosted a lunch in Beijing this year for about 24 big investors.

"She absolutely rolls up her sleeves in the kitchen. She is a really practical working chef and loves doing it."

Mr Worker has two sons from his first marriage and one of them is working for Fonterra in Beijing.

He is one of New Zealand's dozen or so tweeting ambassadors [@carlworker]. He specialises in photographs, not just of current happenings at the embassy but from archives he has digitised from his two other postings in the 80s and 90s, which have become quite historic.

"You have a ringside seat, really," he said. "I worked out at a certain point that basically history is just what [important] folk are doing today in 30 years time."

He has tried to have a little camera with him to record events that tell the story of the embassy and the relationship, from New Zealand stalls at exhibitions to high-level meetings such as that of former Prime Minister David Lange meeting Deng Xiaoping in 1986 when Mr Worker was second secretary.

"I've got quite a collection that's built up."

Big presence across China is paying off

Carl Worker is responsible for New Zealand's largest mission in the world, with 300 staff on the government payroll.

They are spread over four cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and the new Chengdu consulate which John Key is opening today.

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province in the west, the fourth largest in China in area and population. Chengdu has a population of 14.3 million.

About 250 of the New Zealand staff in China are locals and about 50 are from New Zealand.

Mr Worker is responsible for co-ordinating many NZ Government agencies in China: Foreign Affairs, NZ Trade and Enterprise, Immigration, Defence, Police, Customs, Ministry of Primary Industries, Education, Science and Innovation and Tourism.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully said when you realise New Zealand had gone from below $2 billion of exports a year to China seven years ago to $11.5 billion "you can see the investment is worth it".

The same went for the $40 million about to be spent on a new embassy in Beijing.
"You need to look at it in the context of the return to New Zealand now. It's not like going and doing business in a country where we've got the same heritage, same language, same customs.

"We need to really invest in China if we want to succeed long-term."