January, 2004
First, another aside: thanks to the over two hundred of you who emailed kind
words after the Sydney post, actually overwhelming the madding Real Americans
crowd, whose typo-ridden name-calling became funnier by the day when contrasted
to your thoughtful, often educational, letters. This did my heart tremendous
good, and shortly after my return, I hope to write back to everyone who left
the ALL CAPS key alone. Thank you very much.
Second, many of you have suggested I should expand these entries into a book.
Heck, yeah, great idea, I'd love to. These are only a fraction of my notes,
and there are pictures you'd have to see to believe (some of which I intend
to post when I get home). Baboons. Rental cars. Baboons surrounding rental cars.
And so on. So, um, any publishers lurking out there, or anybody who knows someone
who might be interested... say howdy.
Third, while I've been tempted lately to emigrate to safer and saner places
-- one of which I'm writing about below -- one thing this trip has taught me
is the profound extent to which America's actions and culture truly do permeate
the world -- and the degree to which the rest of this world (or at least the
fraction I've seen on four continents) is distressed at the prospect.
Fortunately, America, this strapping problem child among nations, is still a
country I know well, where I can still (for now) vote and speak my mind and
do what I can to stop this madness. And so I think, then, that my place is back
in the States, working and writing and screaming until my lungs fall out.
I'll be home shortly, and the screaming etc. should commence shortly thereafter.
What I want, I realize, isn't really to live in Sydney, necessarily -- it's
to see more of America, my home, become just as sane, clean, and liveable.
Meanwhile, as long as I'm not back quite yet... New Zealand:
Before this trip, I confess I had Australia and New Zealand mentally blurred
together, and thus, I suppose, half-expected to deplane in Auckland as if I'd
simply taken an extended subway from Sydney.
That notion didn't even survive the Sydney airport.
The moment you board an Air New Zealand jet, you enter complete immersion in
Tolkien mythology, since the in-flight magazine, video programs, and (often)
even the plane's exterior design are well and truly consumed by the company's
surely-profitable determination to be the "Airline To Middle Earth."
Every headrest on every seat bears a Lord Of The Rings logo, and if
you try to escape by closing your eyes and listening to audio, you're likely
to stumble across an embarrassed-sounding Ian McKellen pimping for the airline;
I can only assume that the paycheck they handed him was better-composed than
the text he had to read.
(This surely vexes me more than it would you, since Ian McKellen a) is my favorite
actor, in whom I wish to lose as little respect as possible, and b) often looks
quite remarkably like my own departed father, which may have something to do
with a), but which in any case can be either uplifting or goddamn terrifying,
depending on whether Ian's playing a Nazi again.)
The hobbitfest continues, off and on, wherever you bop around New Zealand, where
portraits of Frodo, Gandalf, the Gollum et al currently adorn everything
from the sides of giant buildings to the nation's postage stamps. The Te Papa
Museum, New Zealand's Smithsonian, recently completely an exhibition of LOTR
detritus that was the most popular in the nation's history, and which is now
touring the world. And so LOTR-related tourism has become a lucrative industry,
responsible for a constant flow of visitors, some of whom seem to grip both
disposable cash and reality itself with equal looseness.
(Snarky? Fine, you try making polite conversation with two middle-aged
Kiwis in a Wellington nightclub, almost misty-eyed that the Te Papa exhibit
had long since moved on, especially since they had worked so carefully on their
elf costumes -- which they were still in the habit of wearing. I was assured
these get-ups were carefully authentic, which, I conclude, extended right down
to the something-died-before-the-dawn-of-history aroma, which reached back through
the mists of time so convincingly I could barely swallow my beer. If that sounds
unkind, it's not -- in fact, it's giving them the benefit of the doubt.)
New Zealand's broadcast media, too, seem as constantly proud of and obsessed
by Peter Jackson's movie trilogy as... well, the only comparison that comes
to mind is the American media's proud trumpeting of the invasion of Iraq: great
footage, breathless tales of primal conflict, the thinnest pretense of objectivity.
The major difference is that on only one of the film sets, the torn and bleeding
bodies eventually all got up, cleaned off, and had something to eat.
