So Your Character is From New Zealand … Featuring Tessa Ann @ Books, Bubbles, & Arohanui and Grace Bridges

Our celebrations are fairly similar to that of America. We’ve got Waitangi Day (which is kind of like an Independence Day? Ish?), ANZAC Day (to commemorate our soldiers, like Veteran’s Day), and Guy Fawkes (which is British in origin and basically an excuse to let off fireworks and probably the dumbest holiday ever, in my opinion). I think that the most unique thing about us is our laid back, friendly nature. Almost everyone who comes here from overseas comments on it. We’re just a pretty chill country, which you don’t find in many places.

Grace: On February 6th we celebrate Waitangi Day, which is when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 at…wait for it…Waitangi! This is the closest thing we have to a Constitution and regulates many things from relations between Maori and settlers, to stewardship of land. Today it is often politically fraught, but every year tens of thousands of people gather at Waitangi for a dawn service and all-day festival.

December is summer for us, but Midwinter Christmas is a frequent theme for group getaways and office parties around June and July when it is cold and wet, since we don’t have anything big to celebrate in the winter otherwise. And at Christmas…we’re likely to spend the day at the beach!

Grace: The coastlines are a great treasure to me—there’s just nothing like them anywhere I’ve travelled. Whether in the cities, the local islands (and by local I mean there’s a commuter ferry!), or out in the wild. Auckland has more miles of shoreline than any other major city in the world, and I love all of it.

Tessa Ann: Fish and chips are a bit of a Kiwi staple, although I’m pretty sure that’s actually a British thing. We don’t put vinegar on it, however. Tomato sauce (aka ketchup) is pretty popular. We’re keen on our pies as well. Most people love to chuck some sausages on the barbecue (although I can’t stand them), and we’re known for our hokey pokey ice cream. 

Grace: The fish and chip shops have a marvellous selection that includes all sorts of deep-fried seafood as well as vegetables and fruit, and even chocolate. Here it’s also standard for them to sell burgers—huge and messy, made to order with such diverse additions as sliced beetroot and fried eggs.

Pavlova is a meringue and marshmallow dessert created in honour of a Russian ballerina who toured here in the 1920’s. And another homemade favourite is self-saucing chocolate pudding, in which you place cake batter in a pan, and sprinkle it with extra cocoa and brown sugar followed by a little hot water. After baking, the liquid on top becomes this wonderful hot fudge sauce.

Grace: Yes, biscuits are definitely cookies. We say togs for the item of clothing one swims in, and “bring a plate” for pot-luck. Chips (US: fries) and crisps (US: chips) must never be confused. Near water, “bombs” are dives from a wharf or cliff, aimed at attaining the greatest splash. I’ve also noticed that where Americans say “a bunch” for just about anything, we tend to say “heaps”.

We also have a good quantity of loan words from Maori, which is an official national language (beside English and NZ Sign Language). While some are hard to translate (mana: a person’s earned respect and authority), others are simply used in place of an English equivalent (kai: food; maunga: mountain; kia ora: hello/thank you/health to you). Here’s a cute short film with some local lingo and scenery.

Grace: Here in Auckland the rush hour starts soon after the sun rises over the islands. Commuters pour into the central city by car, bus, train, bike, or ferry; shoppers congregate at malls and cafés, while a myriad of contractors zip around the city’s ridgetop arteries delivering packages, repairing plumbing, collecting rubbish, and all the things that keep society turning over.

In summer, people hit the beach or the bush with their kids, friends, dogs, after work and on the weekend, cramming the carpark, the sand, the waves, the forest trails. In winter and during the week, even a city beach might be completely isolated, and some of the bush reserves are so huge you can get lost in them and forget you’re surrounded by suburbs. In the evenings we like to go out to eat occasionally (that’s kind of pricey here), or go to a movie, a show, or a pub—and that’s pretty much all the options we have. Cafés and many restaurants close at four or five in the afternoon. We do enjoy quiet evenings at home, and it’s just as well.

This is purely based on comments that my mum has made over the years. From what I see in the news, we seem to be quite a calm country in comparison to others. As a nation, we’re generally pretty laid back, and we care a significant amount about our heritage (at least, I do). Most Kiwis have quite a strong sense of NZ pride. Really, though, we aren’t all that different from the States. Just smaller. And more outdoorsy.

Grace: We are small. We are multi-cultural. We’re proud of our landscapes: mountains, rivers, forests, islands. We are nuclear-free. We have free hospitals, and no that’s not socialist, haha—we pay for it in our very reasonable taxes. Visits to a regular doctor cost about 30 bucks, with assistance for those who need it more often. 

And hey, we have great music! Here’s a song that carries a little of our essence: 

Grace: Some think we’re just this tiny backwater, out of touch with the world. Sure, it’s a long flight, but people have asked me how long it takes to drive to America (huh?) and whether we have schools and shops (ehh!). Getting us confused with Australians is about our least favourite thing—just don’t.

Grace: These are really interesting questions and I think I need to answer them together. No doubt you’ve seen our landscapes time and time again in the movies—posing as Narnia, Middle Earth, and all sorts of places. On the one hand this is a true representation because it really does look like that: sublime mountain ranges, high alpine meadows, all those things. On the other hand it’s not quite right because it isn’t really that empty; they’ve cleared out the cattle and the farmers for the movie shoot—and it really only shows one side of New Zealand. Where are the cities, the urban beaches, the bird-filled forests, the small towns? There are some locally-made movies showing these, but they don’t tend to go international.

As far as books go, I’m currently reading The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which won a bunch of prizes. She does a great job of describing the West Coast and Hokitika during the gold rush of 1866.