We New Zealanders are we like this?

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 11, 5 June 1944, Page 24

We New Zealanders are we like this?

A KORERO Report

A recent number of the English periodical Horizon included an article called “New Zealand : Answer to an Inquiry.” The writer, Anna Kavan, tells us at the beginning that she is trying to convey something of her private picture of New Zealand, " very impressionistic, certainly, and incomplete. But,” she says, “ I believe that if you were to collect a sufficient number of such personal sketches from people who have been there you would have the most lively and valuable picture possible. I mean by this that there is much more of the living spirit in Tom, Dick, or Harry’s confused idea of a country than there is in the factual exactitudes of reference books.” Well, we reproduce some of Miss Kavan’ s impressions here together with some comments from other sources about New Zealand and its people. , We would like you to tell us what you think about all this. Are we New-Zealanders really like this ? Your opinions might make another interesting article for Korero. To begin with, Miss Kavan says that in her picture the country itself is immensely more important than its inhabitants. She adds that she thinks this may be because the social instinct is not very highly developed in her ; or it may be that the population of the country is so small in relation to its size ; or it may just be because of the sheer, overwhelming splendour of the natural scene "in those weird islands, to hell and gone down there, near the south pole.” We haven’t space to reprint Miss Kavan’s description of the country and its towns and villages ; we must start with the paragraph in which she talks about the

vague sense she has " of something having gone wrong somewhere ” : A new country (she says), a country so full of splendour and strangeness as this one, ought, one would think, to produce some new and splendid characteristics in its inhabitants. But does it ? Well, of course, here and there, splendid individuals do emerge, as for instance, Frank Smith, the ranger at Waikaremoana, a man of real, simple magnificence and in close contact with the natural world. And Mrs. Gron, brilliantly blue-eyed, with a magic touch for all growing things, toiling away in the backblocks year after year, in a man’s hat and gumboots too often stogged in mud, and utterly undismayed. But my impression of the mass of the people, the townspeople at any rate, and particularly those in the Auckland district, is that there’s something lacking in them. Perhaps it’s the humid climate that does it; but anyway they seem to me to lack vitality, warmth, enthusiasm, whatever you like to call it. The women look fine sturdy specimens, like professional tennis players, but walking around their houses and down to the shops is about as much as their energy runs to. The men look hearty and tough, but when you get to know them they seem depleted somehow, frustrated perhaps, and dissatisfied. It’s a queer thing, really. For most of the year, anyhow, in this region, the sun shines and the weather is good. The country’s good to look at with plenty of hills in the background and small mountains, some of them even extinct volcanoes. The sea’s still better to look at, full of fishes and small islands. The smallest fishes jump up in shoals out of the water

to escape from the large fishes, the gannets fold up like umbrellas and dive after fish of all sizes, the cormorants hunt under water for fish and for shell-fish, the kingfishers fish from the rocks, the men fish from boats, the gulls hang about in the air, on the water and on the land for any portions of fish which the others may chance to discard. It strikes me that the dissatisfaction around here should be the prerogative of the fish. Why the dissatisfaction, then, amongst the human inhabitants ? Why the lack of energy, lack of cordiality, why the defensive attitude ? It’s only their manner, somebody tells me. Sturdy colonial independence. The difference between the old and the new. Well, then, all I can say is that I don’t like their new manner. I don’t like the postman who doesn’t answer when you say good morning, it makes no difference if you say it once, twice, a hundred, or ten thousand times, he’s shut up like a clam, you’ll never get a response out of him, his independence goes on getting sturdier at every encounter. I don’t like the defensive attitude towards newcomers, the old insular “ Here comes a stranger, let’s throw a brick at him ” attitude.

