Living in New Zealand, as I do, there are many things that I will never get used to. For a start the seasons are the wrong way round – how can you have Christmas in the middle of summer, Bonfire Night in spring when you have to wait until 10pm to set off the fireworks, and Easter when all of nature is curling up and going to sleep rather than bursting into life?
Secondly, they call the wrong thing football. Here’s a tip – if it’s ‘a solid or hollow sphere’ that you kick with ‘the lower extremity of the leg below the ankle’ then it’s football. If you pick up an ovoid inflatable and run with it, then it’s either cheating, or it’s rugby – union or league depending on the level of violence involved – American football if there’s padding, and Aussie rules if there are no discernible rules whatsoever.
And other thing: although we share a similar history, the popular iconography is far more American than English and, according to a friend I mentioned this to, becoming more so each day. I noticed this when I was writing the Midsummer Night’s Dream review. My 80s was clearly a very different time to most Kiwis’ 80s. And this is not the only decade to suffer this phenomenon.
When we first arrived to these fair shores we were invited to a fancy dress party (the love of those is also a Kiwi thing I don’t understand – Him Outdoors has his theories which I have mentioned before but shan’t again). The theme was 70s. Naturally, we went as punks – ripped jeans, tatty leather and safety pins galore – expecting to hear The Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Everyone else was dressed in kaftans, headbands, love beads and painted flowers. They tripped around drippily to Johnny Cash, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Mamas and the Papas, and The Beach Boys. Wrong decade, surely, I thought – and may well have said. I was an aggressive punk after all – I felt like a Hell’s Angel that had just turned up to Woodstock.
This feeling of displacement continues daily. We are lulled into a false sense of security and familiarity – they play cricket; their judicial and political system are based on ours (although how someone who is not even wanted by their electorate can still occupy a seat in Parliament bewilders me); they screen Coronation Street twice a week (it’s a year behind) and they speak a version of our language. But the popular iconography – from the plastic news presenters to the ‘fashion’ of vests and baseball caps – is largely American.
Not all, I hasten to add. There are pockets of Scottish ‘it’s cold and it’s wet and we like it’ heritage (Southland); there is a large Yorkshire ‘we are better than everyone else and why talk when you can grunt?’ element (Otago); there are prime examples of Home Counties ‘what school did you go to and who are your parents?’ affectation (Canterbury); and a delightful patch of faux French ‘let’s fly the tricolour and call our streets by Gallic names’ chic (Akaroa).
Of course there is a rich and distinctive Māori culture which adds a unique and valuable component to the heritage. And there are colourful swathes of Pacific Island traditions, Asian customs, and all sorts of bits and pieces of European inheritance from the Italian-style blessing of the boats at Island Bay to a strange Viking connection at Dannevirke (settled by a handful of Danes and Norwegians).
The result of all this is a little curious and unsettling like one of those dreams where you know something is different but you’re not sure what. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it is odd. Some things are simply ingrained in your formative years and when they change, you may never get used to them. Ah well, ‘Vive La Difference!’ as they say in Akaroa.
Secondly, they call the wrong thing football. Here’s a tip – if it’s ‘a solid or hollow sphere’ that you kick with ‘the lower extremity of the leg below the ankle’ then it’s football. If you pick up an ovoid inflatable and run with it, then it’s either cheating, or it’s rugby – union or league depending on the level of violence involved – American football if there’s padding, and Aussie rules if there are no discernible rules whatsoever.And other thing: although we share a similar history, the popular iconography is far more American than English and, according to a friend I mentioned this to, becoming more so each day. I noticed this when I was writing the Midsummer Night’s Dream review. My 80s was clearly a very different time to most Kiwis’ 80s. And this is not the only decade to suffer this phenomenon.
When we first arrived to these fair shores we were invited to a fancy dress party (the love of those is also a Kiwi thing I don’t understand – Him Outdoors has his theories which I have mentioned before but shan’t again). The theme was 70s. Naturally, we went as punks – ripped jeans, tatty leather and safety pins galore – expecting to hear The Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.Everyone else was dressed in kaftans, headbands, love beads and painted flowers. They tripped around drippily to Johnny Cash, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Mamas and the Papas, and The Beach Boys. Wrong decade, surely, I thought – and may well have said. I was an aggressive punk after all – I felt like a Hell’s Angel that had just turned up to Woodstock.
This feeling of displacement continues daily. We are lulled into a false sense of security and familiarity – they play cricket; their judicial and political system are based on ours (although how someone who is not even wanted by their electorate can still occupy a seat in Parliament bewilders me); they screen Coronation Street twice a week (it’s a year behind) and they speak a version of our language. But the popular iconography – from the plastic news presenters to the ‘fashion’ of vests and baseball caps – is largely American.Not all, I hasten to add. There are pockets of Scottish ‘it’s cold and it’s wet and we like it’ heritage (Southland); there is a large Yorkshire ‘we are better than everyone else and why talk when you can grunt?’ element (Otago); there are prime examples of Home Counties ‘what school did you go to and who are your parents?’ affectation (Canterbury); and a delightful patch of faux French ‘let’s fly the tricolour and call our streets by Gallic names’ chic (Akaroa).
Of course there is a rich and distinctive Māori culture which adds a unique and valuable component to the heritage. And there are colourful swathes of Pacific Island traditions, Asian customs, and all sorts of bits and pieces of European inheritance from the Italian-style blessing of the boats at Island Bay to a strange Viking connection at Dannevirke (settled by a handful of Danes and Norwegians).The result of all this is a little curious and unsettling like one of those dreams where you know something is different but you’re not sure what. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it is odd. Some things are simply ingrained in your formative years and when they change, you may never get used to them. Ah well, ‘Vive La Difference!’ as they say in Akaroa.
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