I can’t believe it is actually over. With my last final completed less than 24 hours ago, I am officially done with the “study” part of study abroad. The New Zealand academic system put up a hell of a struggle before it went down, so this past month has been hectic. I’ve had little to no time for any extended adventures (there will be plenty this month), but I’ve managed to collect a fair number of snapshots of life in Wellington that I’d like to share. These range from observations about New Zealand culture to personal anecdotes to a few of my own philosophical musings. So I present to you these pieces once adrift and without form in my mind united under one banner: my lost chapters.
1. Wellington has its own superhero, and it’s not me. Sure I have taken to the streets to dispense swift justice to criminals and morons, but this town has been under a different hero’s protection for much longer. That hero is Blanketman. Blanketman is a voluntarily homeless man with long white dreadlocks and a wrinkled face. He looks like an elderly Bob Marley. He is called Blanketman because of the blanket that he clothes himself with. That’s right, other than a loincloth and a pair of ratty rope sandals; Blanketman wears only his blanket to protect him from the elements. He braves both the biting winds of winter and the oppressive heat of summer with the same frayed blanket. His attire or lack thereof is entirely of his own volition. He claims to go bare as a form of religious protest. What he is protesting against, I don’t know (and neither does most of the city), but I don’t think his target audience is getting the message. Despite his rather pathetic one-man war waged against clothing, he has become something of a cultural, and in my case geographical, landmark. I say that he is a geographical landmark, because he tends to frequent the same street corners. I can say with pride that I’ve been able to send out a text message reading, “I’m outside of the Courtenay Place movie theater next to the scantily clad homeless dude.” So to Blanketman, I offer my thanks. Whatever fight he is fighting, I wish him all the best.
2. I have a love-hate relationship with New Zealand television. Let me state what I don’t like about it first before I move on to its more endearing aspects. I have only five channels. I know that is a lot compared to television in the 1960’s, but let me continue. One of those channels is the Maori channel, a station that features shows exclusively in Maori or exhibiting folk dancing. Because of that, I’m down to four channels. Most New Zealand programs (I try to avoid American programs, because even while watching TV I want it to be a cultural experience) are terrible. The most frequently advertised program, Shortland Street, is openly mocked by every Kiwi I have ever met. The storylines of General Hospital seem reasonable and logical in comparison. Neighbours and Home and Away are only slightly better. Other than kiwi news programs, I tend to avoid television because of these shows. But when I do watch kiwi TV, there are two things that I look for: Outrageous Fortune and the public service announcements.
While Shortland Street may be the most heavily advertised show on the air, Outrageous Fortune is a close second and a distant first in quality. The show centers around the escapades of the West family, a kiwi family of criminals that, upon the matriarch’s insistence, decides to try and live straight. Hilarity ensues. The show is all at once over-the-top dramatic and laugh out loud funny. With an incredibly talented cast, engaging plotlines, and one of the catchiest theme songs I’ve ever heard (every Kiwi knows it by heart), the show is immensely popular. In fact, American television executives have developed an American version of the show called “Scoundrels”. I have no idea how the show is faring stateside, but I imagine that some of its most endearing qualities are lacking that little New Zealand charm that makes it so watchable.
While I would love nothing more than to be able to fast forward through public service announcements back in the good ol’ US of A, I would never even dream of doing so here in New Zealand. Why? Because you just can’t look away. I believe all the PSAs here were designed with shock and awe tactics in mind. Allow me to illustrate my point:
A 35-ish blonde woman stands behind a kitchen counter grinning broadly. She has several cooking implements in front of her, and it appears as if she will be showing us how to make a tasty casserole. For us viewers at home, we think this is a Wattie’s (a giant food products corporation that makes everything from frozen vegetable to soups to chicken) commercial. Our cooking sensei turns on the stove and empties a can of some unidentifiable gunk into the pan while never once breaking her smile. The woman’s daughter, a cherubic little eight year-old girl, attempts to grab her mother’s attention and show her the drawing she has just completed. The mother gives her daughter an angelic smile and turns to examine her child’s latest masterpiece. Then the unthinkable happens. In the five seconds it takes for the mother to turn around and admire a finger painting, the contents of the pan ignite. It appears that the woman was cooking napalm and motor oil judging by the size of the blaze. The daughter lets out a piercing shriek of terror as the rest of the stovetop is engulfed in fire. The woman whips her head around to see the destruction. Things go from bad to worse when the woman’s other daughter, a girl of around five, walks in through the backdoor and is confronted by the blaze. The women and her eldest daughter reach out their hands toward the girl and scream, separated by a wall of flame and helpless to save the child. The inferno roars at them, mocking their devastation, before the camera cuts to one last shot of the youngest girl wide-eyed in the face of her doom. Cut to black. A single sentence appears on the screen: “Don’t leave your cooking unattended.”
