Final reflections

For my final thoughts about New Zealand and the course by Mr. Miller I‘d like to give a last overview of what I learned about the country and what makes it interesting from an outsider‘s perpective.

At first glance, New Zealand seems to be a place that slips through the cracks when dealing with English-speaking countries. In fact, it seems so unimportant that it is regularly omitted from less detailed maps of the world. But beyond Lord of the Rings and its seemingly unavoidable fate of being Australia‘s less popular, lesser known step sibling, New Zealand somehow manages to create a distictive image of a Kiwi lifestyle and somewhat casual way of approaching things. And just like other „sibling countries“ such as Germany and Austria or Great Britain and Ireland, its superficial similarities and geographical proximity makes it most likely even harder to stand out on its own and to step out of the shadow of its bigger brother.

Maybe this is the reason why New Zealand is doing so well in many global statistics (which is how it caught my attention in the first place) despite other shortcomings. And maybe it takes a rather unique place like New Zealand for a person like John Key to lead the country for a considerably long time with great popularity ratings despite his controverial and (from a European point of view) un-politician-like behaviour. This too seems to support the idea that New Zealand is the odd one out and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

It was interesting hearing about the various aspects of a country that would otherwise be considered to be too irrelevant on a global scale. Especially since New Zealand is in many regards unique and I will gladly take the opportunity to visit as soon as I get the chance.