New Zealand: Breaking out of the Box

No one in my immediate family has ever been to the southern hemisphere, so my expectations were pretty high when I stepped off that plane for the first time. At first, I thought to myself in awe "I'm in New Zealand, I'm in the southern hemisphere. Who knows if I'll ever be here again." However, maintaining that level of stimulation and excitement for very long is impossible, and soon I began to relax. Unfortunately, I jaded myself to the sights around me. It was too easy for me to see the similarities, rather than the differences. The toilets flush a little differently here and the cars drive on the opposite side, but there are still toilets and cars. The accents are a bit funny, but people speak English.

When we got off the plane and met with Jason, he gave us some advice I have been doing my best to take to heart: try to see the differences instead of making easy comparisons. This has been a challenge for me. As we discussed during one of our meetings, the human mind has an innate tendency towards categorizing things. We stereotype and put things into neat little boxes because it lets our minds be lazy. In psychology, there's a term for people who do this: cognitive misers. Our discussion approached the idea that we are all cognitive misers in some way. We talked about generalizing characteristics of the Maori people, an action which is found in many of our readings. Surprisingly, the readings often contradict each other in their stereotyping, but there are common features I have noticed that are used to describe the Maori. They're either gentle and peaceful or they're savages. They're intelligent and inventive or simple-minded. The fact that these descriptions contradict each other so often reflects on the time and conditions in which they were written, but they also indicate that these stereotypes should be taken with a grain of salt.

I'm trying to apply what Jason said to us on that first day and what we talked about in that discussion to the way I view New Zealand culture and the environment. Sure, I giggle to myself when I see signs in the grocery store calling diapers "nappies" but I also make a mental note of the difference, however small. I'm more careful about saying things like "everyone seems so friendly and nice here" because even though it's a positive stereotype it's still a stereotype. To get a full appreciation of Kiwi culture, I have to be brave enough to challenge my own intuitions. Another psychological phenomenon is known as "out-group homogeneity." It's the tendency to view individuals of a group other than your own (in this case a different cultural group) as very similar to one another while seeing distinct differences within your own group. This is something the Europeans did to the Maori when arriving in New Zealand, and it's something myself and I'm sure many of my classmates have done since arriving here ourselves. We must all do our best to understand other cultures in the same way as our own: each person with their own diverse attitudes and experiences.

Visiting several museums in both Wellington and Auckland has begun to solidify my understanding of New Zealand and Maori culture. I have heard the story of the creation of the earth from several different tour guides, one being a Maori himself, as well as from our readings. Each time, the story has varied in some aspects. However, the main aspects of the myth are always the same: the mother earth Papa and the father sky Rangi are torn apart by one of their sons, thus creating the earth and allowing life to flourish. These fundamental similarities are what define the culture, while the differences give us the perspective that the culture means something different to each person within it.

I hope that as I continue to learn more about New Zealand's unique culture, the box I have put it in will grow larger and eventually break open. I want to continue to be amazed by what I see, not jaded by the fact that I've grown used to it or that it's similar to something at home.