The first time I saw this, my jaw dropped. How could they? How could they kill a little girl and tear apart a family when I expected to learn how to make a damn casserole? “No!” I screamed at the television, “No! You- you- you can’t do that!” The other Americans who have seen this ad were equally shocked. This ad isn’t the exception though, it’s the norm. In an anti-drunk driving campaign advertisement, the ad ends with a man trapped in a totaled (and upside down) car while the corpse of his best friend stares at him with dead, wide-open eyes. The cooking commercial PSA even has a follow-up that consists of the no longer smiling woman and her eldest daughter walking through the ashes of their former kitchen, picking up a charred doll, and holding each other while weeping copiously. I’ll say one thing about New Zealand advertisers: they do NOT pull their punches.
3. While some may argue that my account of my trip to the South Island may have been long-winded, I actually cut several details to make it a reasonable length. One of the biggest things I left out of my description was my daytrip to Milford Sound. What is a sound you ask? According to the most trusted of sources, Wikipedia, a sound is “a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight, wider than a fjord, or it may identify a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land”. The thing to take from that definition is that we (my tour group and I) needed a boat to travel it. But in order to get to the sound, he had to travel… a lot. Milford Sound is hell and gone from anywhere else in New Zealand (almost 300 km from Queenstown), so a good 75% of our day was spent just getting there and back. When we finally arrived at the port, I was more than ready to stretch out my sea legs or even just my regular legs for that matter. We were directed to a small ferryboat, the Milford Majesty (I think). She was not as grand as the ship I took to cross from the North Island to the South Island, but she was still impressive in her own right.
As soon as we climbed aboard, one thing became apparent immediately. We were the only white people on the boat. Out of the 150-ish people on the boat, we stood out like sore thumbs. From the sushi and sashimi platters laid out on every table but ours to the TV camera crew wearing jackets emblazoned with kanji characters, our boat had gone Japanese-a. I briefly wondered if I had switched places with my roommate studying in Osaka. While we were fine with their presence (aside from a few Asian tourist stereotypes, I rather enjoyed their company), they were noticeably uncomfortable in ours. Maybe it was the fact that the Australians had started drinking before noon (In an attempt to be civil, I started a little after noon), or maybe it had something to do with me sharing my knowledge of the Japanese language with my friend Eric and letting slip one of the four Japanese phrases I know: “Thank you”, “Hello”, “Good luck”, and “F**k you!” I’ll give you a hint as to which one it was: my roommate taught me it. I didn’t mean to be overheard, but my subconscious tendency to speak at an increased volume in inappropriate situations got the best of me. With that little bit of cultural exchange out of the way, I decided that I had best retire to the observation deck.
When I reached the deck, I was immediately hit by water. Milford Sound is the wettest inhabited place in New Zealand and one of the wettest in the world (thanks again, Wikipedia), so I shouldn’t have been surprised. In addition to the rain, the water on which we were cruising was flanked on both sides by towering cliffs several stories tall. The rain would hit the top of these cliffs, travel down the rock in little waterfalls, and end up spraying us with mist. At the top of the cliffs are lush rainforests, so between them and the intimidating cliffs, I felt like I was in King Kong. I wouldn’t have been surprised if scantily clad natives with bone piercings appeared on the cliff edges and started chanting, “Kong! Kong! Kong!”
