Nonwrestler Blog

What's changed in Wellington

So, having been living outside New Zealand for 6 years, I was prepared for a bit of reverse culture shock coming back from Japan. When Amanda and I were blogging about our time in Tokyo people seemed to dig the reports on the little things that were different (others just wanted photos). So here's the local version - some of the stuff I've noticed about my hometown that may or may not have changed since 2001.

1. Massive increase in Kiwiana and NZ-themed t-shirts

Every time I leave the house I see someone wearing a t-shirt that has some emblem of New Zealand-ness on it. The most popular by a (country) mile is a map of NZ made up of tesselating shapes. The simple slogans "Born here" and "Home" seem popular among a raft of very clear statements of patriotism. Similar positive references to local areas are also pretty ubiquitious, including plenty about Newtown (a suburb of Wellington). Kitsch items of Kiwiana were pretty popular before I left, but a set of Kiwi emblems seems to have been established that crop up in every design shop. I'm thinking photos of baby fern fronds, pohutakawa blossoms, and windswept beaches with tussock on dunes. Silhouettes of koru, wetas, tikis and any of the native birds.
It's a funny one, I'm not sure how I feel about it all. I'm pretty distrusting of patriotic sentiments, but on the flipside the ubiquity of this stuff extends to most of my closest friends - and I'm pretty trusting of them. ;) Getting over our cultural cringe seems like a great thing. Being comfortable with where you are from, or where you are seems ace, but I get nervous about what happens next when that develops into pride. I guess Australia and Japan are both quite good places for instilling nerves on this topic... that "Born here" slogan might look pretty nasty in Australia, where 25% of the population isn't.

2. "I see fat people"

This was something I was expecting, really, but it's not the obese people that shocked me, just the general wobbliness of the population as a whole. Food portions seem almost offensively large, from ginormous coffees through heaped plates of noodles to every dessert being much more than I want. I remember the culture shock going to the States as a teenager and this is a very similar feeling. I can't help but feel it's a bad thing, that however healthy our diets get New Zealanders are just eating absolute shit-loads of food. Coming back in time for Christmas was not good if I was hoping to slowly adjust. ;)

3. Vege options = Cheese.

I went into a sandwich bar and they had 3 different vege options: one with brie, one with blue cheese, and one with something like gouda. Doesn't sit well with the above point about freaking out over fat. Seems like cheese is so often used as the defining feature of vege dishes, which is a massive contrast to Japan. Mind you, having three vege options in a sandwich bar is three more vege dishes than you'd get in many Japanese eateries. However it does seem like the number of options in Wellington has increased in the past however long, too. The average cafe will have vege, vegan, gluten free and whatever else dishes available and if not the staff are generally primed to provide options on request.

4. "Heat pumps"

OK, it's a small thing, but Japanese-made heat pumps have become popular things for Wellington houses. I'd never heard of a heat pump before, and certainly never seen one in Wellington, but soon found out all about them on the open home circuit. They're a relatively energy-efficient way to heat your house and fight the ubiquitous damp, by sucking in air from outside and heating it along the way. They looked strangely familiar to me, and it's because in Japan these exact same things are called air conditioners (well, "eerukon", to be more precise). They're advertised as an energy-efficient way to cool your house and fight the ubiquitous damp, by sucking in air from outside and cooling it along the way. Of course the things both cool and heat, but it just made me laugh that there was this funny new technology I'd never heard of, which turned out to be something I'd become so familiar with in Japan.

5. Tattoos

As with fatness, I expected that the omnipresence of tattoos was going to be a little odd after Japan, where the yakuza associations may be waning, but tattoos are not something most of the population would even consider. I have tattoos myself, so I'm not anti them in principle, but I must be honest I've been a bit appalled by the sheer volume of near-identical, surely-that-can't-hold-personal-importance type tats. Probably going to the gym doesn't help in that regard, because there's a neat correlation between the guys there who are trying to make their torsos into giant triangles and those who are covered in generic tats.

6. trademe

Like rugby, New Zealand's answer to EBay has fully entered the culture. You might hate it, might be indifferent, might love it to bits, but you know about it and have some opinion. Seems ridiculously popular and busy. I've found it pretty useful so far, but haven't got anything like hooked. I spend my "gah, bargain!" energy on that MP3 shop I wrote about in my last post.

Labels: life

Posted at 10:01 PM