Opposites Attract
Bryan’s recent blog about re-becoming Kiwi got me thinking about all the new experiences for me in New Zealand, without that back history to draw upon.
We often joke that New Zealand is a long way from everywhere. It is 18,390km from the UK. Despite coming from, quite literally, opposite sides of the world, I have never spent much time thinking about how different our countries, and cultures, were to each other. On past trips to New Zealand, I did not see too much difference either, but this trip has given me the opportunity to spend so much longer and see a hell of a lot more of the country. It has given me time to reflect on some of the differences and dare I say quirks of this beautiful country, after all, if I hadn’t spent Christmas in New Zealand I would have missed the opportunity to see Father Christmas in sunglasses, riding his reindeer-drawn sleigh bathed in sunshine.
Food is an important part of any culture, and while there may be many contenders in the New Zealand cuisine for national dish, from my experience the award must go to the New Zealand pie! For fast food, on the go, it is hard to avoid pies. No matter where you are, you will find a “hot pies” sign at nearly every petrol station and convenience store. We have discovered that there is a bit of a pie twilight zone though. If you leave it too late to get the pie of your choice, there are likely to be thin pickings after about 3 pm each day, drawing the conclusion that pies make ideal breakfasts! As non-meat eaters, there is a pretty good selection of vegetarian and vegan options in many outlets. Though not strictly a pie, we allow ourselves a vegan sausage roll treat offered by BP and Z Service Stations when we arrive back in larger towns. With pies starting at just a couple of NZ dollars, they are the easy go-to food and a true NZ institution.
There have been a few food items that caused me some initial confusion. Kiwis tend to flip between British-English and American-English quite readily. I quickly realised that what I understood to be crisps (potato snacks in bags) are referred to by Kiwis as chips. To add further confusion, hot chips are also known to kiwis as chips, or when spoken with a kiwi accent, “chups”. There was some initial confusion on one of our supermarket shops when something didn’t quite gel with me when we bought Weetbix cereal. I grew up knowing it as Weet-a-bix. The cereal was the same, but the Kiwi’s had lost a vowel! Turns out that, despite being fundamentally the same basic product (they were invented by the same person, an Australian incidentally), they are now two distinct brands owned by two different companies. Then there is Kiwi vs British Marmite! A love it or hate it food for many people, British marmite is intentionally sold in tiny jars as you put the thinnest of layers of the UK stuff on your toast as the flavour is so strong. The NZ version is sold in much larger jars and a much more subtle flavour that, if you are like Bryan, you ladle on as thickly as possible.
When it comes to drinking, most Kiwi pubs look and feel like many you would find back in the UK. The main difference comes in the options for serving size of beer. While pints are an option, as they are in the UK, it was a novelty to see jugs of beer. A jug of beer is a litre of beer, served in a jug so you can pour as much as you want/need into a glass as you go. Some locals we spoke to in Picton said they favoured jugs of beer as they tended to drink more slowly, and your beer was less likely to go flat as it would if they ordered a pint glass. Good to know! In the more rural pubs, it is common you see a line of gumboots outside the entrance, usually plastered in mud and muck from the owner’s hard labour. Signs on the pub doors remind the patrons to leave their gumboots outside – they enter in their socks. By gumboots, I do, of course, mean wellies!
Like the gumboot/welly example, there are several other things that have different names to those I am used to. Just a few examples are that sandals are often referred to as jandals, swimming costumes are called togs, sweets (i.e., candies) are referred to as lollies, and a car parking space is referred to as a car park, meaning the single space you put your car in not the entire car parking lot, continental quilts are dooners. The same language but entirely different words!
New Zealand has probably fared better than the UK in maintaining its smaller convenience store retailers. The small local grocery, or corner store as I would know it, are typically referred to here as a Dairy. The dairy is a true Kiwi icon. The name is a reflection that in the past they were the primary source for dairy products, though now offer a wide selection of all manner of groceries, newspapers, and a whole lot more. Wherever you are in New Zealand you are never too far from a Dairy.
In the past, I have been guilty of teasing Bryan about his pronunciation of British placenames. My favourite is to ask him to say Worcestershire. Now he is on his own turf, he has been able to get his own back, and sniggers mercilessly when I frequently mispronounce different locations. There has been a move over recent years to revert to the Maori names of various towns, and this presents yet further challenges for me. Take Whakatane as an example. The “wh” is pronounced an “f” as in “phone”. We were both stumped with “Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu” though – at 85 characters, it is the longest place name in the world.
