Michael Hongfu found it hard to get a decent coffee in Beijing so opened 21 cafes there. Photo / Audrey Young
Michael Hongfu found it hard to get a decent coffee in Beijing so opened 21 cafes there. Photo / Audrey Young
Clare Fearnley is one of three diplomats running the three most prestigious of New Zealand's posts abroad.
She is the ambassador to Beijing and last week hosted a 24-hour visit by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Dame Annette King, the former long-serving Labour Party politician, is New Zealand's woman in Canberra.
And Rosemary Banks came out of retirement to take over the post in Washington DC after former National trade minister Tim Groser completed his term.
Fearnley, a North Asian specialist in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, began her posting in May last year and presented her credentials to President Xi Jinping in June.
"He had very happy memories of his visit to New Zealand a couple of years earlier and also we talked a little about Rewi Alley's contribution as well," she told the Herald in an interview at her favourite café, the Flatwhite, not far from the embassy.
She was thrilled at Ardern's visit to Beijing.
"To have our leaders spending time together gaining an understanding of each side has a knock-on effect across the relationship."
Fearnley did not go directly into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) after studying law at Canterbury University.
New Zealand's ambassador in Beijing, Clare Fearnley, says the budding diplomatics should be curious. Photo / MFAT
She taught English for 18 months in Shaanxi province. She then went back to Beijing University and studied Mandarin at the Beijing Languages Institute.
She then worked for an Australian consultancy, running the Beijing office of Stephen Fitzgerald - he had been Australia's first ambassador to China under Gough Whitlam.
During that time, she applied to join New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
One of her many roles in MFAT included Consul-General in Shanghai and head of the New Zealand Commerce and Industry Office Taipei.
Immediately before Beijing, she was ambassador to South Korea for three years, cross-accredited to Pyongyang.
But she is thrilled to be back in China as New Zealand's 13th ambassador since diplomatic relations began in 1972.
"It's a great to be here because there is so much happening in the bilateral relationship so it is a pleasure to be back here.
"We are living in a fairly dynamic world where the external environments have been going through quite a bit of change in recent years and that has an impact on the bilateral relationships as well."
Fearnley said having an aptitude for languages is a help in the diplomatic corps but it was not essential.
Her advice to young people contemplating joining the foreign ministry is to be curious.
"Be curious about things, about things that get you interested.
"I think one of the most useful things young folk can do is go overseas and maybe live for a while overseas, or at least maybe backpack around and experience other cultures offshore.
"But you can be curious about other cultures onshore as well.
"I think if anything we've learnt over the past couple of weeks, it is the benefit of being open to, being curious about and inquiring about the cultures that are around us in New Zealand."
Cafe Flatwhite is one of her favourite haunts in Beijing and she gets there most weekends.
It is one of many similar cafes opened by Michael Hongfu, a Chinese New Zealander.
New Zealand citizen and Beijing-based businessman Michael Hongfu. Photo / Audrey Young
It is hardly surprising that Hongfu's coffee of choice is the New Zealand speciality the flat white because he has a stable of 21 Flatwhites in Beijing.
Hongfu began acquiring his coffee credentials in Wellington, the coffee capital of New Zealand, as a loyal customer of Fidel's in Cuba St.
In 2006 he opened his first cafe in Beijing and he is now starting in the Shanghai market.
"It was very hard to find a good coffee in Beijing," he said.
Fidel's Roger Young had been a supporter and adviser and now business partner, he said.
It had not been especially easy. He said 80,000 cafes opened every year in China and 80 per cent of the failed.
"It is not Chinese culture," he said. "it is pretty hard."
The main customers were people aged over 30, officer workers and people from abroad or Chinese returning from abroad.
The cafes serve food but the menu varies from place to place depending on the customer.
Hongfu calls himself a "Chiwi" - a Chinese Kiwi. He first came to New Zealand in the late 1980s leaving behind his former life in Beijing as a professional fencing sports coach.