What happens when a stranger enters what’s called intellectual circles ? Do the sturdy colonial intellectuals care if Einstein or the Cham of Tartary is in their midst ? Brother, they do not care ; they do not wish to hear from you, and unless you can speak louder than they can you’re as good as dumb. I suppose they’re far too independent to display any interest in any one from outside. ‘ I don’t like the set-up between the sexes, either, the men getting together around the bottles and the women getting on with the chores. The men worrying about the Labour Government and the women worrying about something in the oven. The women not allowed to drink in a public place after five o’clock. Some wowser writing in the paper that a decent woman’s place in the evening is in her home. Individual New-Zealanders, when you get to know them, are as fine as individuals anywhere; but why all the defensive reserve ? Why is getting acquainted

such heavy going ? What’s behind all the display of sturdy colonial independence ? Well, if you ask me, it’s dependency, and to these people independence means everything because, precisely, they haven’t got it, they’re still tied up to the home which they call England ; they’ve never cut the umbilical cord, and when they realize their position they are full of inward trembling, and they depend on defending themselves with the defensive manner. They depend on defending themselves with the good old middle-class atmosphere their predecessors brought with them from Bodmin and Nottingham, with china dogs on the mantelpiece, and the shades three-quarters down over the windows to keep the carpets from fading and the neighbours from peeping in. Of course, you can see their point, they’ve got to defend themselves somehow against all that loneliness of water and the South Pole and the bush, all the hoary, enormous, spectral trees

standing massed against them, and getting them down, because, though they keep on burning and felling the trees, there’s still the huge mass of Nature, indestructible, desolate, indifferent, dangerous Nature, the oceans and the ice cap and the antique forests and the earthquakes, massing upon them,

bearing down on them, separating them from Bodmin and Nottingham ; and who are they, anyhow ? They are caused to tremble, being only a few transplanted ordinary people, not specially tough or talented, walking in gum boots or sand-shoes among the appalling impersonal perils and strangeness of the universe, living in temporary shacks, uneasily, as reluctant campers too far from home. They are on the defensive because if they didn’t put something between them and the awful, patient, immemorial bush and the imminent Pole and the ambiguous smile of the darker race, these things would fall in on them and crush them. They would be crushed thin like dead leaves and the Polar south wind would blow them away to nowhere. Hence the depleted vitality, the weariness of the secret, eternal struggle, the heart unrecoiled, but at home in another place, the mind preoccupied and closed against strangers, being closed against the menacing strangeness of an alien hemisphere.

At least (Miss Kavan concludes) that’s how it looks to me in my picture. And how should I presume to criticize the people who venture to trust themselves to those weird, unearthly, resplendent islands, lost, lonely islands, implacably blockaded by empty antarctic seas ? In my picture these people look mad and heroic because they have courage to go

on living at all in the face of that alien terror and loveliness, nothing between them and the South Pole. That is all of Miss Kavan’s article we have space for here. The paragraphs which follow are from a letter on the same subject — New-Zealanders —by a member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. The writer of this letter was born in Europe, where he has lived for the greater part of his life. He has been in New Zealand for a few years. One of the first things about NewZealanders he comments on is what he calls their method of expressing goodwill. Instead of saying you are a very nice fellow and thank you for buying a penny’s worth of lollies in my shop, the friendly woman behind the counter will say, "Turned out nice again.” And the liftman, he says, having gone up and down for the 37th time and having safely guided the 150th person up to the second floor still smiles kindly at you and says " Rotten weather to-day.” And if, he continues, you should meet the wife of a member of the 1936 “ All Black ” team (in other words one of the highest dignitaries in the country) it will be quite impossible to start a conversation with her other than by saying : " This season is really much wetter than the last one,” or the other way round.