The water was one thing, but the wind added a whole new spin on the experience. Wellington is called “Windy Welly”, but the city has nothing on the wind in Milford Sound. Despite being surrounded by cliffs, we somehow managed to catch the full force of an ocean breeze. I had to keep one hand on my head to keep my hat from blowing away, and the other hand on the railing to keep the rest of me from going overboard. With all the intense weather conditions, it was almost as if I had stumbled into The Deadliest Catch. But because of all the Japanese people around, instead of crab fishing, we would have been fishing for… um… more mammalian water dwellers. I held my tongue and decided not to share my witticism with my colleagues lest I be overheard again.
Instead, I decided to wander over to the bow of the ship and try and reenact the famous scene from Titanic. Probably because of the countless Americans before me who had attempted to do the same, the very tip of the bow was roped off. Actually, it was more than roped off, because ropes wouldn’t have stopped me. The bow tip platform was placed a good ten feet above the deck, so I was defeated by my height. Nonetheless, I made the most of the situation when I spotted the ship’s bell nestled under the bow tip platform. I was going to ring it, but a small Japanese boy came out of nowhere and beat me to it. He gave the bell rope a good jerk, and then sped off. Naturally, I received the glares and scolding looks. I would have been mad at the kid, but I probably would have done the same thing at his age. Hell, I almost did it then at age 20. The judgmental looks from my fellow passengers were cut short when we passed next to Stirling Falls. The misty flack from the waterfall forced most of the people off the deck, but my friend Eric, myself, and one very old Japanese man had the bright idea of seeking shelter under the bow platform. We probably looked ridiculous all huddled together, but I was still proud of my ingenuity.
The boat didn’t sink. No one went overboard. There wasn’t a (successful) mutiny. I guess the trip was a success. I didn’t lose my wallet and go through a natural disaster, so it met my criteria for incident free. The scenery was certainly pretty, but I wish I could have been more involved in the trip. I wanted to swim in the water or climb the cliff face, so just watching was hard for me. I did get to see some seals, though. That certainly helped things.
4. Halloween. With copious amounts of candy, ridiculous and often inappropriate costumes, and the fact that pranks are encouraged make it one of the best times of the year. Unfortunately, Kiwis haven’t caught on to the concept. I don’t think it is their fault, though. Part of Halloween’s charm is in its season. The colors of autumn and the chilly, but not quite winter weather are conducive to that spooky atmosphere of Halloween. But over here, Halloween falls in late spring. Late spring just isn’t creepy. You can imagine how disheartened I was on being informed that Halloween “just isn’t a big deal over here”. Well, I was going to make into one.
My first step in pulling a Jack Skellington and pulling off a memorable Halloween was obtaining pumpkins. As I previously stated, it is spring over here. Pumpkins are an autumnal crop, so I was hard pressed to find one. I decided that my best bet for finding the iconic orange gourd would be in the Asian supermarket down the street. If I couldn’t find a pumpkin, I was sure that I could find some sort of weird gourd that I could make a pseudo jack-o-lantern out of.
I had been warned about the sanitation standards of the store beforehand, but was still a little surprised when I entered the shop. Birds roosted in the ceiling and flew freely among the shelves. I probably stepped on an endangered insect when I walked in. And that was just the tame stuff. Avian bird flu originated here, I’m sure of it. After only a few seconds of searching, I was glad when I found a large stack of pumpkins at the front of the produce section. The pumpkins were a sickly pale orange, squat and wide, but they were still pumpkins. I picked out one for myself, and then remembering that my kiwi flatmate, Hanah, had said that she had never carved a pumpkin before, I picked up one for her too. Everyone should carve a pumpkin at least once in their lifetime.
The next step for preparing for Halloween was getting my costume. I had agreed to a part of a group of people dressing up as the characters from the board game Clue, and I was assigned Professor Plum. I own one striped purple shirt, but that it is it. As it turns out, finding purple formalwear is difficult. I visited at least six thrift stores on Cuba Street before I happened upon a tiny secondhand suit store. They did have a purple suit jacket, but not only was it out of my price range, it would have fit only a yeti and even then it would have been a loose fit. I did, however, manage to find a purple tie and a rather obnoxious purple vest. The vest, which I am keeping because it is so obnoxious, is purple, green, and gold, and wouldn’t be out of place in a flamboyant Mardi Gras festival. My friends promised to lend to me a pair of glasses (thick, Buddy Holly style) and a pocket watch to complete the look. And with that, Professor Plum was dressed to kill.
