“Binge” Drinking Culture in New Zealand

Every country has its own drinking culture. It helps them to interact with co-workers, seniors, juniors and friends. It allows them to forget their stress for a while and to have fun. In some countries, drinking culture is one of the way to increase business…

The importance of learning te reo Maori

In this week’s class we talked about the Maori language, also known as te reo Maori. It was the predominant language spoken in NZ at the beginning of the 19th century. But as more English settlers arrived there, the people spoke less and less Maori. Between…

Kapa O Pango

“Kapa O Pango” simply means “team in black” in Maori.

Everyone who has read a little bit about NZ must have sooner or later crossed the sports section and therefor the New Zealanders favourite sport rugby. And everybody who knows about rugby has heard of the All Blacks, NZs…

Being Trans in New Zealand

I’m going to publicly proclaim it now. Hi, I’m transgender. I changed my medium account name and will probably…

The German Flag

One topic I particularly enjoyed was the one dealing with ‘The Great Flag Debate’. Not only did I find it very amusing to look at the various flag-ideas the New Zealanders came up with, but it also made me think about our own country. How many flags did Germany have until now? What role did the…

Cultural Diversity and Language Barriers

(http://www.rug.nl/education/studyprogram-images/MA-Language-Cognition.png)

How the world was made — an insight in Maori mythology

In almost every culture people tried to explain phenomena which were hard to grasp by developing myths. Thus, there are hundreds of different stories about how the world was created and what happens to dead people’s souls, for…

The Rich Kids of New Zealand

If you are using Instagram or even Facebook you probably came across a site which is called “Rich Kids of Beverly Hills”. Young adults who show off what their parents gave them: Money, cars, helicopters and of course partys!

Kiwi, kiwi or kiwifruit?

The first thing I associated with the word kiwi was the oval fruit with hairy greenish-brown skin and the green my mum always put into fruitsalads. So I always wondered why the New Zealander’s call themselves Kiwi and what better time to finally fill this lack of knowledge. After…