With the outdoor lifestyle we lead now, I have been learning plenty about the differences that occur in nature too. I am now aware that there are no snakes in New Zealand – not one! Good to know when you are tramping through thick bush. Unlike New Zealand’s neighbour, Australia, across the ditch, there are relatively few creepy crawlies and nothing too sinister to deal with. The one slightly weird thing about spiders in New Zealand is that they seem to be attracted to cars. Cyril has several of them. They are reclusive things though. Seldom, if ever seen, and only evidenced by the webs they build every single night. We have one in the passenger side wing mirror and another somewhere near the front grill of the engine. But it is not just Cyril, we will often see cars with spiders’ webs on them. Other than witnessing the webs, the spiders that build them are incredibly elusive and, therefore, impossible to get rid of. Hopefully, they are managing to keep some other bugs at bay with those webs.
There have been several differences in the birds that we see. One surprise to me is that while there are Robins here, they do not have the traditional redbreast that I associate them with in the UK. The NZ version is a pretty bird but a dull dark grey with a white breast. There are, of course, many native NZ birds that I hadn’t encountered before. In fact, New Zealand is home to over 200 native bird species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. Sadly, 68% of them are now threatened with extinction, and a major reason for this is because of predators which prey on them. Ironically, most of these predators were introduced by the European settlers back in the 1800s. For example, stoats to control the exploding rabbit population (the rabbits had been introduced as a food source and for fur hunting by early European Settlers and then did what rabbits do best and bred like crazy), or possums that were introduced from Australia to start a fur industry – there are now 30 million wild possums. New Zealand has set a target to be predator-free by 2050. As a result, one common feature on all our walks is evidence of baiting and predator traps for these pests. Thankfully, this work is making a big impact on bringing a number of native birds back from the brink of extinction, resulting in us seeing loads of Wekas and lots of Black Swans.
It is amazing to see so much other wildlife though. We have been able to see seal colonies in both the North and South Island, and just last week saw Fiordland crested penguins while visiting Munro Beach on the West Coast of the South Island. Due to conservation protection of these timid birds, we had to stay a good distance away from them, but it was still amazing to see one of the rarest of New Zealand’s penguins in the wild. We were even lucky enough to spot a wild NZ troll!
There are some aspects of NZ which are familiar though, for example driving on the left-hand side of the road. In the UK it is a historical throwback to when it was important to keep your sword hand free apparently and then adopted in many of the British colonies. While NZ follows this colonial trait, they have adopted km for distance measurement, unlike the UK which has ended up with a mishmash of imperial and metric measures. Fortunately, after years of living in the Middle East, I was already conditioned to km and litres so am not as confused as I would otherwise be.
We are usually on the lookout for events happening in the towns that we pass through. This has enabled me to be introduced to another New Zealand institution called the A & P Show. The Agricultural and Pastoral shows in New Zealand are not too different from the County shows and fairs that you get in parts of the UK, and I confess it is a while since I have been to one in the UK, but the NZ ones have their own Kiwi quality. While sheep shearing many be common between the two countries, the wood chopping contests must be a unique Kiwi thing. At Westport A & P show we kept being drawn back to the wood chopping contest area, drawn in by the dexterity of the woodchoppers as they balanced on logs as they chopped them in half just inches from their feet. There was even a vertical chopping competition as these guys, and girls climbed onto perches 20 metres high and spilt logs in half. The A & P show is a great source for further evidence of some common NZ footwear – the gumboot (or wellies as I know them). Other rural Kiwi dress sense in full display is singlets (vests in the UK), and the mullet haircut. The mullet is alive and kicking in rural New Zealand, not something I have seen in the UK since the ’70s!
There is a significant honesty culture here too, not something I would expect to see in the UK. For example, fruit and veggies left out on sale in unattended booths and an honesty box to pay. There is something called a “Gold coin donation”, which is a polite request for a donation of at least a dollar (the gold coin) when visiting museums and other attractions that are provided with a no-cost entry. We have stayed at a few locations known as “park over properties” too, these are where landowners give free access to stay on their land if you are a member of the NZMCA (New Zealand Motor Caravan Association). We have been amazed by the generosity of these Kiwis. All part of the sharing, generous culture that Kiwis are known for and we experience regularly. I was caught out with one example of this when we were asked to a friends’ party and asked to bring a plate. To my British mind, this meant that they were short of crockery and you needed to bring something to eat off, but it means to bring a plate with a potluck dish on it!! A common misunderstanding apparently with non-kiwis.
It’s been fun getting to know New Zealand and the New Zealander’s better including my own Kiwi, Bryan. While we might come from opposite sides of the planet, I can vouch that the adage “opposites attract” is very true.
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