Halloween night fell on a Sunday, so the big celebration took place on Saturday. I spent most of the day carving pumpkins using kitchen knives and a scalpel with Hanah. I carved Iron Man (of course) and she did a design of one of the baby dragons from the film “How to Tame Your Dragon”. For being a first time pumpkin carver, she was surprisingly good. With only a little instruction from me, she was able to make a gourd masterpiece. By the time we finished carving and putting candles in our pumpkins, it was time for the party. Guests in attendance included the Clue crew (as we were affectionately known), the Cat in the Hat accompanied by Things 1 & 2, 80’s prom queens, Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World, and many, many more. It was mainly Americans that dressed up, but I have to hand it to the kiwis, they made a pretty good showing.
The night ended with various groups, mine included, hitting the town and going to the bars. I was wearing my nice shoes, so no getting kicked out of bars for me. Eventually the night turned into a game of Clue with my friends dropping out of clubs one by one. Colonel Mustard in The Big Kumara. Mrs. Peacock in Boogie Wonderland. Mr. Green in Maya. I found myself alone and the last one out wandering the streets at 4:00 in the morning, so I guess that made me the winner. Hooray?
I was at a crosswalk prepared to go to one last bar when a group of about seven guys my age approached and one of them shoved me into a lightpost and called me “four-eyes” along with a few obscenities. He was blackout drunk and stumbling, so knocking his ass to the pavement would not have been a problem. I don’t consider myself particularly tough, but in the state my aggressor was in, it would have been like Bruce Lee facing a toddler. The problem was the guy’s six friends. At least half of them were as drunk as he was, but the others I wasn’t so sure about. I could take down the one who pushed me easily and maybe one other guy before getting beaten to a pulp by the rest of the group. I balled a fist and got ready to swing if they decided to hit me again. Just as I had made up my mind about what punch and kick sequence I would throw (right cross, roundhouse kick, side thrust kick), the crosswalk light turned green and the seven guys forgot all about me. I didn’t want to press my luck further, so I hailed a cab and called it a night. Happy Halloween, New Zealand!
5. This is more of an announcement than anything, but my articles are now appearing in Rice’s online magazine, The Rice Standard. So far I have done two renditions of pieces about bungee jumping and about my experience during the Canterbury Quake. You can expect a few more by the end of the year, so keep your eyes peeled. While you’re on the site, you should also check out the articles by my friend, Tom Boyd, who is studying abroad in China. Even though he makes fun of my Halloween costume (I got several compliments on it, and was told that I pulled off the look very well, so he can just bite me), I still read his articles and his blog. For those of you who aren’t, I encourage you to do so. Other blogs to check out include the blog of my roommate in Osaka (if you like my sense of humor, you will like his) and the blog of my friend in Athens (she is so much better at putting up pictures and giving regular updates on her blog that I feel a little guilty every time I read it).
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has read my blog so far. Even if this is your first time reading (but hopefully not the last) it, I am grateful. Without an audience, I would have almost no motivation to record my experience. The feedback I've received has made all the time and effort worthwhile, and also reminds me that while I sometimes feel like I enjoy writing this blog more than you guys enjoy reading it (I really, REALLY do like writing this), I've caused more than a few laughs. My time in New Zealand is coming to a close, so this will be one of my last posts. Rest assured, since the Commissioner (my mom) and the Professor (my dad) will be coming to the country on Monday to join me for a three week tour of the islands followed by a trip to the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney, there are still more adventures for me to record and a few more tricks up my sleeves. But for now, I’m going to relax. Finals are over and Guy Fawkes Night is tonight, so I’m going down to the waterfront to watch the fireworks show. I imagine it will be a bittersweet experience. I love fireworks shows, but in a way, it will be like a sendoff from this city I have come to see as a home. I’ve had some interesting times here, both good and bad, but I couldn’t think of a better way to say goodbye. So my last thank you goes out to Wellington. It may be windy, cold, hilly, and populated by people who like to pick on guys dressed as board game characters, but I can’t think of a better place to have studied abroad.
