#kiwi things

This is so sweet and making me miss home! He's a big brain dump of my favorite things

Favourite things:

Birbs: Fantails are cute lil guys with angry eyebrows but a lot of significance in te ao Maori culture which sometimes feels ironic given their tiny stature, tui are majesty and beautiful and shimmery, kereru are silly big fat fluffy drunk pigeons that eat too many berries and can't fly straight.

One horse towns/Ghost towns: I've seen Americans describe them as desolate and creepy but in the NZ I LOVE a tiny one street where there's like one pub and one cafe and a guy with five different jobs. Especially when they're beach towns off the beaten track or places where Maori culture is thriving or multiculturalism is healthy and accepted. There's some spots in rural NZ that are less accepting of POC so anywhere where communities are coming together in love is refreshing. Empty towns are so beautiful and rusty and fascinating even though there's a sad history of rural-urban drift or colonialism to them.

Nature: I love how quiet and rugged our beaches are. The same for all of our nature honestly. You can feel like you're in some teen summer movie finding a hidden gem of a swimming hole or a waterfall and there's no one else around. I miss pohutakawa, guys, you don't understand. Our cities are very green not just in parks or planted trees but actual bush.

People: Yes we can be awkward and tall poppy syndrome but I miss our chill community feel where we have loved, ingenuity, grit etc. It's so hard to explain what our culture and vibe is until you're sitting outside of it.

Things to know about?

ANZAC Day, Waitangi Day, and He Whakaputanga

Lolly cake

White bait fritters

Hangi

Fry bread

The Bird of the Year competition

Jaffas

Pineapple Lumps

Spicy Tomato Munchos.

In general New Zealand has really good pies, good potato chips and really good chocolate biscuits.

We've run out of this one specific chocolate milk and Marmite and it's made the news

The newspaper quizzes in office culture

You can now learn Te Reo on Drops and that's really cool.

Waiata, kapa haka, poi, tī rākau or titi, pūrerehua and many other amazing things that should be celebrated

I think we pull our bills out of a biscuit tin for Parliament which is so whimsical

Our nation is so small it's like a village. You'll be a few degrees separation from famous people pretty easily and for that same reason and I don't think we really care that much. We just let celebrities live their lives like it's no big deal. I had American housemates that met Taika twice in like a week of arriving and they were much more bold about going up and talking to him.

Pavlova and Crowded House/Split Ends controversy.

The Spinoff is a fun time.

Listen to music in Te Reo Maori. There's a lot of great artists out there.

Witness a haka or powhiri or kapa haka competition at least once in your life.

We're not behind the US or the UK in terms of development or progress. We've just taken a different path.

Google something called the Christchurch Call. Some real important work happening there.

The ghost chips ad

The mitre 10 ad

Our drunk driving PSA ads are actually terrifying

Clark Gayford was our equivalent of an MTV Music show presenter. Idk how to explain it. It's like if that guy from BBC Radio 4 married AOC.

This country isn't just traditional Maori culture and Lord of the Rings.

When someone dies or something tragic happens in a public place or hiking trail a closure is put in place for spiritual reasons and that's a good example of government working with local iwi and hapu. I don't know enough about it to explain it myself.

The ripping up of the treaty bill will probably be future history

We have a Maori Queen

It's politically significant atm whether you call our country New Zealand or Aotearoa/Aotearoa New Zealand. You'll see people purposely using one or the other.

I'm Pakeha if you have more specific questions there are Maori Kiwis on Tumblr that I'm sure would be happy to chat.

Kiwi House - Laveau Family - New Zealand 

The kiwi house is getting full

2 Valeries - Valerie Flotsam Agwe Laveau and Valerie Wren

2 Thomases - Thomas Robert Laveau and Thomas Stark

Rhiannian Dove Valerie Wren’s twin

Willy and Wanker the Dobermans

A whole sled team of wolf hybrid husk-a-mutes.

Balrog the lazarus shark 

Scout Temple Laveau

Dug, the Hellhound