ACROSS THE TASMAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 148, 25 June 1935, Page 6

ACROSS THE TASMAN.

(By CHRISTINE COMBER.)

SOME AMUSING ERRORS

.There may be Australians with a considerable knowledge of Now Zealand, but foi the most part I have encountered a colossal and frequently amusing ignorance. ' The first week after my arrival in 'Sydney I trotted about from one flat to another at the heels of estate agents. One young man, enumerating the advantages of an apartmen , finished thus triumphantly: "Now here s something vou don't have in New Zealand. J.lns is really a very clever idea." And he opened a cupboard to reveal a very ordinary slot gas inctor! A few days later an earnest lady wished •to know if I had met her nephew in'Hokitika. Oil my explaining* that I had never been to Hokitika her face registered surprise and no little suspicion. "I thought you said yau were a New Zealander!" she remarked. Further explanations followed, yet still the lady was not quite convinced. "I should have thought 1 in a little place like that it wouldn't he hard to get about," she said. The Maori problem is one that crops up perennially in one guise or another. My landlord's nineteen-year-old- son looked upon me as a poor New Zealand product because I I could oblige him with only the most frag- . mentary samples of the Maori language. My request that ho favour me with a litt.e abo. dialogue he denounced as unreasonable. Earthquakes are, in the mind of the average Australian who has never crossed the lasiiian, inseparable with the very name of New Zea- ' land. I am often asked for my impressions ' of the Hawke's Bay visitation. The fact that 1 I was in Auckland at the time of the tragedy means little or nothing. I was in New Zealand, so if I didn't feel the earthquake, what on earth was I doing at the time? A man related recently in all good faith how a friend of hi 3 had been kept awake every ; night of his stay in New Zealand by the rattling of crockery, the swaying of pictures ' and the rumbling and trembling of the earth. I suspect that liis friend's visit must have coincided with the Hawke's Bay disaster, but I am equally certain that nothing could convince that man that it is possible to get an uninterrupted night's sleep in Earthquake Land.

New Zealanders themselves are guilty of occasional "travellers' tales." In a hotel lounge some months ago I heard a man (though he may not have been a New Zealander) relating such fantastic tales that my own country sounded like one of the imaginative flights* of that old rogue, Mandevillc. Another New Zealander maintained that there was practically no sugar used in New Zealand, • tea, coffee, cocoa and lemonade being drunk unsweetened. Recently Australians informed me that "Whacko" is the stock word across the Tasman to express pleasure. It may bo that my education has been sadly neglected, but I had to admit that the word was quite new to me. In a Sydney tourist bureau one afternoon last summer I heard a lady making inquiries about what to wear during her visit to Auckland. From her undisguised ' surprise at receiving advice to take similar clothing to that which she would require in New South Wales, she must have had fur coats and hotwater bags 011 her provisional list. This is such a common error that I have often had people express surprise that I find the coldest days in winter unpleasant. "But you should be used to the cold!" they exclaim. I am convinced that a good many Australians regard our ca,pital cities as villages. "What is Auckland like ?" asked my next-door neighbour in an apartment house. "Has it electric light, and trams, and water laid on in the houses 1" I produced photographs of Auckland from various angles. For a moment she thought they were views of Sydney! Considering the money that is spent annually on advertising New Zealand in Australia, it seems strange that such a state of affairs should exist. Perhaps we are so eager to tell prospective visitors about our splendid scenic attractions that we overlook the people who are wondering what New Zealand would be like to rear a family in. They are left to collect information as best they can from other people, who have in turn had it from someone else's aunt's sister-in-law. True, there are illustrated brochures to show them the error of their ways, but those I have seen deal but sketchily with city life. Perhaps if it has not been already done a-booklet could be prepared expressly for the enlightenment of men and women wishing to make their homes permanently in New Zealand.