The alternative Kiwipedia
..I sound like this cause I'm chewing a cigar, alright?
For all the mace & ceremonial robes, the many portraits of ‘Her Majesty’, New Zealand parliament is one rickety step above a kangaroo court (no pun at the expense of our preternaturally large hind-legged neighbours intended). If the ornate wooden interior of the House of Commons closely resembles the set of the TV show Deadwood, it may be more than mere coincidence.
Beautiful on the inside.
Forged at the coal face of colonial adventure, gold-rush comradery, and manual farm labour, New Zealand expects high standards of masculinity from it’s men. Unfortunately, these same standards also apply to it’s women.
Whether it’s down to the rural lifestyle, the lack of any good clothes shops, or simply generations of attempting to crack through the deadpan, stoic veneer of Kiwi blokes, New Zealand women are often, and perhaps sometimes wrongly, perceived as being ‘a bit hard’.
Love thy neighbour?
Kiwis are by their very nature imbued with a pioneering spirit of self-reliance, hard work, and the desire to achieve a better life for one’s self and family.
And only when, after years of toil, tenacity and luck, these colonial dreams are finally realised, can Kiwis look forward to spending the rest of their life defending their success against the pitchfork-weilding angry mob of their fellow countrymen, whose own ambitions – for reasons of either circumstance, laziness, or misfortune – have been snipped a little lower down the stem.
Classy lady.
No nation on earth likes a spot of reckless driving quite like the Kiwis. For a relatively roomy, 1st world country of only 4 million, New Zealand suffers road-rage, gridlock, tail-gating, poor signalling, drink-driving, teenage-racing, and a total lack of respect for other road users, at a level that would make even a Mumbai taxi driver take to public transport. And that’s just the women.
A common New Zealand surname.
Aotearoa. The ‘Land of the Long Flat Vowel’. Universally famous for our monotone, deadpan accent. Flat, front-of-the-mouth mangling of syllables, consonants, and the dropping of the letter ‘R’ at the end of words. Just listen to our Prime Minister, John Key, the next time he bungles the word ‘Opportunity’ (he does it rather a lot, but in case you were wondering, it sounds like ‘Opchoontee’).
Odd then, that almost every Kiwi makes such a commendable effort to pronounce words perfectly in every other language, with particular sensitivity to Maori and Pacific Island languages, even if sometimes it makes them sound like a bit of a dick.
This is particularly the case with weather presenters, and can be observed nightly during our Frequent Weather Reports.
It is simply not on.
Irony has often been a bit of a struggle for Kiwis. We have a hard time making fun of ourselves. About the only thing more unbearable, is when other people make fun of us. That is simply not on.
A book of stuff you don't own.
Nobody actually eats Hokey Pokey Ice Cream, and they certainly don’t buy it from a Four Square. Watties’ Tomato Sauce tastes like bubble gum, and comes from Australia anyway. The Buzzee Bee is a shit toy – kids today just want to shoot hookers, in 47 inch plasma hi-definition, on Grand Theft Auto III.
Kiwiana, therefore, is not the love of any actual objects. It is, rather, the love of nostalgia towards objects most of us no longer give a toss about.
Identity Anxiety.
Closely linked with ‘Taking Ourselves Seriously‘, a trait unique to the Kiwi psyche is the need for constant, positive reinforcement about just how great a country it is. This is probably because, deep down, most Kiwis have a niggling fear that it might actually be a bit shit.
Like NZ, but better.
Kiwi’s just can’t get enough of New Zealand. They love it. So long as they don’t have to live there.
Our favorite destination to leave to, and never return, is Australia. This suits us well, because kiwis don’t like to stand out (see article ‘The Colour Black‘), and Australia is basically the same as New Zealand, only warmer, bigger and richer.
Other People’s Shit