I'm not knocking all the Kiwi pride here, nor Peter Jackson's films. Geez,
no, the movies are an amazing accomplishment -- adapting intricate tales with
Rain Man attention to detail while still conveying their essential story bits
on a level that makes six-year-olds feel like adults and vice versa. Holy crap,
that's amazing. More so in that Jackson made all three films at once, and more
beyond in that the facilities to accomplish this were essentially high-wired
and spitballed into existence on the other side of the planet from Hollywood.
Which, then again, is probably only the reason all this cinematic brilliance
could possibly occur.
What you're seeing from me is more a reaction to the dizzying saturation. I
didn't come here to visit Middle Earth; I came here to visit New Zealand, its
people, its history and culture... but pretty soon, hell, even I gave in, climbing
and tramping a damp hillside above Wellington just to follow a trail of spray-painted
runes (Angerthas dwarf runes, if you're curious, not the elvish Tengwar -- see,
I'm a dork pretty often myself, too; I just don't consciously pursue it as a
tenable lifestyle choice) to the spot where they shot the bit in the first movie
where the four hobbits cower under a tree while the dark baddie on horseback
loomed so evil that even the worms came out of the ground.
And sure enough, my feet braced against rocks and stumps on steep and slippery
hillside, my body scratched by hostile foliage and bitten by medieval-torture
insects, I found it... yes, there it is, yes... I see it now... a... tree.
Peer pressure sucks.
So. Back to New Zealand. If that's possible.
By now I'm used to my assumptions about places turning out to be wildly inaccurate.
(Heck, that's half the fun.) But my imagined similarity between Australia and
New Zealand turned out at first to seem spot on: not only are New Zealand's
dialect, currency, and national flag almost identical to Australia's, but so
are large and important chunks of culture. You see the same glorious lack of
ostentation, the same pride in the environment, and the same emphasis on middle-class
(as opposed to upper-class) wealth.
Just for fun, climb any of Auckland's high points (and there are plenty -- big
volcanic jobs, actually, since New Zealand only exists because two giant plates
in the planet's crust are going kaWHUMP with great, slow force, pushing up a
large jaggedy bit above the waterline upon which we tiny people can scramble
and gallop) and look around for the rich and poor parts of town.
This is a simple exercise in America; to find the rich, just look for green
patches -- wealthy areas are usually near any remaining parks -- and then scan
to the nearby giant houses spottable from great distance. To find poor people,
usually, find the least-green area, which is usually filled with small brownish
squares in which people are penned during non-working hours. You know the drill.
In Auckland, however, you see middle-class homes... bits of green... and more
middle-class homes... bits of green... and shopping areas... bits of green...
and more middle-class homes. Some are surely nicer than others, and obviously
there must be plenty I didn't see, but damn. I looked and looked.
Also, there are ballparks, a big giant SkyTower which is as much a demonstration
of national penis envy as any sort of functional building (and yes, I took its
entire length, and in an elevator no less), and -- most of all -- water.
Auckland has not one, but two -- count 'em -- bays, sitting as it does on an
narrow stretch winding Panama-like between them. Beaches are everywhere. One
of them, Muriwai, is considered no big deal by the locals, but is perhaps the
nicest I've ever seen -- a mile and a half wide swath of silky black volcanic
sand facing the sunset, undisturbed by development thus spectacularly clean.
(This will be useful when Gandalf goes surfing in the Jerry Bruckheimer remake.)
And, remember, this beach is no big deal here. Up the road a piece is a place
called Ninety-Mile Beach. Which is exactly what you think it is.
Ahhhh... (Assuming you're wearing sunscreen; see below.)
The similarity to Australia continues politically as well. A national ad campaign
currently sums up the nation's environmental attitude summed up as "four million
careful owners." Pick up the Dominion Post, the largest paper in New
Zealand's capital, and find the Bush cabinet described as "religious fanatics
prepared to resort to extreme force in the imposition of their narrow views
on the rest of the planet." Talk with anyone on the street -- anyone, it seems
-- about recent U.S. demands regarding visas, fingerprinting, and even not waiting
in line for the loo on the plane -- and you'll quickly discover just how completely
the world's post-9-11 goodwill has been obliterated.
I don't know how to convey the depth of public disdain for Bush down here. It's
casual; it's assumed; it's like being against poverty, ignorance, intestinal
worms, or potato blight.
And while I have yet to see even a hint of anti-Americanism directed at myself
-- most folks everywhere seem to understand intuitively that I am not my government,
a consideration I suspect the people of Iraq might have appreciated from us
during the embargo -- this next is fairly mind-blowing.
