SOME N.Z. HABITS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 121, 24 May 1944, Page 4

SOME N.Z. HABITS

AS SEEN ABROAD

EATING AND DRINKING

(The writer of the following was a member of the New Zealand Press delegation of five which visited the United Kingdom at the invitation of the Ministry of Information.)

Travel is supposed to broaden the mind, although some dispute this and say that it merely lengthens the conversation. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that a journey abroad does enable a New to observe differences in ways of living, to compare them with the ways he has known, and to judge whether those ways could be improved. He is enabled, too, to see ourselves as others see us. The new view is sometimes disconcerting.

Everyone has heard of the lilting of Americans for indoor heating, and has accepted it as a fact that when they come to New Zealand they suffer some discomfort. If it is mentioned to them, they will acknowledge it, but they are usually too polite to emphasise it. It comes as a startling discovery that even after the lapse of years an American woman, a warm admirer of the country, will recall with a mental shiver how cold she was when here, and how she failed entirely to find ways of keeping warm. If New Zealand hopes, to welcome a large number of tourists after the war—and the number of men and wpmen, both in the United Kingdom and in America who proclaim their wish to visit the Dominion is astonishing—something will have to be done about internal heating. It is not merely a matter of heating hotels, or more of them than are heated now, but of banishing the chill in railway concourses, reception halls, restaurants, and every other place where visitors go either of necessity or in the hope of enjoying themselves.

It is true, of course, that from the viewpoint of New Zealanders, and all others unaccustomed to central heating, the Americans overdo it. The discomfort of an American here is fully matched by the discomfort of a visitor to America when he spends any length of time in a superheated hotel, office or home. But the cases are not on all fours. America is too big a country to need to change its ways to suit foreign visitors. New Zealand a small country, will have to go out of its way to meet at least t,he basic needs of foreign visitors if it expects them to come to it in large numbers, and to come more than once. Fixed Meal Hours Then there are our habits of eating and drinking. It is no exaggeration to say that, abroad, our hotel and restaurant hours, when they are known, are regarded as utterly eccentric, and' our liquor laws as barbarous. Americans or Englishmen' who have a warm' regard for New Zealand but have not visited it at first decline to believe that there exist fixed periods, of brief duration, before which and after which it is difficult or impossible to obtain a meal in a hotel or at most restaurants. "Yes," they say sympathetically, "you must be" feeling: the war out there." When it is explained that these conditions existed before the war, they are surprised. "You mean to say, then, that a traveller could go hungry—go hungry in New Zealand!" When told that this could happen, unless the traveller were forewarned, or even, int some circumstances, if he were, they are astounded.

The task of explaining the origin of these conditions is difficult. "You say that it is a question of hours of work and overtime. I see. Then in New Zealand does ncbody work after seven at night? What about trains and trams and taxis, or newspapers?" It is acknowledged that the labour laws are not inflexible; they permit of these amenities.

"Then the position is that your people think it is important that they should be able to travel when they wish, but not important that they should eat when they wish? But what's wrong with eating? Dcn't they approve of it?"

Yes, they are' hearty eaters; they Ike their food.

"And I have heard that you have the best food in the world. But how can you enjoy it if you have to hurry to get to it and then, if you are late, hurry to finish it?"

Along such lines a conversation is likely to run, and the New Zealander frequently finds that his task of explaining these of our customs difficult, and that of defending them impossible. Moreover, he is bound to notice that people abroad, when eating in public places, seem to enjoy themselves more than people in New Zealand. Whether the meal is in one of the innumerable popular restaurants or drug stores in the American cities, or in one of the small cosy lunch rooms beloved of the Londoner, it is the same. The people seem to be there not merely because it is time for a meal, but also because it is accepted that a meal is one of the mcst pleasurable occasions of social intercourse. And nobody hurries except for his own reasons.

Fast Drinkers

They say that an Australian or a New Zealander can be recognised abroad by the way he drinks. He drinks fast. He will be the first in a group to finish a drink unconsciously he is thinking it will soon be six o'clock. Therefore he is likely to drink more in a short' time than anj-one else. This habit is not admired abroad, and people are at a loss to understand it until our licensing laws are explained to them. New Zealand servicemen who have been long in Britain have of course adopted the British practice of leisurely drinkmg, and they are not locking forward with any pleasure to returning .to New Zealand conditions Drinking is civilised here," thev sa -,y* there—well, you know what it is like. Why can't thev make the hours sensible?"

Senior military officers of wide experience speak with regret of the unnecessary _ trouble which has sometimes arisen abroad because of New Zealanders' drinking habits. Some people will tell you," said one '-that the trouble comes because m foreign countries there are 'wide open' laws. It isn't usually that at all. It comes because our fellows drink too fast. They drink fast because they think they have to. Thev bring that idea with them from New Zealand. It's bad for them when they go a* -oad, and it's bad in New i Zealand." I

As is well known, New Zealand and New Zealanders enjoy abroad a higH goodwill. It and they are admired for many things, but it would be ineffably conceited, of us to imagine that they are admired for all things. In some—and, outstandingly, in respect of the laws and customs discussed above—we are regarded as backward.—fi.V.D.