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Is NZ like the UK?

Is NZ like the UK?

Old Nov 25th 2007, 11:19 pm
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Default Is NZ like the UK?

Inspired by the Canada or NZ thread, the OP stated they had the impression that NZ is another version of the UK.

And upon reflection, is it?

Personally I think not. We share a common language, but culturally there are significant differences.

What I remember of the UK, was my rat race existence, good beer, better sausages, great TV, crap weather, sedimentary lifestyle, a "seeped in" sense of history, double glazing and central heating, fishing for crap fish, getting beaten up, getting burgled twice in a year, motorways, Tesco's and Ikea, traffic jams, people rushing around, turds in the sea, two week holiday in the med and a sense of "if I do not get out of here, this will be my lot in life".

New Zealand has it own share of good points and bad points, but I very happy to say they they are unique to NZ and I am very happy to be here.
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 12:19 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

This is the kind of comment that would probably upset a Kiwi..

(and they are quite easily hurt, aren't they?)

...but NZ really does remind me of the UK 30 years ago.

I even saw a 'punk' in Wellington yesterday....
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 12:23 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Originally Posted by Beachcombers
...sedimentary lifestyle
I like that image, but I think the word you should have written is sedentary.

But yeah, sedimentary is cool. Just layer after layer after layer and so on.

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Old Nov 26th 2007, 12:31 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Originally Posted by Avid
...but NZ really does remind me of the UK 30 years ago.
I heard this before coming out here, but i dont get it
In what way do you mean? I was 10 30 years ago so I dont remember much that would be significant apart from the shops and everything else being shut on a Sunday and having nothing to do.

When I was with my parents three years ago in Cornwall I thought the scenery in their part of Cornwall was simular to bits of it in my part of NZ but that's about it.
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 12:57 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Originally Posted by Jude J
I heard this before coming out here, but i dont get it
In what way do you mean? I was 10 30 years ago so I dont remember much that would be significant apart from the shops and everything else being shut on a Sunday and having nothing to do.

When I was with my parents three years ago in Cornwall I thought the scenery in their part of Cornwall was simular to bits of it in my part of NZ but that's about it.
You're in the wrong place to appreciate it.
Our shops shut Saturday lunch until Monday morning & life is much different from North Shore. Everyone knows who you are, everyone sweeps the pavement infront of their house (not seen that since I was a kid!!)
No Traffic, kids playing footy on the street!!

Thats why we moved from the North Shore, too much like the UK for us (Little Britain).
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 1:14 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Originally Posted by happynz
I like that image, but I think the word you should have written is sedentary.

But yeah, sedimentary is cool. Just layer after layer after layer and so on.

I know what I wrote!
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 1:55 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

No, I don't think NZ is like the UK. Some of the clothes shops may resemble some small English town shops of say thirty years ago, but it certainly doesn't resemble modern Britain. The houses are so different for a start. It would say NZ looks more like some small town American places. The television certainly has the hysterical American advertising which is awful.

I also can't say I think the North Shore is anything like Britain. It's more like Oz in its housing developments and shopping malls. The shops here in NZ don't have the range and variety that shops have in the UK as well as the architectural range of houses you see in the UK.
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 3:04 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

In a word - No...
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 3:09 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Nope.. why would you want to move to a place that is the same as the place you left?? thats just madness i tell you!
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 3:42 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Originally Posted by Dustybin
Nope.. why would you want to move to a place that is the same as the place you left?? thats just madness i tell you!
Just why we left the North Shore, can't agree with Whitesand saying it's nothing like Britain, They cram house's together in the smallest of areas, sometimes 5 in one sub-division all sharing the same drive, it's busy, overcrowded, expensive,.....all reminders of Britain IMO.

Each to his own though.....
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 5:22 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Originally Posted by Avid
This is the kind of comment that would probably upset a Kiwi..

(and they are quite easily hurt, aren't they?)

...but NZ really does remind me of the UK 30 years ago.

I even saw a 'punk' in Wellington yesterday....
Actually this Kiwi has quite a different concept of country comparisons . I have been married to a Brit for 32 years and although we both came from families of similar background financially we were poles apart in a number of areas, including life priorities, upbringing and culture.

What you can buy in the shops and what people choose to wear are pretty insignificant in my world

I suspect what you may see as being easily hurt is more that Kiwi's actually quite like the difference in the NZ lifestyle.

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Old Nov 26th 2007, 8:14 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Mickey-d, wouldn't you say that it is more a characteristic of NZ that they cram houses down lanes, and that there are very few houses without someone else or two also living down the driveway. I've never seen that in Britain. I'm convinced that all this cramming down driveways is to save money building more side streets.

Some folks seem to have about a quarter mile walk to get to their mailbox.
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 8:38 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Originally Posted by Avid
...but NZ really does remind me of the UK 30 years ago.

I even saw a 'punk' in Wellington yesterday....

I see punks everytime I go to London and when Mr Sinope went to a Sex Pistols gig the other night there were many punks in evidence. The movement is alive and well still.
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 9:09 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Originally Posted by whitesand
Mickey-d, wouldn't you say that it is more a characteristic of NZ that they cram houses down lanes, and that there are very few houses without someone else or two also living down the driveway. I've never seen that in Britain. I'm convinced that all this cramming down driveways is to save money building more side streets.

Some folks seem to have about a quarter mile walk to get to their mailbox.
It's just the same in Britain. Sub-Division was happening quite a bit around where we lived in the UK, folk selling off their big gardens!!!
Just hated how close the houses were on the North Shore & how they overlooked each other, which for us was not an improvement on where we lived in the UK.
We now live on 1/2 acre & have 15m of land down each side of the house, which is what we came to NZ for & where we are is just like stepping back 30 years & is very English but in a good way. After talking to them most of the older folk around us did orginally come from Britain anyway.
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Old Nov 26th 2007, 10:36 am
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Default Re: Is NZ like the UK?

Originally Posted by whitesand
Mickey-d, wouldn't you say that it is more a characteristic of NZ that they cram houses down lanes, and that there are very few houses without someone else or two also living down the driveway. I've never seen that in Britain.

I agree. The subdivisions I've seen in Akl are akin to the lack of space on UK council house estates and latterly (ie the last 10 years), new housing estates. Most of the UK is nothing like that. I have 1/4 acre garden for example, which is comparatively quite small for a family home where I live - 50 minutes from London's Waterloo on the train fyi - not in rural Wiltshire, Somerset, Lincolnshire, Cumbria etc.

Re: NZ being like the UK 30 years ago. I think people are meaning pace of life, family time/values, community spirit (ie not the everyman rushing round for himself mentality that has spiralled in the UK), commercialism (not so much spend, spend, spend), making do attitude, pride in one's home, traffic etc. Not that it is like living in the UK.

The UK (in comparison) has become so wealthy and competiton so advanced that we now have a throw away mentality and average people can afford to do so many things, which I don't think has hit NZ (as much) yet.

As an example, the cable on our DVD player broke last week. It was £20 for a new cable or £15 for a completely new DVD player from the supermarket. As a tangent on this, but supporting the theory, it has always amazed me how many Sky satellite dishes there are on council/affordable houses. My point simply being that this is deemed 'normal' nowadays, not an inaccessible luxury that is nice to have.

You can get jeans for £3 in Tesco's. And they are not Warehouse quality as you all know! T-shirts for adults for £1.50.

I bought Junior Monopoly and Cluedo from the car boot sale last week for 40p and a complete Brownie uniform for my daughter for 60p!



It's going crazy.

Last edited by uk+kiwi; Nov 26th 2007 at 10:41 am.
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