Changing face
of life in New Zealand
GERARD O'NEIL
Last updated 11:30
11/02/2015
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THAT WAS THEN: Zephyrs were popular cars among New Zealanders in the
1970s.
One of the things which make New Zealanders unique is the way we think
and behave.
Some of these cultural aspects have changed over time while others have
remained the same or modified slightly. To demonstrate these changes, here are
two lists. Please feel free to add to them.
TYPICAL KIWI BEHAVIOUR IN THE 1970S
1) Your whole workplace moved across the road to the pub at 4pm on
Friday afternoon to warm up for 6pm happy hour.
If you were short of money you searched behind the cushions for lost
coins, any of which would be sufficient to buy at least one drink. The
conversation was usually about rugby, racing and Robert Muldoon.
2) Asking your best mate if he could get you a job at the local freezing
works.
3) Tramping for hours in the Abel Tasman National Park without meeting a
living soul.
4) Spending Saturday morning fixing your car or trying to find space to
put one more racing stripe on your Cortina or Mark 4 Zephyr.
5) Driving slowly around the centre of town on Friday "late night
shopping night" to prove to your friends that your car still went even if
it used two litres of oil per mile.
6) Driving slowly around the centre of town on Friday "late night
shopping night" with five of your mates crowded into your Mini calling out
to local girls that there was still room, if they wanted a lift.
7) Using your first ever pay cheque as a down payment on a stereo system
with speakers so large that they doubled as tables in your flat. A flat which
lacked any other type of furniture apart from beer crates doubling as seats.
8) Playing your only two LPs - Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits and Abba -
for 18 hours per day at high volume.
This was to prove to your neighbours that even though the repayments of
your new stereo system would consume 80 per cent of your pay packet for the
next six months you could still afford to buy more than one LP ... and that you
had an excellent taste in music!
9) Keeping a cover over the empty beer bottles stacked up in the garage.
This was so the neighbours couldn't see when you returned the empties for a
refund, because you were short of cash that week.
10) Getting stuck behind a small car towing a large caravan or getting
stuck behind a small car towing a huge boat.
11) Being woken at 7am on Saturday mornings as the whole neighbourhood
started their lawn mowers.
12) Deciding not to buy the last remaining steak and kidney pie in the
pie warmer on a Cook Strait ferry because it looked as if it had been there for
a while, and then wondering if the food on the ferries would one day improve.
13) Watching Ready to Roll on TV and wondering if Rodger Gascoigne would
ever get old or if Peter Sinclair really wore a toupee.
14) Everyone wanting to leave Wellington as the "Big One" was
overdue.
15) Wondering if Auckland's Southern Motorway would ever reach Hamilton,
or if one day a start would be made on Wellington's transmission gully bypass.
16) Being able to wear gumboots on any occasion.
17) Friday night, fish and chip night!
18) Being amazed that a five-bedroom, six-bathroom, three-garage house
with a large swimming pool had just been sold in Auckland for the incredibly
high price of $31,000 and agreeing with the media that house prices had reached
their limit and the Auckland real estate bubble was about to burst.
TYPICAL KIWI BEHAVIOUR TODAY
1) Meeting your work colleagues in a wine bar across town on Friday
evening.
The conversation being about every type of sport, economics, travel,
international affairs, the overheated Auckland housing market and John Key.
2) Spending your weekends updating your Linkedin profile and reminiscing
about how in the "good old days" you could have expected to have
spent your whole career working for the same company.
3) Instead of getting out to enjoy the great outdoors, spending your
weekends searching for you don't know what on the internet, then surfing 150
cable channels, without success, for something interesting to watch.
Finally settling down to watch reruns of 1970s programmes such as Ready
to Roll and feeing sad, as according to Rodger Gascoigne's latest Wikipedia
photo you discover he has in fact has grown older, but on the other hand a
Google search fails to confirm if Peter Sinclair wore a toupee.
4) Having to get in your car to go to the supermarket to buy milk
because it is not delivered to your gate any more.
5) Having to use 80 per cent of your pay cheque, for the next 30 years,
to meet your mortgage repayments.
6) Having to learn how to use WhatsApp in order to be able to communicate
with your children, as even if they are sitting across the dining room table
from you, no-one speaks any more.
7) Wondering if Auckland's Southern Motorway will ever reach Hamilton or
if one day Wellington's transmission gully bypass will be finished.
8) Deciding not to buy the last remaining steak and kidney pie in the
pie warmer on a Cook Strait ferry because it looks as if it had been there for
a while. It may in fact have been the same one you decided not to buy in 1972
for the same reason.
9) Everyone wanting to move to Wellington as it seems to be the safest
place to live.
10) Being amazed that a rundown, unlivable dump
of a house on an undevelopable section has just been sold in
Auckland for the incredibly high price of $1,000,000 and agreeing with the
media that house prices have reached their limit and the Auckland real estate
bubble is about to burst.
TO PRINT
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