Noun, Verb, Kimchi: 10

Written by Clayton Foster

A few days after I got back into New Zealand, a friend and I went to catch a movie at The Rialto. Preceding the feature was the usual onslaught of ads, though on this particular occasion I was left with a sense of emotional manipulation even greater than usual.

It started with an ad for a national supermarket chain, I’m sure you’ve seen this. Happy multi-cultural New Zealanders creating home-made musical instruments out of bits, bobs and I’m certain No. 8 fencing wire, and then coming together with big smiles and loud shirts to play and cook up some sausages and, in general, be very, very New Zealand.

The next ad was for a bank. A montage of short scenes showed a youngish, hipster looking guy (shaggy haired, stubble and all), travelling up and down New Zealand, hitch-hiking, being quirky and colour-saturated, and, yes, very, very New Zealand.

The third, and I think you see where I’m going with this so I won’t dwell, was for a clothing company. Again, more stubble-faced hitch-hiking, a bit of beer drinking, fishing, plaid shirts, and all very, very New Zealand.

I’m not sure why it bugged me so much. Perhaps it was belated cold feet about returning to the mother country. Perhaps it was a too-soon overload of sentimental familiarity, like arriving at your family home on Christmas Day, preparing yourself as you walk towards the front door for the hugs, the questions, the old jokes, the old feuds and the reminder that no matter how far you go and what you do, you’ll always be where you’re from.

There was something there too, in me, that was annoyed at what I perceived to be a very narrow definition of what it was to be a New Zealander. Where were the cities, the skyscrapers, the cafes with almost perfect Eggs Benedict? Childhood memories bubbled and frothed: being forced to read short stories about boys growing up on farms in places I couldn’t even pronounce, when I was a kid growing up in the Auckland suburbs, more able to relate to American movies than I was to Witi, spending my days ogling dreamily the mail-order advertisements in comic books, where lucky American children could order, and actually have delivered, such exotic treats as X-ray glasses and sea monkeys, inexplicable magic that was denied to a kid in the lonely South Pacific.

Perhaps I was still smarting from the more recent experience of having to constantly reveal to other nationalities while I was travelling – No, sorry, I don’t really follow the rugby – and then the inevitable shocked conversation around that disclosure (fortunately, I like Flight of the Conchords, so at least I was able to talk to the Americans and British about something deemed acceptably New Zealand-esque).

Of course, Madame New Zealand is an opinionated and proud old lady, and she has gone out of her way over the following two months to remind me who she is. I took a short term contract on my return to help at a West Auckland school, and there’s nothing like reminding you of your culture than dealing with kids, paradoxically intensified when many of them weren’t born here, but have been brought here young and are going through the processes of acclimatisation. Joining several hundred students and parents, of all colours and creed, singing Downunder in New Zealand at the year-end assembly was a treat, and one that demanded reflection.

I spent New Year’s at a bach in Coromandel with a crowd of friends, finding myself repeatedly looking out at the craggy landscape of Port Jackson or the winding roads to Hot Water Beach and saying, “My god, it’s just so frigging New Zealand.” Of course, there were plenty of sausages fried, musical instruments played, the odd plaid shirt, lots of quirkiness and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that someone had snuck in a piece of no. 8 wire in there somewhere. The sky was that startling blue and the hills were that almost unreal green, as if the landscape had been painted by an over-enthusiastic little girl who had been given glitter pens and sugar for Christmas.

And somewhere along the line I gave into it, that pushy Madame gave me no other option, and I was left realising that it was probably hypocritical to travel around Asia, marvelling at its culture and way of life, while keeping my own at arm’s length on my return to the homeland. I stepped in, felt the warm, humid, sometimes suffocating hug of Madame New Zealand, and realised that Dorothy is right: there’s no place like home. Which is what, I guess, makes leaving and coming back so much fun.