Kiwiana Curiousities

Isolation has brought a few funny side effects to the island of the long white cloud.

Award Obsessed

For such a small country, you have to laugh a little at how much they love awards here. In the south island we would see 'voted best [insert product here] on the south island' when really the competition was probably less than a hundred other shops or restaurants. OK great, you are the 2nd best curryhouse on the west coast of the south island - competing with two other curryhouses owned by your uncle and brother respectively. Better make a shiney plaque before the judges change their minds!.

As British as it may be, things are just a little different in this distant land. It seemed that just about any business will have some kind of award for excellence such as 'qualmark' or tourism bureau awards. I guess it comes with the territory in a small, proud nation.

Casual Comportement

Steph remarked that she didn't see a single business suit here in the first six weeks! In fact, even Aucklanders are more comfortable in a fleece and jeans for their daily routines. With harsh winds and cold fronts, it's no wonder comfort is the highest fashion order.

As for footwear? Known as the flipflop or thong to you and me, the Jandal is the single-most important fashion accessory for backpackers worldwide. You may wear yours to the beach, or with jeans on holiday. We wore our Asian continent pair almost down to the pavement by the time we reached Melbourne.

And we noticed along the way that this footwear was also extremely popular amoung locals in Southeast Asia. In fact, the Jandal was first donned by the Japanese swim team at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. A Kiwi importer was inspired and the first Jandals were made in an Auckland garage, fusing the words Japanese and Sandals. Today more people buy blue Jandals than any other colour.

These Streets Were Not Really Made for Walking

Why wear shoes at all? Barefeet freely stroll the downtown streets of Auckland, Dunedin and Christchurch.

It's all green - Street crossings are simultaneous...Strange ay!? That is to say the green man for pedestrians goes off in all directions at once. Naturally this takes way longer for unsynchronized traffic to flow and results in crowds zig-zagging through large interchanges.

Words on the street - The little blackboards outside cafes are not used to advertise specials. They are more often a message board for jokes or clever philosophies.

The house truck - A strange hermit mobile. This o

dd creature of the road is quite simply a house and truck hybrid.

Local Language

And finally, we loved picking up the lingo from day-1 and the airport incident. Here were some of our most confusing and funny run-ins with English over two months.

Aw... Beginning a sentence with this is a non-purpose filler. Every country has them to let the brain searches for words. In the USA there is 'like', in France 'bah...alors...uhh', in the UK 'sort of', in Spain entonces and in Germany also [al-zo].

Ending sentences with a request for confirmation....don't I? ...isn't it? ...eh? ...did you?

'A 'beut', isn't it?'

Dunedin - An old man stopped us in the street to remark on the wonderful weather.

'Bit of mission'

Nationwide - Rob liked this one especially, since our efforts at paint stripping his boat was indeed a monstrous task for which we could barely scrape the surface.

The 'joker' down the road went through the gate.

South Island - A direct replacement for guy, chap, dude. We heard this in Kiwi films, but David liked using this all the time for the jokers in his stories.

Good as Gold, Right as Rain, Piece of Cake, She'll be Right - The optimistic catch phrase has run rife.

Sweet-as, Choice, etc

Clichéd kiwi terms for awesome, cool, yea agreed. They seem to be still much in fashion for the tour guides who like to wear them out for effect. And backpackers buy the t-shirts like Thailand, same-same but different.

Some more useful vocab:

- Bludger - someone who doesn't chip in
- Postie - postman/woman, usually on foot or bike
- Pokies - casino style slot machines
- Chilly bin - cooler
- Wop-wops - remote areas