s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

We had heard stories before coming down here about how nice the average Kiwi was, and we discovered that by and large the stories were true. We have, of course, run into some amAzingly rude people (mostly at the Warehouse- a mini Walmart wannabe- I wonder why that is so?), but on the whole people are, in fact, really nice. So that leads me to wonder why. There are very many cultural similarities to the US, so why the behavior difference (compared to the North East, at least)?

Theory 1- It’s a little place. Small populations can make people a bit friendlier, as you lack the cold anonymity of the vast faceless horde. Wellington, the second largest city, only has 200,000 people in the entire metro area. That means it is very possible to get to know _everyone_ who shares your hobbies (wargaming, SCA, bellydancing, whatever). And with such a small community it would be a very bad idea to piss people off too much! And this matches with complaints I hear about Auckland as being impersonal and unfriendly.

Theory 1a- Influence of rural culture. Lots of people still have roots and contatcs in even more rural and sparesly populated regions, where the low-population influence would be even more pronouced. Plus there is the whole “community spirit” that remote homesteads need with their neighbors to share resources when there is no central government there to help at a moments need. This is something we experienced after the big storm a month ago where we and the neighbors cleared the trees and slips from our own road without council assisstance.

Theory 2- Tea. Yes, tea. And what I mean is the tradition of offering people a cup of tea as a hospitality rite. This seems to be a very important means of breaking down social barriers. For example, when the plumbers came to put in the solar hot water system we offered them tea at one point, they happily accepted and we alll had a nice 15 minute break drinking tea, eating cookies, and chatting. This opens open the possibility of friendly social relations with just about anyone, and means that what would be purely business interactions can often gain a social dimension.

As a final culltural note- it is interesting to see the little differences due to the lack of a large Jewish community (as is present in the NE corner of the USA). I had not realized how many Yiddish words are in my vernacular until I started getting strange looks. And it’s really hard to find a good bagel around here! In its place we have lots of Maori words thrown into everyday English useage. I need to pull down Maori our dictionary and figure out what they all mean before I attempt to use them in context.