New Zealand Culture
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New Zealand Culture
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Life at the University of Waikato The University of Waikato is located in Hamilton, the fourth largest city in New Zealand. You can view some pictures of the campus here. There is a main dorm-style residence right on campus, and a cottage-style "self-catered" complex at the other end of campus which has a rec room, laundry room and computer room. All internet use except for school web sites is paid for via "Unicash" which is a personal account you can put money into. You are charged 17 cents per megabyte downloaded. On a typical day, I would visit yahoo mail two or three times, my exercise video message board once or twice and maybe a few other places and it cost between 20-50 cents a day. Once you find permanent accommodation, you can get dial-up for about $10-20 a month and broadband for about $40 a month plus a massive hook-up charge. Some areas of town you will get to know:
Hamilton is very centrally located. For reference purposes:
Shopping Anything electronic will be very expensive here. I did find a power plug adapter at the dollar store very inexpensively, but batteries, memory cards for cameras etc. will be quite costly. I found that for the lithium batteries my camera takes, it was cheaper to buy a charger and rechargeable ones than it was to buy the actual throwaway batteries. I also wanted to get another memory card for my camera but they cost far too much here. Buy anything like that in North America. Remember too that the plugs here are different, so alarm clocks and hair dryers and such need to be bought in New Zealand. Many of the less tech-savvy Canadians needed the dvd region issue explained to them :) Basically, most commercial DVDs are region-coded in order to prevent illegal importing. North America is Region 1. Australia and New Zealand is Region 4. So...if your laptop computer is set to Region , 1 it will not play Region 4 DVDs. What does this mean? Basically, it means you have to choose. You can reset it to Region 4 if you want to rent DVDs (although be aware that most laptop dvd drives have a limit to how many times they will let you switch; mine gives you four swaps before it forever freezes on the last swap you made) but if you do so, any North American DVDs you have will not play. Or you can spend about $150 and buy a player here. I wanted to get a few exercise DVDs during the year and looked into ordering North American ones on-line. Amazon.com and Amazon.ca both ship overseas but Amazon.ca's shipping is slightly more expensive. I found that Amazon.com also had list prices that were low enough that even factoring in the exchange rate, it was cheaper than the Canadian price. Your mileage may vary, however. And some of the American cut-rate discount sites are worth a look, even for those paying with Canadian credit cards and converting :) Overstock.com and Deepdiscountdvd.com have low enough list prices that even with the exchange rate, they will be cheaper than Amazon.ca. Drugstores work much differently here. They are set up more like department store cosmetics areas, with little groupings by brand for make-up and little shelves here and there for other stuff. There is MUCH less variety in terms of brand. I had no trouble finding the soap and shampoo I use at home, but they absolutely do not have Crest toothpaste. And sunscreen costs a fortune. There is no cable television. Sky satellite tv is quite expensive so most people just use the free channels, of which there are three, creatively named TV One, TV Two and TV Three. They get no repeats ever---it is all new programming all the time because they run so many imports, so expect three tv seasons: a kind of slow summer one, a big fall launch of various trendy American shows which typically will run several weeks behind, and then in about late June when those finish, a second season of the surprise hits from America that just finished their run. If you get a New Zealand bank account, you'll get a debit card, known here as an "Eftpos" card. On a student account, you get free unlimited Eftpos transactions. I found that it was just as easy to put everything on my credit card and pay it online as I went, but for small transactions Eftpos can be quite convenient. Food Fish and chips is the NZ equivalent of the fast food restaurant. "Takeaway" shops selling this are all over the place. Most of them will produce a good-sized package of tasty fried stuff wrapped in newspaper for $3-5. They do have Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Burger King and a few other North American chains. But these will be much more expensive than you are used to. A typical Burger King meal is about $8. People don't really seem to go out to eat here the same way North Americans do. The 'family restaurant' or Italian place etc. are just not prevalent here. They get takeaway, fast food, or go to bars. They have some of the same brands we do, e.g. Campbell's and Nestle. But the product lines differ slightly. There are some Asian-influenced Campbell's soups and the Nestle bars have a few extra flavours. There are also a lot more marshmallow-based candies and chocolate bars, which was a nice treat, coming as I did from a place where you can get marshmallow candy only at Easter and Valentine's Day. They don't use ketchup here. They use tomato sauce instead, and it's very sweet and a lot less thick. North American chains like McDonald's will have it, but takeaway shops will not. You can buy it, but it's expensive. The canned food kings are Wattie's. They make tomato sauce, canned pasta, canned fruit etc. The discount brand here is called Pam's and they have all varieties of product. They have a smaller variety of frozen foods and convenience foods. Many of the microwave meals in the grocery freezer are Indian dishes. And...you guessed it :) They are expensive. Breakfast cereal is mostly the granola type and is expensive. Granola bars are called 'muesli' bars and that term refers to cereal bars and rice crispie bars too. In Canada, an 'energy' bar would likely refer to Power Bar-type protein bars. Here, they will slap that label on anything with sugar in it. Candy bars, drinks etc. all use this indiscriminately. Other food terms you'll run into include:
New Zealand Slang
Maori Culture Maori culture is very prevalent in New Zealand. On the first day of class, we were greeted first in Maori then in English, and they sang a welcoming song in Maori. A lot of the campus buildings are labeled in both languages, and many street names and place names are Maori. Some Maori words you are likely to hear: Aotearoa (Ow-tey-ah-RO-ah) - New Zealand. This is the Maori name for the country itself. Aroha (AH-ro-ha or Ah-ROW-ha)- Love. Haka (HA-ka)- A ceremonial dance. Only men do this. Hongi (HON-gee)- A Maori greeting involving pressing noses together. Koha (KO-ha)- Gift or present. You should take one if you are invited to a marae. Kia Ora (Key Ora) - A general Maori greeting, also used for 'thank you.' Karakia (Ka-ra-KEY-ah)- A prayer. Often used in greeting rituals and powhiri. Mana (MA-na) - Prestige. The teaching program will talk about ways to "raise" the mana of Maori students. I think this term is sort of analogous to what we would call self-esteem. Marae (Ma-RYE) - Meeting place. Sort of like the community centre. Where the powhiri happens :) Pakeha (PA-key-ha)- Non-Maori New Zealander of European descent. Powhiri (PO-fur-ee)- Welcoming ritual e.g. used to open school term. Tamariki/tamariki ma (Tam-mah-REE-kee {mah})- Child/children. Tapu (TA-pu)- Sacred. Waiata (WY-ah-ta)- Song/poem. We do a lot of these with the children in school. Whanau (FAN-now) - Extended family. The teaching coursework will talk about working with the Maori student's whanau on things. Waka (WAH-kah)- Canoe. The legend goes, the Maori arrived in New Zealand from Polynesia in different canoes, so if someone asks you what is your canoe they mean what is your tribal affiliation, i.e. which canoe. And finally, some practical Maori: Ka kite ano (KA-key-teh-ah-NO)- See you again. Ka pai (Kah-PIE)- Well done. Korero (Ko-reh-ro)- Talk/speak. Used as both a verb (Speak!) and a noun (a speech) E oma (Eh-OH-ma)- Run! E tu (Eh TOO)- Stand up! E Noho (Eh NO-ho)- Sit down! Titiro (mai) (Tee-tee-row-MY)- Look (at me)! Whakarongo (mai) (FAH-kah-ron-go-MY)- Listen (to me)!
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