NZ Four Years On, Bitter/Sweet – Part 1
Recently I returned home after almost four years away for a family bereavement. Two of those years coincided with the Covid border closure where obtaining a space in MIQ was the subject of a lottery that made it next to impossible to secure a space. I have called my experience “Bitter/Sweet” because I was reminded of the many things I sorely missed about New Zealand, but I also came face to face with some realities of modern NZ life that soured the good experiences. Part 1 covers The Sweet. Parts 2 and 3 will cover The Bitter.
FOOD
Oh my, where to begin. Perhaps with the most longed for item: PIES! In America a pie is a fruit pie like apple or cherry. They have virtually no equivalent of our meat pies. It’s hard to explain to Americans quite the primacy of position in the food world that pies have in NZ. I try to explain the ubiquity of places that sell pies, of the hierarchy of pie quality, of the intense competition between bakeries vying for Gold Medal status in a town or region and of the exciting array of pie ingredient choices. NZ is worth a kilo a week for visiting expats and near daily consumption of pies is the main culprit. Needless to say, I was a very frequent and happy imbiber of said pies and I have amassed a list of award-winning pie sellers across the country that I frequent on my travels!
Regular food bought in average supermarkets in NZ, whilst significantly more expensive than the equivalent quality supermarkets in the US, nonetheless the quality of everyday products is much higher and is akin to the quality you can only get in the US at more expensive farmers markets and upmarket shops like Whole Foods. It is well known that NZ’s year-round outdoor grass grazing of cows leads to rich and creamy milk, butter, cheese, cream, chocolate and ice cream, but I was reminded that ordinary day to day veges like onions, spring onions, carrots, celery, potatoes etc. just have more flavour and colour than average veges bought in US supermarkets. NZ’s more local market gardens growing in rich, naturally watered soils yield better and tastier products than the industrial scale farms in the US and increasingly Mexico. Then there’s the non-sugary bread where even common NZ bread offerings below the quality of our famous Vogel’s beat the sugary offerings that are common even with supposedly artisan breads in the US.
And finally, there’s the seafood! I was able to have fresh lobster, mussels and snapper and of course several obligatory meals of fish and chips. Amazing – although that once cheap fast food staple is not cheap anymore. Did I mention the rich yokes in eggs and the fluffy egg whites? I have become a bit of a pavlova expert but my pavs in NZ always taste way better and yet I use the same recipe and ingredients. All in all, NZ food is simply superb across the board. Add to that a number of innovative restaurants, cafes and the tradition to still cook food from scratch, NZ is a gastronomic feast! I came back with my usual haul of Whitakers chocolates, bikkies, Minties, Jaffas, pineapple lumps etc.
SCENERY
Until Covid, NZ was a premium tourism destination. Hopefully in time we will return to that position as the restrictions of the pandemic fade into the rear-view mirror. As an expat you get used to raves from anyone who has ever visited NZ about the scenery or the regularly expressed strong desire to visit NZ because of its beauty. Our reputation is richly deserved. I had forgotten how beautiful NZ is – in some places, breathtakingly so. After such a wet winter and early spring, I don’t think I have ever seen NZ so green even in parts of the country that sometimes can be a little drier. Living in NZ it is easy to take all the beauty for granted. The US has many beautiful parts but the compact package of such varied beauty across so many landscape types as found in NZ is unique.
THE OCEAN
This is a subset of the scenery but with so much of NZ being so close to the water, the impact of the sea on NZ is huge. For the first time in 20 years, I rode on the Cook Strait Ferry and was reminded of the stunning beauty of the Marlborough Sounds and of Wellington on a fine still day (yes, we fluked such conditions on arrival!). I got to bodyboard in magic surf north of Auckland and often went for runs along beaches and riverside tracks in various locations. The pristine and uncrowded conditions at NZ beaches contrast with the population and visitor pressure on US coastal areas. Then there’s the fact that so many people have boats and so many people fish. A good mate happened to have been snapper fishing with his neighbour the day before I arrived and so a fresh large snapper was tea that night! If you live inland in the US, it’s difficult to replicate such experiences. It’s no wonder we excel at yachting and rowing because of our proximity to water.
