Departing jokingly
Well, so that was it. As quickly as this semester started, as quickly it had been over. So in the end, the only obligation left is to make a final reflection post on this course about beautiful New Zealand. I could probably end this off like most other people by making a simple reflective post about all my feelings and all that nonsense.
But I think it’s time we’re gonna put one on top of everything and look at jokes about New Zealand from the internet and see in what context we can interpret them, and what kind of information we can find out from them.
“But Harley”, I here you saying, “if you have to explain a joke, there is no joke!”. To which I say: keep your tropes out of here, we’re doing science! Also, some of these jokes might seem a little offensive to some, so reader’s discretion is advised.
Anyways, lets get to our first joke, property going to jokes4us.com:
Q: What do two kiwi’s say after breaking up?
A: Lets just be cousins.
We’re starting lovely you see. Although this joke implies a lot of incest going on in NZ, which I’m not going to comply with, it does show us that NZ is a place with a quite… familiar atmosphere. There are only about 4 million people there, so the chance of people being closer to each other than in other countries is pretty high. Geoffrey once put it really well by saying that if you weren’t an extra in The Lord of the Rings, you’d know one who was. Heck, even the prime minister can come into one of the countless cafés around the country on a Sunday and joyfully play with female’s ponytails to his heart’s content. Life is rather slow paced and just… goes on, little hectic and such. What a beautiful place for your heart and soul!
From the same internet page we also have this thighslapper:
Q: What do you call a Kiwi in the knockout stages of the World Cup?
A: A Referee.
Quite ironic I found this to be, as New Zealand had been the Champions of the World Cup for two iterations now. This joke was probably invented by a salty Australian(or is just old). What sport this is referring to? To Rugby of course, national watching sport of literally millions of New Zealanders. Over a million people there watched the opening game of the World Cup held in NZ, back in 2011. Watching is a good point though, because people in New Zealand mainly watch the game. Playing Rugby, unlike in England, has always been a unifying factor in New Zealand, being played by Maori and Paheka people alike. Well, nowadays more like an increasingly Maori sport. Now I’m not the person to usually watch sports, but seeing a bunch of grown up men beating each other up over an egg-shaped ball just seems like a fun activity, even for me.
So the last one is up from a site called amazingaustralia.com(dear god…):
“Two Kiwis are walking down a street in Sydney.
One of the Kiwis happens to look in one of the shop windows and sees a sign that catches his eye.
The sign said: “Suits $5.00 each, Shirts $2.00 each, Trousers $2.50 per pair”.
The Kiwi says to his mate, “ look! We could buy a whole lot of those, and when we get back to New Zealund we could make a fortune!
Now when we go into the shop, you be quiet, OK? Just let me do all the talking, cause if they hear our accent, they might not be nice to us, so I’ll speak in my best Aussie accent.”
They enter the shop and the Kiwi says, “I’ll take 50 suits at $5.00 each, 100 shirts at $2.00 each and 50 pairs of trousers at $2.50 each. I’ll back up my ute and…”
The owner of the shop interrupts. “You’re from New Zealund, aren’t you?”
“Well… Yes,” says the surprised Kiwi. “How the hell did you pick that?”
The shop owner replied, “This is a bloody dry cleaners, mate! “
This joke, while yet a little… simpleminded, shows us one aspect of New Zealand: Quite the rivalry with Australia. Oftentimes seen as some sort of little version of Australia, New Zealand actually has quite a going for it that differentiates it from the big landmass a little to its Northwest, like not treating their native people like crap. Despite their flags being literally almost the same(they only have differing colours and numbers in stars after all), they’re not really much alike at all. New Zealand, despite getting their flag earlier than Australia, even was about to change its flag to a much more fitting(and much less commonwealth-ish) flag. I don’t really know about much further sparks in their rivalry(I guess they have an even record in world cup rugby games?), I am just damn sure that I’d rather take the endless and diverse beauty of New Zealand’s nature over thousands and thousands of square kilometres of deserted outbags. Where thers no water.
Ok let’s stop at this point, before I get desperate for content and dive into sheep jokes. Although I’ve got to know the New Zealand people as quite the humoristic people(as evidenced by some of the suggested flags in the great flag debate). What Oi learned from New Zealand all in all that it is a beautiful country, with 100%(your milage may vary) pure nature, mostly nice people and an astonishingly rich culture and tradition. Learning about New Zealand in general has been a blessing for me all through the semester. But what probably fascinated me the most is the diverse political and racial culture in New Zealand. Since the beginning of the European settlements, Maori have been treated worlds better than Australians were, and are a vital part of the culture, e.g. as MoP. And, well their accent is cute. Reeeally cute. Never thought Id ever hear so many [i] sounds in a language.
Thank you everyone for allowing me to dive deeper into this wonderful country on the other side of the world, about which I had only known very little.
