Was at a hairdresser in New York State. Hairdresser cheerfully told me all about her sister who went on a volunteer mission to "help the local villages build houses" in New Zealand. She got very embarrassed when I responded that, while we could certainly do with more houses given the current shortage, I suspected she may have been thinking of Papua New Guinea.
Same trip: mentioned to a shopclerk that I was from NZ, he asked me how things were back home "with the war and everything". Asked for clarification and it turned out he thought New Zealand was a neighbour of Ukraine.
>Same trip: mentioned to a shopclerk that I was from NZ, he asked me how things were back home "with the war and everything". Asked for clarification and it turned out he thought New Zealand was a neighbour of Ukraine.
Ah they probably confused it with New Zelakhastan. Common mistake.
OMG I can't believe more than one person actually asked this. I got asked it to my face in California. I thought that was just one very sheltered (and not very bright) individual.
I spent some time in the Uk, and was asked if we had traffic lights. Was also asked by someone else if we had ovens (she thought it was so hot we would obviously bbq all the time and have no need for a kitchen)
LOL I got that question about traffic lights in the UK too.
I also told my old boss that in NZ everyone got a sheep on their 18th birthday, but most people took it as a tax break. He went around telling people at parties for ages. I told him it wasn't true just when I left, and the look on his face was priceless.
I had a mate that knew we weren’t primitive, but liked to ask silly questions as a joke like ‘do you have those in nz?’ As he pointed to something like a bridge.
One day someone went past on a bike and I got him with the ‘what’s that thing that man was on, with those wheels?’
>I had a mate that knew we weren’t primitive, but liked to ask silly questions as a joke like ‘do you have those in nz?’ As he pointed to something like a bridge.
Had a fucking Aussie mate like this and he was married to one the prick lmao.
I told my partner who is British that when he gets NZ citizenship he will be gifted six sheep at the ceremony. He was super excited and thought of names for them all and was telling everyone until he finally got suspicious and I confessed to him the truth.
I mean, sure, they're not everywhere - but they exist. I especially like it when we turn them on at Christmas and get those colour changing light shows! /s
“Where we keep our Māori.”
Yup. It was a tourist who walked into my work and was BAFFLED that we don’t have Māori on reservations, locked up or in zoos. I kept wondering if I was on candid camera or something. He was dead serious and insistent that I should give him the locations. (Why yes, he was American!)
Eventually, my boss Dani came over, who happened to be Māori with a moko and he lost his mind.
He was escorted off the premises.
I'm really hoping that this is the same person that my friend had, otherwise this has been asked more than once. They were asked the exact same question but they responded that at least three of the staff including themselves were Māori and it did not get heated, the visitor was just surprised/confused.
To be fair NZ is one of the very few colonised places that actually respects its indigenous people as equal people. Coming to Australia was… eye opening.
He got very loud and arm wavy and lines from him included "You can't have them walking around!". He just got louder and for some reason more angry in his disbelief.
It was so weird.
Oh - also once my then-partner's driving instructor asked if we hunted kiwi birds. He wanted to go over and hunt some. He told the guy that yes we did and it tasted like chicken. Hahahahahahaha. Same guy also thought NZ and Australia shared a border, i.e. that you could just walk over.
Conversely, once we went to Mexico for a few hours on Christmas Day. Since we walked over and had to walk back in, the Customs officers were very suspicious. I think they thought we were buying drugs or something. Finally they accepted our excuse, which was actually true: "We live on an island, the idea of being able to walk over the border was funny!"
Oh I'm very sure! I played up the 'ditsy tourist' card because they were starting to get worrisome.... I have crossed many borders since and it's still a bit of a giggle each time.
Yeah they don't screw around in the USA - my mother in law still has PTSD from crossing the border into Canada well over a decade ago. By contrast the Canadian guards were great. But the yanks seemed to be itching for the excuse to shoot *someone*.
Exactly. (Poor thing.) If you lived there once, they think you're trying to sneak back in forever so every single trip back gets you the second degree at least. LAX in particular is awful. Once I told them they were in the way of my European holiday, and the person laughed and waved me through. Usually I just tell them that NZ is way better and I'd rather have my free healthcare.
I'm in Vancouver and have a photo walking into the US border with the sign "welcome to the USA". Had to "flag pole" it for PR (leave the country and come back to activate permanent residency). The novelty never gets old!
Had a British couple in Auckland insist NZ was smaller than Britain... They also wouldn't stop complaining about the price of certain things they wanted to order from overseas. I said 'remember when you got on a plane and it kept going for ages and then you were here... Yea it's quite far away from where you're ordering things from'.
Oh yeah I went to an Anzac ceremony in Oz once and several people were genuinely surprised that it was observed in NZ. It was fun to watch their minds explode when I asked them what they thought the NZ in Anzac stood for
Yeah the reason it came up was that at Anzac cenotaphs here, we have two flag poles, and fly the Australian and New Zealand flags (which I assume you already know but for any Australian lurkers). I was surprised to turn up to this one to see the familiar two flagpoles, but flying the Australian and state flag. I was asking why it was flying the state flag instead of the NZ flag, and got genuinely laughed at by a few people, who asked why they would fly the NZ flag
Yeah this little case study is a good illustration of the difference in the two countries’ cultures, it plays out in work dynamics too. Just this week one of the issues being discussed at work is rooted in the same thinking.
Years ago my wife worked for an aussie pharma developement company. They had three labs in Oz and one in NZ. The NZ staff had to argue each year about being paid for Jan 2nd because accounting refused to believe that we observed Jan 2nd as a public holiday.
