"But is it a boy or a girl?" I found myself asking when it was announced last week that New Zealand, that trailblazer of social reform, had declared that one of the country's longest rivers, the Whanganui, is a person.

"The approach of granting legal personality to a river is unique," the country's attorney-general, Chris Finlayson, said with considerable understatement.

I have always got a kick out of telling people that New Zealand was a pioneer, in 1893, in granting women the vote, and that the main claim to fame of its hulking neighbor Australia - which perpetually drags the chain on matters of gender equality - is that one of its prime ministers set a world record for drinking a certain amount of beer in 11 seconds.

But a declaration that means the river can be represented in legal proceedings with two lawyers protecting its interests - so far as I know, most people can't even afford half a lawyer - takes the Land of the Long White Cloud to an entirely new stratosphere.

All this is the result, Agence France-Presse quoted Finlayson as saying, of the settlement of a dispute going back nearly 150 years in which the local Maori tribe had asserted its rights over the river.

Of course, lending personality and gender to the things that surround us is not unusual or new, as any Chinese or Russian, proclaiming love for their motherland, can attest to. (In contrast with this gender certitude, even the most competent Chinese linguist speaking English seems to have serious problems in assigning the right gender to Janet and John.)

Just as we Westerners and Chinese have our deities - such as cars, iPhones and televisions, with their own personalities - other cultures, modern and ancient, have had theirs, be it trees, thunderbolts or, I suppose, wheelbarrows. Come to think of it, in this age of the internet of things, in which you can apparently even form a warm, loving relationship with your fridge, I wonder why Master/Miss/Mr/Mrs/Ms Whanganui should surprise at all.

Which also helps to explain why I was not entirely surprised the other day as I put the final touches to my lipstick and my iPhone blurted out - totally unsolicited, I assure you - "You look gorgeous."

It's anyone's guess as to what the world makes of New Zealand's latest foray into the headlines, the previous big one a year ago when it wrestled with its most pressing issue - what its flag should look like. But as New Zealand's history of female emancipation demonstrates, the country has nothing to be ashamed of.

I have no doubt that in the land of the brave and of spying microwave ovens, if anyone conferred personhood on the Missouri River an army of lawyers would soon be in court arguing about whether it should use the boys' or the girls' bathroom.

The only thing that could bring us light relief from such trivialities would be this intelligence transcript scoop: "Microwave oven 007 to headquarters: 'This guy spends a hell of a lot of time tweeting.'"

Contact the writer at nicholson@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/20/2017 page2)