It’s important to note, this observer says, that the actual state of the weather has very little to do with the uttering of this strange good will signal. It may be overcast and windy, yet you will still meet a smiling face and affirmative reply if you say : “ Nice day to-day.” And, again, this summer may be the hottest for years, yet you will still find enthusiastic followers if you point out that this is the worst summer you have ever come across and that it seems a strange thing that the seasons should have changed such a lot. And this will often be the startingpoint for some inference that the world is no longer what it ought to be and that it is probably God’s wrath that has caused these changes of weather and, if not God’s wrath, that there is something strange going on somewhere ; or that the bad weather has been caused through the thunder of the guns on the plains

of Russia and that the weather in wartime is generally worse than in peacetime. With a lot of common sense, the average New-Zealander has a silent, or sometimes even a rather vociferous, love for the unexplainable and mystic. He prefers no explanation of any physical event to a rational and realistic one. There is only one form of religion which is fairly generally accepted in New Zealand, and that is the cult of Rugby football. Rugby replaces the “ Old School Tie ” in this country, and in private conversation you simply musn’t be critical of this divine sport, but you must say: "It does make men of them ” —even if they now and then get a kick in the kidneys, or get rheumatism for life, or concussions and broken limbs. New-Zealanders are tough and they are proud of it, and their unreserved approval of Rugby is only their unreserved approval of toughness and the fighting spirit , . .

The average New-Zealander is very well educated — is, he can read and write and has a fair knowledge of technical matters and is mostly able to get through all sorts of adversities under his own steam. There are only very few things a New-Zealander will not do himself. In the house he is his own gardener, his carpenter, his paperhanger, his electrician —not to talk of dish-washer and cook, of course. With his children he is often their hairdresser and his wife their dressmaker.

. New-Zealanders read an awful lot. Three library books a week is nothing extraordinary. But if you asked them, after a fortnight, what they have been reading, the answer would be fairly unsatisfactory. I have a feeling that the answer wouldn’t be more satisfactory if you asked them while they were reading. I don’t know if their education is merely technical, but this seems to be their outstanding characteristic : they are mastering everything mechanical and mechanically. They can repair a watch, although they may be unable to make one ; they can repair a radio set —even if they don’t know the principles of radio-physics. They can build a house if they have no sense of beauty. They can read a novel—but they might not

understand it. And being the sort of people who don’t pass their time sitting in the sun and having folk dances and sing-songs, they expand on their chesterfield suite at home, put on their slippers, and enjoy the joys of family life, reading " Blondie’s Third Lover ’’ and similar tripe. Father doesn’t talk to mother,

and the children are probably at the pictures or are reading their library books —if they are sufficiently grown up and the essence of family life is there. Thus, family life is another of the pillars of New Zealand society . . . If you accept physical standards, New-Zea landers are probably amongst the most mechanically minded, the most handy, the most practical people in the world. They are strong, well built, like their rather monotonous food consisting of mutton or beef and apple-pie and perhaps a sponge cake on Sunday . . . On the other hand, if you accept intellectual standards, you will find that in most cases when a problem escapes their immediate grip they are unable to tackle it. They may not be unable, but they certainly are not interested. “ Talk to me about what I can see and don’t talk all sorts of theoretical nonsense ” —

that is the attitude of the great mass. In their proud self-confidence they are rather stubborn, and argument won’t get them very far unless it is backed by some very visible proof. Thus their socialism is more a matter of L.S.D. than of high-spirited hopes of a millenium to come ; thus they have been able to build a society where every one can live in reasonable comfort, but where all those who have a longing for the more untouchable things in human life are frustrated and dissatisfied. In all, whoever loves the soil, the sun and the sea, the mountains and the good earth generally, whoever believes in the things that make the life of the body pleasantplain food, good climate, lots of outdoor work —whoever is interested more in the direct thoughts that spring from living in Nature and with people, he

will find that the New Zealand character has to give him everything he wants. But if you are fundamentally interested in the intellectual pleasures of life, in social thought, in art and culture, New Zealand’s national character leaves a lot to wish for, and it may well take another hundred years for it to develop to the stage of the most backward European community. We haven’t given you all of this writer’s comments on New-Zealanders. We haven’t space to do that. Nor have we space here to quote other opinions. A book has recently been written on the subject. It’s called “We New-Zealand-ers,” and is by A. R. D. Fairburn. If you’re interested, you might have a look at that and tell us what you think. In any case, let us know your opinions on the comments we have quoted here.