Selective exposure to Kiwi ways

By Peter Calder

I couldn't help feeling sorry for the chef. Imagine it. You spend months preparing for the meal of a lifetime, a state banquet in honour of the boss of the world's most populous nation, and the countdown is halted just as you're about to serve 350 portions of Kaikoura crayfish.

A mob in the streets is making too much racket on behalf of a small country way up behind the Himalayas. The guest of honour is staying in his room across town and you've got 350 little fillets of beef to bang in the oven. Give the man a break!

Never mind the potato rosti and the panache (don't you just love the language of these menus?) of fresh vegetables. Forget the pavlova and the petits fours. And to hell with the protesters.

Well, not to hell, actually. Just down the road a bit, behind a bunch of buses and out of the very sensitive sight of the Chinese President, Jiang Zemin.

For the record, the Austrian chef, Albert Vallant, was unfazed by the 90-minute delay imposed when Mr Jiang refused to drive past a group of Free Tibet protesters to enter the banquet at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Christchurch on Tuesday night.

"Not really a drama," he said, slowly, unflappably. "Too long in the trade, mate. You get to live with things like that."

Yes, he knew the watchword of fine cuisine that a meal is ready only once.

"But everything's in the fridge until we get the word and then we put on the finishing touches and out it goes."

So if we shouldn't feel sorry for the chef, should we feel sorry for Mr Jiang? After all, Bill Clinton gets to play golf at Millbrook while Mr Jiang sits through a demonstration of sheep shearing.

The American dined with Temuera Morrison and Lucy Lawless; the Chinese had to learn about the finer points of pruning pinus radiata and watch a cocky work a sheep dog.

Perhaps the sight of such loyal canine obedience made him long for the way they did it at home, made him wonder why he should have to put up with the protest pack, barking and baying for a free Tibet.

In any case, he knew: it was his party, and he'd cry foul if he wanted to.

And we knew exactly how to respond: in the grand tradition of making our guests feel at home we scurried about and swept up the unsightly spectacle of dissent.

The police moved the protesters after what our man on the spot called "earnest discussions" with the head of the Prime Minister's office, Dr Mark Prebble.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the PM said Mrs Shipley "did not directly order the police." Her staff "discussed things with the police but it was up to the police to decide what to do."

They were productive discussions. The police emerged from them saying that "a strategy had been put in place."

The protesters were moved; Mr Jiang arrived (with such speed, our man says, he must have been getting into his limo as police started to clear the pavement) and charmed the guests with the plea that the delay "did not belong to my fault."

It's hard to disagree with that. The delay belonged to the fault of those who shouldered aside our rights to freedom of assembly to protect the delicate sensibilities of a man from the country that brought us Tiananmen Square.

How much better to have told him the truth. It's like the sheep dogs and the pine-pruning, Mr Jiang. It's the way we do things here.