New Zealand: A frank look at my home country after a year away

This blog is not about me hating on New Zealand. I'm just re-evaluating some things about the country with fresh eyes. It's a lovely place for the most part and where I will probably raise my kids.

I think its inevitable that when you spend a decent period of time away from where you were brought up, you will view it slightly differently when you return. That's because the more places you experience, the more points of comparison you have to your home town.

It was the rule rather than the exception that the traveller's I met abroad were a bit negative about their home city. When one compares an exciting life of travelling: meeting new people every day, partying, sightseeing and general holidaying, your life in your home city seems dull and boring.

After my first big trip abroad to Costa Rica in 2008, I returned after five weeks and remember arriving back at Auckland airport. Suddenly the flat vowels and general monotones of the New Zealand accent were deafening. Last year when I returned to NZ after being in Indonesia for two months, Christchurch really felt like a ghost town because compared to Indonesia, there are barely any people (and that was before the Earthquake). So how you perceive something is relative to other things you've seen, right?

My friend's house on the West Coast of NZ

Quiet Streets

Whereas the streets of Asia are mostly a throng of activity: food sellers, cars, motorbikes, noises, smells, people eating - Dunedin and more broadly New Zealand streets would be a welcome home for tumble weed or old newspapers blowing in the wind. There are literally nights when you can go on the streets at 7 pm and not see a single soul. If you love peace and quiet, it's right up your alley. We have small population and the climate doesn't always lend itself to being outside (it's pretty cold a lot of the time), so that's part of the reason.

Boozy Nation
The exception to the quiet streets is, of course, when people go out to drink; oh yes, Kiwis love a few ales. Binge drinking culture in New Zealand was more apparent to me after I had travelled to countries where people drink but perhaps don't have the same tolerance for projectile vomiting. I find after a certain time out on the town, say 1am, people get a bit more aggressive. Fights start breaking out (mainly with young people), people stumble about and couples often start rowing. What you see in NZ is pretty similar to Australia or Britain.

Dunedin

Some Queenstown scenery

I tend to be a bit deprecating about my little city of the South called Dunedin. It's got a population of around 120,000 but it feels quite claustrophobic because the inner city is based around one main street. About a fifth of the population are aged 18-24 because it's got a large University and Polytechnic. Returning this time to my family home after a year way is different from it has been in the past. With the exception of one or two, all my friends have left. Dunedin is the sort of city you get out of once you hit a certain age. Perhaps you return when you have kids, or maybe you don't.

It's quite a beautiful place; there's no traffic, it's peaceful and there's a lot of nature nearby. The living costs are also lower than other parts of the country. On the downside, it's small and insular; the weather is spectacularly crap and the wages are significantly lower than in other parts of NZ.

NZ is sweet as because:
The things I can definitely be grateful for about New Zealand are that it's pretty clean (although the likes of the dairy sector don't necessarily tow the clean, green line), that we get free health care and schooling, there are benefits available for those who need it and the people here are mostly friendly, humble and open minded (although there is a bit of closet racism).

Slightly rubbish news

I had always heard that the NZ news media was a bit crap but that was especially obvious when I returned from overseas. The stories that get precedence in the media are often ridiculous and I think that's just a consequence of our geographical isolation. Apart from the occasional look at what's happening with our traditional trading partners (Australia, US and UK) we are mostly inward looking.

Rugby World Cup

The RWC was on last year and it was the biggest event New Zealand had ever hosted. We had approx 100,000 foreign visitors and there was a good atmosphere throughout the country. News hour after news hour, the leading stories were about the price of rugby shirts, or how some trains were late in Auckland, or that it was raining... Presumably the news chooses to lead with what its viewers want to hear but I definitely felt that there were issues that deserved greater prominence in our media than friggin rugby. 

Globalisation has meant we are more and more affected by what goes on abroad so we should all be a bit aware of international issues so that we don't become ignorant about things that are important to both NZ and the world. If we focus too much on what is happening here we risk further irrelevance in the international arena. I think that a lot of people do travel and keep and eye to what's going on but there's also a bit of denial. Some people seem to think NZ is immune from the rest of the world's problems.

My family home (at least in the eyes of foreigners)

But NZ's great, aye?
People love to harp on about NZ is "God's own" or say we are "the best country in the world" blah blah blah.. I want to know how many people who say that have travelled beyond Australia or Fiji? It's best to remain humble about your country because it's quite natural that you would have a preference to where you're born.

NZ does have a lot going for it to be sure. The fact that we have benefits for the sick or unemployed, we have a stable, functioning and not corrupt democracy, that we don't have heavily polluted air or lots of traffic are things to celebrate. But let's not be arrogant..

Where is New Zealand again?

The reality is that a lot of people abroad know next to nothing about NZ. In international affairs, we are a minnow. We do have just four and a half million people and our influence is limited. Those who do know about us often have strange ideas like we all live on some giant farm and there are sheep living in the cities or the whole country is like Lord of the Rings. Maybe being from somewhere like Denmark is similar; small country, quite wealthy but not super-important in the world.

True

Clean and Green, yeah, right. 

I am absolutely in favour of making the best of our environmental policies and looking after this land we have (although I told that NZ has one of the most altered landscapes of any country in the world). However, even if NZ was 100 percent Pure as we claim to be and used absolutely no power or resources it would matter not a bit. All the good work we do here is undone by all the bad done by big polluters like China and the US.
Funnily enough, NZ is a prime exporter of coal one of the most dirty forms of fuel around. Maybe we don't burn it here but we do sell it to countries who do. So it's slightly contradictory. It's like being against war but then selling weapons to North Korea.

Recently our Prime Minister John Key was grilled on the BBC by Stephen Sackur about our clan, green image. Mr Sackur cited Mike Joy, a leading environmental scientist at Massey University, who recently said “we are delusional about how green and clean we are”. Mr Joy made the comment while pointing out that many New Zealand species are facing extinction and more than half the countries lakes and low-land rivers are polluted. “That might be Mike Joy’s view, but I don’t share that view,” said Mr Key when Mr Sackur presented him with the quote.

I try my best to be pro the environment and help the world etc but in fairness I have one of the largest carbon footprints round. A year of flying to different countries has meant my green credentials are not so rosy. When I was in Europe people often said things like: "Oh, you are from paradise, you're so lucky." 

Our illustrious Prime Minister

NZ is definitely a paradise compared to a lot of the world but we have many internal issues we need to look at and fix. Independence and geographical distance from other countries makes the analogy of NZ being like a life raft in the world seem appropriate but lets down blow our own horn too much, aye? 

Questions or comments welcome.