NZ versus the rest of the world

I’ve been in the City of Sails in the land of the long white cloud just three weeks. Time enough to note a few cultural differences between here and the Big Smoke or Apple (or many other places I’d care to mention)

1. You can leave your bike unlocked anywhere in Auckland. It won’t get pinched
I had a bike in New York City. I had two massive padlocks and chains for it. It went in 2 weeks. This seems to go for cars too.

2. People are honest to a fault
I called the NZ equivalent of Ticketmaster to enquire about the John Waters event. The guy at the other end told me “Well, you can book the ticket from me, but we’ll charge you 11 bucks booking fee. You’d be better picking up the ticket from the venue”

3. If they haven’t got it. They haven’t got it
If you look for something and you can’t find it in the shops, it’s not that you’re looking in the wrong shop, it’s far more likely that they haven’t got it in the country.

4. There’s a unsophistication which is naive but endearing
We got a running buggy that’s made in NZ (the Pedigree Sport Buggy). I’d guess it’s made by a family firm. It got a sticker with “Copyright (c)” on one of the side struts. What’s copyrighted? The squeak of the wheels?

5. Drivers are used to lots of space
Apart from the quirk of priority when turning right (the person crossing your path has right of way) people are pretty lousy drivers. It could be that they are inconsiderate or thoughtless, but more likely, they’re just used to a lot of space. The “zipper” technique that drivers adopt in London when letting people merge into lane (I’ll let one in, then it’s me) doesn’t exist here. People get freaked out when you do a three point turn or reverse park into a narrow space.

6. Recycling’s not sorted
In a place with an image as green as any country, Auckland’s doorstep recycling is surprisingly rudimentary. No plastic bags, tetrapaks or compostables. When Haringey Council’s doing something better than you, you know there’s something up.

8. Everyone knows everyone
Like getting on a plane to Reykjavik, when the air stewardess says “Welcome onboard, Mrs Blahblahsdottir – how are the kids”, here the numbers are so small as to make it a large village. Unemployment went up this week to 6.4%. It was the first item on the national news. It went up by 3,000 people.

9. Teenagers aren’t scary
Pushing A-B in her running buggy past a knot of 10 teenage boys, all around 15 or 16 years of age, they quickly got out of the way, and shouted forward to their mates to do the same. As I passed, one hooded youth (for this look is truly universal) called after me, “cute kid!”)

10. People here really love it
Aucklanders, like Capetonians or Sydneysiders love the place. In their own unassuming kiwi way, they don’t know why anyone would want to live anywhere else.