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I should point out that the second language spoken here is Maori (pronounced “ma o ri”. Maori is the tongue of the native Kiwi peoples (coincidently named Maori) that immigrated to this dual island nation from the not-so-nearby Polynesian Islands a few hundred years ago. It’s quite beautiful to hear, harder for us to speak. It’s an East Polynesian Autronesian language closely related to Samoan, Tongan and Hawaiian. You can hear it spoken and learn more about the Maori at this website: http://www.maori-nz.com The Maori are part of modern day society just like everyone else here, but the country does embrace their culture and history. Most towns still have Maori meeting houses called “marae” where traditional ceremonies are performed for both the local Maori as well as tourists. The pastor of our church, a woman whose parents moved here from England when she was a child, uses Maori during some of her sermons. Luckily there are subtitles below her pulpit so we can follow along. As someone pointed out to us once, one of the great things about New Zealand is that the exotic (at least to Americans) is always easily accessible, yet the familiar is within reach as well. For the idle visitor, Maori is ubiquitous in place names but is never required for communication, so curiosity is not hampered by anxiety. Since a majority of the cities and towns were named by the Maori we spend a good deal of time trying to pronounce them properly, certain that we’re mangling them completely…but we try and we’re getting much better. I once overheard a visitor getting driving directions from a local. When the Kiwi finished explaining where to turn when and what to look for…mostly Maori named towns and attractions…the visitor exclaimed (in all sincerity) “It’s like a whole other language!” Really? But then I myself recently stood corrected. I was in one of our favourite local fish markets when I asked for a couple of fresh salmon fillets. I pronounced fillet like anyone would, fill-lay. I was politely told by the woman behind a sea of fish (har!) that it was “fill-it”, not “fill-lay”. Ooops, even my English needs work here. But overall, if you speak English you’ll have “no worries” as they say. Full-scale models of some of the boats the Maori arrived in are on display at the terrific and very large…take a picnic…museum in Auckland. My wife and I stood by one (of the boats, not museums), looking at it, then out at the ocean and then back at the boat and then out at the vast ocean again shaking our heads. “They must have really disliked where they lived!” we thought. Even Gilligan wouldn’t have gone on a three-hour tour in one of these. The questionably sea-worthy vessels weren’t much bigger than a good-sized sail boat of today, made of whatever happened to be growing on their islands at the time and stitched together with vines and such (Elmer’s Glue had yet to be invented). They are pretty impressive considering though. What’s even more impressive is that these brave people in point of fact put them into water and actually gathered up their women and children, convinced them to get in and along with various food stuffs and the odd animal, floated out to sea not really knowing where they were going or what they were going to do when they got there. (Sit down and be quiet! Stop rocking the boat (ha, ha)! Don’t make me turn this boat around young man!) Following various “signs” such as the odd bird that flew by, they finally came upon the shores of Aotearoa, or in Maori, the Land of the Long White Cloud. I don’t know how they did it, but these people knew what they were doing…and they stayed! They defended their new homeland against a number of “invaders” for quite a while, but like many other parts of the world, the Anglos (in the form of people that could read Captain Cook’s maps) moved in and for a time everyone got along. But of course greed came into the picture and that caused a good deal of ill-will for all concerned. Now it’s a hundred or so years later and there are still wounds to be healed, but things are fairly calm now and everyone gets along. Now I know
packing all of our belongings, including not one but TWO copies of “Monty
Python’s Holy Grail”, neatly getting into a 40 foot container and climbing
onto a semi-comfortable jumbo jet and flying thirteen hours to a small
dot in the South Pacific doesn’t quite measure up to the original migrants
efforts. But we’d like to think that we have some kind of kinship
to those early New Zealand colonists. Yes, we knew (sort of) where we were
going…we did follow the road “signs” to the airport…and yes we had an idea
of what we were going to do when we got here…Sandy had a job offer…but
like everyone here, we came from somewhere else. Plus we brought
a couple of animals (our two cats) and sure they don’t lay eggs and we
can’t eat them, in fact I think their appetites are as big as ours, but
doesn’t that count? I mean we aren’t really warriors and we didn’t row
small creaky boats across thousands of miles of uncharted ocean to get
here, but we do feel like we’ve beaten quite a few odds on this great adventure.
And to be honest, the original settlers didn’t have to deal with the formidable
New Zealand Immigration Service. We’re sure none of whose members would
have been the least bit intimidated by scary tattoos or frightening war
chants!
