New Zealand people (a short description for South Africans)

To try and describe the difference between here and South Africa I present the following, admittedly contrived, example. If I stepped into an lift full of people back in Cape Town, looked around at everyone, smiled and said in a loud voice “Wonderful day, isn't it?” I would find that no one would answer. That somehow, without much apparent movement having happened, I would find myself encircled by a wide empty space. People would be examining me warily, out of the corner of their eyes, trying to see if I was armed or not. If I didn't take the hint, and persisted with my one sided conversation, following my introductory question with a hearty “Well, speak up -, don't you all think it is a wonderful day?” everyone else would get out at the first possible stop, leaving me alone in the lift to ponder on the vagaries of human nature.

Here, when I step into a lift and pose the same question, I get a hearty response from just about everyone. Conversation follows. We talk, laugh and joke. And then go our separate ways.

Of course it could be that every day in Cape Town is a wonderful one, so anyone who mentions how wonderful the day is must clearly be off their rocker, whereas here in Wellington wonderful days are so infrequent that the comment serves as a genuine ice breaker. But I doubt it.

I have thought about this for a while, and I think that the sunny and open disposition we found in New Zealand is probably the norm for unstressed human beings. We are, after all, social animals.

Not only are the people here open and friendly – most carry an appealing innocence that is hard to describe.

One example: when we wanted to go on a hiking trail in South Island, the motel owner warned us “Oh do be careful – a Swedish tourist was murdered on the trails recently – are you sure you really want to do this?” We asked questions, and found that yes, indeed a tourist had been murdered on a hiking trail. But this sad event had happened four years ago, on a hiking trail at least 1000 Km's away near the top end of North Island, and that the perpetrator had been caught and jailed. But still we were warned! How to tell them that shortly before we emigrated there was a little shoot out between warring taxi drivers, that Terry missed being in the middle of it by a matter of minutes, and when she did drive through the scene there were bodies and dying people between the debris of the battle strewn across the road?

Another example was our ex-neighbour telling us that there are places in New Zealand where the people were just as poor as the poorest South African. Sure, when we drove through one of the areas he described, the houses were small, run down and with wrecked cars in the garden. But, note, I said “houses”. And some of the houses had Sky satellite pay TV dishes bolted to their walls. Don't forget, New Zealand is a welfare state. We went back to our neighbour, and after lengthy conversations we still couldn't get him to understand that there were people in South Africa who literally have nothing. The concept was just to alien to our neighbour.

But there are two things that the unwary South African should bear in mind – we found that despite this wonderful and open nature, New Zealand people can become very aggressive, very quickly, with strangers. Far faster than in South Africa. This is something that I couldn't understand at first. But then I realized that us South Africans are actually a very, very polite bunch of people. And well we should be, considering that the stranger who just inconsiderately spilt our drinks could be packing a Colt '45! I consider this to be the unseen equation underlying South African society - is his hidden gun bigger than mine? I think the New Zealand equivalent would be – will I still be able to finish my beer if I punch this joker? Subtly different.

The other thing to be wary of in this country is one that caught Terry and I totally off guard when we first arrived here. A group of us went for a night time hike in the woods of Northland. Our guide met us at the camp fire, cracking wonderful jokes and appearing, to all intents and purposes, to be yet another wonderful, kind, and well balanced person. After the introductory banter, we got into his mini bus, and drove into the dark.

The road we followed twisted and turned through the forest, and as the headlights swept around the forest edges the guide, a real raconteur, shouted out stories of the area. We were all thoroughly enjoying the wit and the wisdom, when suddenly the guide shouted “Damn Possum!” and swerved violently to deliberately drive over the sweetest, most rounded eyed, cutest brown ball of fur that had suddenly sat up in the road, almost begging to be left alive. There was a sharp and sickening thump as the mini bus hit it. We all fell into a shocked silence. “Can't stand them” explained the guide, cheerfully, conversationally.

We were still all silent, trying to understand this bizarre transformation in our guide when suddenly the mini bus came to an abrupt halt. “More” hissed the guide, pointing to a large tree illuminated by the headlights. We could see between the branches light, our headlights, reflected by animal eyes. The guide softly opened his door, gently clambered out, and then slid out from behind his seat a hunting rifle. We in the van made no sound, adrenalin coursing at this unexpected turn. There was the oily sound of the rifle being cocked, followed by the loud clap of rapid firing. Our guide was possum hunting!

We survived the hike, but took great care during it not to mention possums. We also took to calling our guide “Sir” for reasons you may understand. With time we discovered that this bizarre transformation is quite a common one for New Zealand people. The roads of New Zealand are coated with a layer of possum road kill.

For true New Zealanders do not like possums. They detest and hate them. By way of explanation, possums are not native New Zealand animals. They are Australian marsupials that were introduced to the country to try and create a fur industry. They got into the wild, and with no predators, have bred. The last estimate I saw was that there are over 70 000 000 of the creatures rampant across the land. They eat leaves and sprouting branches, and seem to concentrate on one tree at a time. They leave swathes of dead and destroyed trees behind them, wreaking havoc on the forests ecology. They also act as Bovine TB carriers, carrying it from farm district to farm district. In a country that exports milk to the world this is bad.

To combat possums the government has taken to large airborne poison drops. Ironically possums are endangered animals in Australia. And the Australian conservation movement is outraged at New Zealand's barbaric treatment of these cute little fellows. Strange that. Suffice to say Terry and I now have both possum traps and poisoned bait stations on our land. How far we have come! But we still don't have the heart to drive over them at night. How un-New Zealand like. How un-South African. And ah, yes – don't forget to buy a nice possum fur product when in New Zealand. Its good for the country.