A recent study published in the Sunday Star-Times asked Australians and
New Zealanders which country they would like to visit, but would not, because
they consider it too dangerous. Here are the results:
1. United States (14%)
2. Iraq
(13%)
3. Indonesia (11%)
4. Israel (7%)
and so on.
I kid you not; I can't find a link online, but I've got a hard
copy of the paper in my bag. All in all, 28% of New Zealanders want to
visit America. Fully half of them won't.
The Aussie numbers are
almost identical. America is consciously avoided in numbers down here
exceeding even countries in open internal armed conflict.
Looking again at the phrasing of the question, you'd think America's number is
obviously amped by the large number of people who want to visit in the first place.
But the poll
also asked which countries Kiwis wanted to visit, safety aside. The whole
civilized world shows up at the top of that list -- the UK, Canada, Italy,
France, etc. The U.S. is the only industrialized country on the
entire considered-too-dangerous list.
Think about it... half the
people down here who want to see the U.S. think it's too dangerous to be
worth an actual visit.
Half.
Why? Not exactly hard to
guess,
thanks to the steady stream of orange alerts, not to mention our rate of
violent crime, obsession with firearms (widely seen as ludicrous), and lack
of national health care that might help a visitor taken ill. Also, seven
percent of those polled in both countries wouldn't visit the US simply on
ethical and political grounds, and another seven percent would not visit
the US because they believed there was too much corruption.
That's
what we look like here, folks. And it fits with what I hear from talking
with people in cafes and on buses and whatnot.
And a few minutes ago
the whole Middle Earth image seemed like a silly thing.
Shoot, I'd trade in a second.
But lest you get the idea that I'm just
glorifying New Zealand as heaven on Earth... nope. Nothing's that easy,
dammit. (And now I want to go back to Sydney and see how much I
overlooked...)
For one, I miss the ozone layer.
The sun here feels like a finely-edged weapon against your skin. New Zealand is,
in fact, the melanoma capital of Earth, thanks to clean air, the sun's proximity
during summer (closer here than in the northern hemisphere, thanks to the planet's
elliptical orbit), and the world's widespread ozone-destroying CFC use. According
to the locals I spoke to, part of the reason the green hillsides are so rapturously
vivid here is simply that more photons throughout the spectrum of light -- including
the skin-sizzling UV range -- is boinking off the foliage and into your unsuspecting
retinas.
So merely going outside without slathering
nuclear-winter-grade sunblock on in thick white layers -- most mornings I
feel like Tom Sawyer doing a backyard fence -- is an epidermal bungee jump,
hoping this isn't the day the rope snaps, your cells get zapped, and two
years later you hit the pavement and get cancer.
And even so, I'm gradually watching my forearms dapple and freckle into reddened
arm pizza. I haven't seen this many frightening dark spots since Dick Cheney's
soul.
It wasn't always this way. Just today, I overheard a 50ish
shopkeeper reminiscing about her childhood, when "the sun was just
different" and people could go outside unbasted without fear. I've heard
the same from everyone I've asked -- so far, about a dozen people over the
age of 40 have sadly agreed.
I saw in the news the other day that global warming is gonna kill a million species
in fifty-odd years if we don't pull our act together pronto. And friends, I believe
it. I am walking every day under a sky that human activity has made quite
palpably more dangerous. Just from my own nerve endings, I am certain that the
sun is zapping immobile (thus defenseless) plant species with historic levels
of UV, with consequences our science hasn't even begun to study.
When you realize that small algaes and other tiny green bits
with a lot of surface area for their size and no defenses are the very
foundation of the planet's food chain, that last is gonna worry you a whole
lot.
Maybe you'll even worry enough to read up on it and someday
soon we'll all teach our politicians (and ourselves) that it's not nice to
kill the world.
At least they're working on it here. New Zealand is blessed with not only
an active and successful Green Party, but an electoral system that doesn't
instantly neutralize political change through arcane winner-take-all rules.
Of course, being a small island nation highly dependent on peace and trade
for its existence probably helps, too.
Speaking of peace and
trade... New Zealand has a strange insecurity about its close, peaceful
relationship with Australia, one often compared to Canada's sense of itself
in comparison with the U.S.: a mix of envy, kinship, resentment, shared
history, and a struggle to maintain an identity. You hear Kiwis mocking
Aussies all the time here; I never heard a Kiwi mentioned once in
Australia.
