My Notes on New Zealand

I don't intend this to be anything more than it is: a type-written copy of the general observations I've been making about New Zealand.  It would be a huge mistake for anyone to misconstrue this as any sort of journalistic enterprise with even the slightest amount of authority or organization.  So, disclaimer out of the way, here's what I've seen:

• The British influence is unavoidable.  New Zealand, like Australia, has its own government, but still resides "under the Queen".  There's the accent, of course: a sort of drawled, kicked-back version of the Queen's English.  Then there's the place names: Christchurch, Oxford, Queenstown, Invercargil and Dunedin (those last two are Scottish settlements).  Sport: Rugby and Cricket are the two big ones, games still played in collared shirts.  Food: you can find beans on a lot of breakfast menus, and tea is ubiquitous, as in the motherland.

• New Zealand is also home to an indigenous population of polynesian people called the Maori that landed here a long time before Captain Cook.  Their cultural influence is as much a part of the Kiwi identity as the British part.   Aside from volumes of omnipresent visual imagery, the Maori have their own political party, language instruction in schools, a TV channel, radio station, and villages into which only Maoris are allowed. They've also had an impact on the accent: there's a popular TV commercial that embodies it well (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYvD9DI1ZA) and a YouTube video a couple of Australians whipped up to poke fun at the Kiwi accent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVHZwI8pcA).  There is also a whole other set of place names that will tie your tongue in knots: Pukekohe, Whakatane, Rotorua, Urewera and Waikaremoana, for example.

• Each culture is distinct from the other, but both are an essential part of the national identity, like yin and yang.  

• New Zealanders LOVE Rugby.  Their national team, The All Blacks, won the World Cup for the first time in a long time here in NZ in October, right before I showed up.  The flags are still flying.

• Rugby players wear short shorts, so unfortunately that's embedded itself as a fashion trend here among men, even among well-out-of-shape men that you would really never want to see in short shorts.  And mullets everywhere, without shame.  Jean shorts too, even cut-offs.

• Lots of cute nicknames, like boat drivers are "Boaties", throat drops are "throaties", the barbeque is the "barby", the Off-License liquor store is an "Offie".

• New Zealand is not a country made for cities, and I wouldn't recommend traveling here to be a tourist in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch.  Do that in Europe: go see Paris, London, Prague, and Barcelona.  New Zealand's best sightseeing is found in the natural environment.

• There's no Starbucks in New Zealand.  Maybe one in Auckland, one in Wellington, one in Queenstown.  Haven't seen any in Christchurch.  People somehow get by here without one on every corner - imagine that!

• Sheep outnumber people in NZ by 20:1

• New Zealanders take a great interest in their country's natural environment.  People have a decent understanding of the geology, geography, and the plant and animal life.  Everyone's an amateur naturalist.

• Anything with fur is not indigenous to New Zealand (as many NZers have told me).  And there are lots of furry things here.  New Zealand suffers from a history of rare indigenous species being wiped out by common, imported ones.  

• The birds here are numerous and impressive: kiwis, parrots, penguins, GIANT pigeons (would eat our city pigeons for breakfast), peacocks, some big birds of prey, and innumerable other strange and colorful birds endemic to New Zealand, lots of them flightless.  There used to be a giant, solid-boned, ostrich-like bird here called a Moa, but they have since become extinct (apparently, the Maori ate most of them and the Brits finished them off).

• People read the newspaper.  Regularly.  Thoroughly.  And defend their regional papers which make room for world reports and entirely small, local news (like hay thieves).  The newspapers here, much like the ones I've seen in Ireland, can be a bit tabloid and sensational.  The news is there, but there's also present an emotional appeal you wouldn't find in the Times or the Wall Street Journal.

• People understand the weather.  They know the difference between a low-pressure system from the SE and and high from the NW - there's a big difference!  And I suppose they have to - it's a reaction to their environment, being sandwiched between the tropics and Antarctica.  If being a weatherman in San Diego is the easiest job in the world, then being a weatherman in New Zealand has to be the hardest.  The weather changes by the minute and there are so many discreet regions with different climate patterns packed very tightly together.  Watching an evening news weather report is exhausting: it's rainy here, but only cloudy there and sunny here but only in the morning, then chilly, grey and windy in the afternoon, sunny again tomorrow... and that's only one corner of one island for the next 12 hours! 

• Kiwis love American country music.  Love it.  I think it resonates with the landscape, and the people that still make a living working the land, so it's kind of like middle America, except...

• This is a very liberal culture.  We are talking full-on tree-hugging, tears-for-puppies, bleeding heart Greens.  Not that I have a problem with that (I'm still young enough to lean a bit left myself), but it's just very apparent here.  Rugby-playing cowboys for social medicine, I'm telling you.