So being in New Zealand just isn’t that much different than being in the United States really. They do drive on the other side of the road and consequently the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. But I’ve done really well at learning not to turn on my windshield wipers when I mean to activate my turn signal. You do have to be sure to “look right!” before pulling out in front of a semi truck barrelling down the highway is all So I guess it’s the small things that make the biggest difference. This is a land where a lot of people still leave their doors unlocked. I don’t say that to encourage ne’er-do-wells to move here and take up a life of crime. It’s just that the place is, in general, so small that outside of a couple of larger cities, most people would notice anyone that doesn’t belong. It’s small-town America in a big way, an entire country more or less. Of course some of the larger cities like Auckland (population about 1 million), Wellington, Christchurch, etc. have their share of criminal element, but no where near the scale that Americans have gotten used to. Guns (except for hunting) are generally illegal here so most of the violent crimes involve fists or knives at worst. Murder, any murder anywhere, makes the opening of the national six o’clock news and front page headlines. Traffic accidents take more lives here than anything else (they didn’t listen to their mothers about “looking right!”). But in a country of about 4 million people, there just aren’t that many bad guys or girls. Like everywhere else, things are getting a bit worse…and we don’t want to blame America’s violent influence on everything, but it can’t be ignored…however with the population this small and the values of the Kiwi people being what they are, bad behaviour is growing at a much slower rate. Most children still listen to their parents and teachers, tend to be fairly well mannered and behave themselves. This keeps the NZ prison population to a fraction of what it is in the United States and we really like that “small” difference. Shopping is more of a challenge here. Although there are a few warehouse-sized stores in the larger towns, most commerce is conducted with the smaller specialty shops. Butchers are still favoured over buying meat products in the supermarkets. The local hardware store still has a friendly clerk to help you figure out that project you’ve been meaning to get around to. (“Honey, when can we use the toilet again?”). Being that most things are shipped in, your choices of products are not nearly as great as they are in the U.S. You won’t find sixteen different brands and forty-two different flavours of spaghetti sauce on the grocery shelves. But you can usually find what you’re looking for. Many American brands are sold here…Best Foods, Heinz, Old El Paso (I’m not making this up!) We’ve both gotten very creative with mixing things together to quench our pallet’s desire for variety. And after all, isn’t that what the corporate food conglomerates do anyway? It’s just a matter of being imaginative when it comes to shopping for food. Fresh produce abounds here and it’s really quite good. I was quite spoiled by all of the good quality veggies and fruits growing up in California. When I moved away I was shocked at how pathetic some vegetables and fruits were elsewhere. In that sense, New Zealand is a veritable Mother Nature’s smorgasbord. The area we live in is somewhat rural (like most of the country) and we drive past many small farms and orchards on our way to and from town. Many of these have roadside stands that sell almost everything you would need for a grand salad and more. We buy freshly picked avocadoes, juicy oranges, crisp lettuce, sweet corn, tasty asparagus, ripe, red tomatoes, potatoes, jumbo eggs and of course kiwi fruit directly from the source. An “honour box” sits there on the little wooden display stand, right next to the just-picked delectable edibles and you drop your coins in (the smallest form of paper currency here is a five dollar bill…so coins are very popular) and you’re on your way, no standing in line, no bar code scanners…what a concept! Many of these farms have been “spray-free” and free range since they first cleared the trees to grow things here. Organic farming isn’t anything new here either. There are plenty of sugar-coated, high fat, high carb snacky wacky’s at the store, (so my wife’s dark chocolate addiction can be maintained) but you can live a very healthy lifestyle in New Zealand should you choose to do so. Another pleasant
and delicious surprise for us was the quality of wines that can be found
in New Zealand. Having lived near Wine Country most of my life I
was also spoiled by the wonderful vintages of the Napa Valley. We’d
make trips to the wineries as often as possible and even have a full-blown
wine cellar to prove it! We’re not wine snobs…good wine is good wine
in our book…but to be honest, we were actually concerned about what we’d
do about a nice Cabernet or Merlot here. We knew that we’d find some
good Oz (Kiwi for Australia) vino, but California wines are very rare here.
In fact, we’ve only seen them in Taupo at a magnificent wine store there
called Scenic Cellars. If you visit, ask to see the not one, not
two, but three stories of underground wine cellars! We’ve never seen
a larger wine store…anywhere! We’ve been happy to find that, although
young, New Zealand is building a very respectable wine industry.
About fifteen minutes drive from our house are two wineries that have won
multiple awards for their products. Mills Reef, one of our favourites,
was recently named “New Zealand Wine Maker of the Year” by “Winestate”
Magazine. This is after taste-testing over 10,000 wines! (How
do you get that job?) Acknowledged as the toughest competition these
awards recognise the best wines produced from all over Australasia.
Many of the country’s whites have won world-class competitions and the
reds (our favourite) although not up to Napa standards…yet, are quite nice
as well. The Hawks Bay region of the North Island has some great
wine tours if you’re planning a trip. The really great part is the
pricing! The wine “fad” has yet to reach these shores, so a decent
bottle of wine can be purchased for about half of what you would expect
to pay in the U.S.! And since New Zealand is the home of Cadbury
Chocolates, we can often be found whiling away the twilight hours on our
deck indulging ourselves in some of NZ’s finest home-grown specialties.
River rafting, swimming, sailing, hiking, angling, bike riding (considered an extreme sport here as the shoulders of most roadways are about as wide as one of my father’s old ties), kayaking, bungee jumping, sheep shearing, sky diving, gliding, exploring of any nature…it all can be done and done in grand fashion here in New Zealand. (We didn’t say “grand fashion” where I grew up either…but it sounds good here.) So no one thing is really a big deal here in New Zealand. It’s just that a lot of things are good, some great. It’s not perfect, but I really can’t point to any one thing that I really don’t like. We used to spend a good part of a conversation talking about the things that we didn’t like in the U.S. We’re not really complaining and know that the good things still outweigh the bad there…but given the choice, we’d rather have more good things to talk about and that’s the case here in New Zealand. The great thing about all of this is that all of these things and activities are within a day’s travel, many of them only a short distance from most people’s homes. Now I know when my wife reads this she’ll gently remind me of that fact the next time I’m oozing into the sofa watching last year’s episode of “24”. “Okay, okay honey, we’ll go exploring…tomorrow! Are we out of chocolate again?” Until next time we’ll lift our glasses to you…good health and cheerz! The following are Rick's previous articles for the magazine:
Information On Emigrating To New Zealand http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/
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