Speaking of which, I hadn't been able to distinguish the
Kiwi and Aussie accents until one of these mockfests broke out. It won't
be nearly as funny in print, but hearing a bunch of guys in a bar who
normally describe a meal as "fush un chups" start getting all superior by
saying "feesh en cheeps" tells you just how petty parochial pride can
be.
(Not saying anyone's accent is better, including my own; just
amused that anyone could think any accent is.)
But the more I hang
out in New Zealand, the more the Canada/America comparison seems to pale.
In some ways, good and bad, large bits of New Zealand feels quite
remarkably like rural America.
First, there's the visual aspect.
Rolling hills like western Iowa lead to rainy volcanic regions like chunks
of Oregon. A winding road with cattle looks almost exactly like the way to
my Grandpa's house in western Virginia, and the midsize town of Hamilton
could be Akron, Ohio, if it wasn't for the Mississippi-style riverboat in
the water below. It's like the prettiest bits of rural America, exacto-ed
out, pureed, and presented as a highlight show.
But there's also a familiar racial tension, with idiot anger directed at a darker-skinned
minority -- in this case, the Maori people, who got and keep getting a fairly
raw deal from the colonists and their heirs. ("Moari Go Home" shouted one men's
room graffito, nicely combining an inability to spell with stunning historical
ignorance. Amusing, but a combination sadly familiar to anyone who has ever received
email from the American public in large number.)
The relationship doesn't seem nearly as bad as the one American whites and blacks
are still trying to sort out hundreds of years later than one might hope, and
not remotely as horrific as the genocide/denial/ignorance relationship comprising
most of America's dealings with its native peoples. In New Zealand, Maori culture
is also a national point of pride, some Maoris themselves still maintain a decent
chunk of their traditions (while others, often of more mixed descent, choose to
assimilate to varying degrees), and the Te Papa quite pointedly has a large exhibit
on precisely how the major original English/Maori treaty was rigged to slyly get
the Maoris to sign over rights they didn't think they were signing over.
Imagine for a moment the Smithsonian doing a large display of "How We Screwed
The Indians" and you'll get the vibe. (Of course, they couldn't even bother with
historical accuracy on the necessity of atomic freakin' bombs.)
Also reminiscent of rural America: talk
radio, at least when driving cross-country, is largely built on a mixture
of Christian mythology, inflammatory intolerance masquerading as
"conservatism," and obvious flim-flam.
I've heard an incredible number of radio advertisements here for some sort of
mattress thing with magnets in it that's supposed to eliminate everything from
back pain to malaise to weapons of mass destruction, all by "increasing your body's
circulation." Really? How, exactly, does a static magnetic field increase the
circulation of any closed system?
Is the education level really that bad? Shoot, just get a shaman to chant the
jinkies out, while you're at it... And then the same damned hosts continue on
with equally-informed views on politics, history, and economics.
Feels way too much like home
all of a sudden.
So does the evening news, which was filled with more of the too-familiar: gang
violence, schools closing for budgetary reasons, new street drugs for teens and
surveillance tools for police.
But then again...
Reading the morning paper, I was
actually getting a little depressed one fine Auckland morning. So I
decided to take a bus to a part of town I hadn't seen, just for the fresh
visual input, which often gets me going again. And walking around, I
realized it wasn't quite as clean as Sydney, but it was still cleaner than
most cities. On my way to the bus, a bunch of goth-clad teenagers were
walking the other way. Instead of the expected sullen grunt, they all said
hello, quite
brightly. And finally, when I got the bus near the beginning of the line,
I discovered I didn't have change. The driver told me not to worry about
it -- trusting me to pay extra on the way back.
When I got back to the hotel, that very same newspaper delivered more bad news
-- but this time, the figure put things it a little more perspective. To wit,
concerning New Zealand's terrible (to hear them tell it) growth-induced traffic:
Holiday Death Toll:
Twelve.
In the whole country.
OK, even
accounting for a small population, that's still pretty
livable.
Problems always look big in isolation. New Zealand is
certainly isolated.
The problems here really aren't so big. The natural beauty of the place, and the
kindness of the people, certainly are.
I just hope the hobbits are wearing sunscreen.
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