KIWI CHARACTER
This is an aspect of NZ I greatly miss. It begins with the widespread and genuine friendliness of people. When you ring a call centre, if you get a NZer and not someone in the Philippines or India, you can actually have a real conversation whereas in the US, even when talking to US based staff, they rigidly follow wooden scripts. Another feature is our humour and the propensity to mildly mock one another. I get away with some kiwi style humour in the US but often it’s lost in translation. Because I refuse to lose my accent, I am daily subjected to questions about what I have just said. I have to use the American word equivalent (trunk versus boot, faucet versus tap etc. etc.), I have to slow my speech down, I have to omit kiwi slang words and I have to sometimes translate the accent. Back home I can be 100% natural and be 100% understood – normal speed, normal accent and the full suite of slang. I have over the years complied a master list of Kiwi slang and words we use that Americans don’t (like solicitor/barrister for attorney, caveat instead of lien, settlement instead of closing) and it has grown to 655 words and phrases! When I was back in NZ, I added 5 more slang words/phrases to my list. I knew the most common words but kept getting blank stares from Americans when I’d use a word and presto, another would be added to the list. Add to that 60 Maori words that are now in common everyday usage in NZ and then the 90 odd words that we use in common with Americans but pronounce differently (e.g., Mahzda with a long a versus Mazda with a short a), and the scope for being misunderstood is wider than you’d think. Finally, there’s the cheeky informality of interpersonal relations in NZ and the tendency to perhaps be a little blunter that I miss a lot. NZers are a little harder to dive in deep with initially but then after initial barriers are broken, deep and long-lasting friendships are easier. Americans are openly quite friendly but more guarded and difficult to get to the next stage of closeness.
RUGBY
OK non rugby fans will scoff but as a fan, former player, current referee and coach of the game, it is an important part of kiwi life that I miss. In NZ, rugby is a legacy sport like gridiron in America and soccer in Germany or Brazil. In the US it is a transactional sport – it’s a cool toy American boys show off to girls or mates, but they too easily move on to the next shiny sporting object. It makes recruiting, training and retaining youth payers much tougher than in NZ where, at especially the top rugby schools, you have the undivided and loyal attention of all the players. I was able to watch the last Bledisloe Cup game in the company of some fanatical All Black fans who, like me, have played, reffed and/or coached the game. The level of knowledge and analysis of the game was phenomenal and it’s something I sorely miss. Yes expat kiwis in the US get together at odd hours to cheer on the ABs but most are there to share in the kiwi treats on offer (someone makes a pav, sausage rolls, pikelets or scones and someone often has kiwi lollies or bikkies on hand) and to hang out with fellow kiwis but only a few are true aficionados of the game and when watching with Americans new to the game, it’s a wall of baffled questions. Sadly, boys’ rugby globally is a dwindling sport even in NZ, but nothing beats the 1st XV games of the elite secondary school competitions in NZ’s main centres.
CLIMATE
There is something magical about getting off the plane in Auckland, stepping out from the terminal building and inhaling the clean fresh rural air, I’m not sure I’ve had such an experience at any major city airport anywhere in the world such is the freshness and cleanliness of the air in NZ. Whilst spring is traditionally a pretty turbulent mix bag of weather in NZ, most of the North Island at least enjoys a mild temperate climate that is easier to live in than most US states. Many US states alternate between quite cold, damp snowy winters and hot humid summers. The desert SW is lovely 9 months of the year but has brutal summers and most of Florida and the south also has very mild winters, but very hot humid summers punctuated by occasional hurricanes. The Midwest of the US is plagued with tornados. NZ has its share of wild weather don’t get me wrong, but about 80% of NZ’s population lives in a climate that is very livable.
HIGH SPEED INTERNET
NZs famed ultra-fast broadband rollout, undertaken in the 2010’s, was an ambitious and costly project but one that ultimately has paid off in spades. During the rather more extensive and lengthier Covid lockdowns in NZ, much of commerce and working/schooling from home had to be done online and fast broadband across most NZ urban areas made this a bit easier. I am also pleasantly surprised by how much faster the broadband is in virtually all the homes I stayed in and places you frequent like shopping malls and airports. You can get fibre-based broadband increasingly in more US cities, but it is a slower patchier rollout and most broadband you encounter is slower than NZ.