Reflection and Culture Shock in New Zealand

New Zealand reminded me so much of the Canada that I grew up in.  I’m not sure when I initially had this thought but I just remember thinking throughout my 12 days in New Zealand that it really seemed like a very familiar place to me.  I think it mainly had to do with the people.  The kindness that was shown, the laidback attitudes, the small talk that happened everywhere – all of these things reminded me of a Canada from 20-30 years ago.  However, nothing reminded me more of home than seeing New Zealand’s love of rugby.  It just so happened that I was in New Zealand during the Rugby World Cup and the passion and love for this sport that was displayed everywhere reminded me so much of how Canada is whenever there is a hockey tournament on.  They even have passports and airplanes that have the All Blacks logo on them!

Although I was reminded of Canada a great deal, there were also many things that I found a bit surprising.

I took a domestic flight from Rotorua to Christchurch.  After we checked in and dropped off our bags, we made our way to the small little café on the right side of the airport.  The time to board was slowly creeping up and I kept wondering why nobody seemed to be in any hurry to go through security.  They finally called us to the gate area and I was expecting that this is one of those situations where we had to go through security at the gate, but it wasn’t the case at all.  As soon as we arrived at the boarding gate, the airline staff checked our boarding passes and we proceeded with boarding.  Not only did we not go through security, we were also not required to show any ID to board the plane.  It definitely made for an easy traveling experience, but my North American travel habits contributed to my uneasiness and thinking that it didn’t seem like a very safe system.

Another instance that related to this is waiver forms.  When you sign up to partake in an activity like paragliding, I would expect that most places around the world would make you sign some sort of waiver.  However, this isn’t the case with New Zealand.  They just trust that people will use good judgement!

Aside from traveling, I was also a bit shocked that drivers don’t seem to stop for pedestrians in New Zealand.  You’d think that such a kind, nice country would yield to pedestrians, but perhaps that’s only a Canadian thing?

Something else that I noticed, which doesn’t happen in Canada is that many places require that you pay for sauces and condiments.  I fell in love with New Zealand bakeries and the abundance of good, wholesome meals that you could purchase at these bakeries.  However, I wasn’t thrilled about having to pay for ketchup and other condiments.  It was all a bit strange for me.

New Zealand’s government has done a great deal to protect its country, people and resources.  One thing that I learned on my trip is that New Zealand is very proud of its local produce.  Agriculture is a huge industry in New Zealand, which makes sense as it is so far away from everywhere else.  Its ability to be self-reliant on its agriculture also means that the are very strict at customs and immigration on what you can bring into the country.  It was such a breeze to cross through customs, but I had never seen such long lines at declaration.  I later came to understand that it would be devastating for the country if they (unintentionally) let something in, that could destroy their agriculture industry.

I was very surprised that New Zealand seems to have adopted the North American way of naming floors.  In North America, ground floor doesn’t really exist, and it’s interchangeable with the term first floor.  I thought that New Zealand would use the term ground floor to describe the main level and first floor to describe (what North Americans call) the second level.  But this wasn’t the case.

One last thing that I noticed, which was a bit different was the lack of signage.  I first noticed this on my very first day when I made my way up to the summit of Mt. Eden in Auckland.  At the time, I saw many different paths, all leading uphill and was quite confused by which path led to the summit.  In the end, I found out that they all eventually lead to the summit.  It was just that some paths are much shorter.  The second time I really felt that New Zealand could do better with signage was when I was in Franz Josef.  I took several walks through the hiking trails there and you would walk and walk and walk and never know if you are going in the right direction.  This made it a bit difficult for me as a tourist.

Although half the way around the world, I loved how New Zealand was able to remind me so much of home, while simultaneously opening my eyes to how different some countries do things.