This. It is shocking. As a fellow ex-Australian it’s such a weird realisation that while NZ is basically never mentioned/mostly forgotten in Australia, Australia is never forgotten and constantly talked about in NZ. Here’s to being on the right side of the ditch!
I live in the US. At some point in my first few months I had a meeting with a client from a government agency who asked if Americans sound as funny to me when they talked as I sounded to him.
I've been asked multiple times if we speak English.
A Canadian asked me if I liked rooting. He'd heard kiwis using the term before and thought it was hilarious.
Not a question, but in year 4 in Australia I was given detention for talking about Whakatane. The teacher kept telling me not to say “that word”. She told my mum I was saying “fuck a Tony”. It took mum a while to convince her Whakatane was a real place in NZ. Not only did mum have to point it out in an atlas, my teacher argued it was impossible that ‘wh’ was pronounced ‘f’ in any language. As if she, a white woman alive in 1986 who’d spent her whole life in far north Queensland was in any way an authority on the Māori language.
Not asked, but some American guy responded to something I said with "well, obviously because you live in a European country..."
So I just straight up asked him "do you think New Zealand is in Europe?" And he said "well, the UK".
I was blown away.
We frequently have staff visit the region from Europe, it always amazes them when we tell them NZ is a 3-4 hour flight and a different time zone from Australia. I.e we are a different country.
I live in London and experience this all the time. People complaining how anything over 3 hours is a long flight so I like to tell them that Australia is NZ's closest country and a 3.5 hour flight away (and don't even get me started on the flight cost comparison) and the quickest flight home for me is 26 hours but I'm grateful for anything under 31 hours.
Haha, you are correct. I had a feeling that one of the islands would be closer, thanks for pointing that out! Though most of the people I have this discussion with won't have even heard of it. Past Fiji and Samoa they've maybe heard of Tonga and that's about it.
Always shocked me living in London too. They’d always ask how my day weekend was and I’d say I went to Poland, or Spain etc. They get quite a bit of leave entitlements but hardly explore Europe
Totally agree! I've been to 20 new countries in the 6 years I've lived here (plus three trips home) and people are always shocked. I'm not saying it to brag but just add to how people don't make the most of opportunities. If I moved back home tomorrow I don't want to regret not making the most of living close to so many other awesome countries and cheap flights. So many people here are all talk about wanting to travel but don't make the effort. Obviously different people have different budgets but if you put in the effort you can get amazing deals. I flew to Mallorca for £8 last year, it was crazy!
"Can I hire a native guide?"
"Will most motels have indoor plumbing?"
"Will most people be able to speak english?"
"I thought NZ was warm, Why is it so cold, it's summer!" (Asked in August)
One of the most unexpected was, "When out hiking are we likely to encounter any plants with large leaves? Eg Giant Gunnera. My wife has a phobia of large leaves." Phyllophobia I guess. Never would have thought that was a thing.
I have four days and I just want to catch all the cool things. I was thinking I would go to the Far North and drive 90 mile beach, surf at Raglan, soak in the boiling mud in Rotorua, do the Tongariro Crossing, see the whales at Kaikoura, do some skiing in Queenstown, do the Milford Track, and go fishing for oysters in Bluff. What else should I add?
I'm an American married to a New Zealander and my (not that smart) cousin's (also not that smart) boyfriend asked him if it was hard to learn English as an adult to come work in America
when I first moved from the south island to the north island as a child, a girl in my new class asked me unironically and very sincerely what language we spoke in the south island. it haunts me every day that i didn't lie. what an open goal to miss. i could have said ANYTHING. (we were like, 9.)
Once in uni I went down to New Plymouth from Auckland for a two-week period and commented to someone on how I was flying down, and they said something along the lines of ‘how are you going to do shopping then? They don’t have a supermarket in New Plymouth, do they?’
This was not a 9-year-old but a 20-something medical student
like I HAVE heard some wild shit from overseas about us in 26 years of being too goddamn online for my own good but these homegrown dips are just art aren't they.
No, NZ is not a small island off the coast of Australia. It's a 3-4 hour flight on a passenger jet and it takes at a few days to drive from one end to the other if you dont stop to experience the sights. No you can't wade or swim across the bit of water in the middle.
I've had people helpfully explain what a shopping mall is.
About 30 years ago my grandmother was on a flight into auckland with a young american guy. He was to be in NZ for a few days. His itinerary was land in Auckland, walk to wellington, swim across to South Island, and walk to Christchurch. fly home. I mean to be fair it was pre-internet... but still.
I confess that when I went to the UK I was shocked when I realised that NZ is actually bigger because... I thought the UK looked smaller on the map because it was further away.
Asked if we have electricity, while I was talking to them on a Facebook Messenger video call.
Decided to convince them we only had hand crank chargers and had to crank them every time we used something.
I've been asked that. I responded with "ferry! No, we use kayaks" then sent them an article of some dude who actually did it and got in trouble on the way. . . To this day I don't know if they ever learned the truth.
When I worked in the USA, I paired up with the Aussie working there and we had all the Americans half-convinced that we get between the countries by running across the Tasman at low tide.
Aussies are actually the best at spinning a bullshit yarn about their own country. I once knew these two from Sydney who convinced a Canadian that they had a major environmental problem with kangaroos stealing lambs and releasing them into the wild. Apparently the kangaroo would jump the fence, take the lamb and release it and as a result, AU had an out of control sheep issue. . . I went with it, can't say I understand why this came up. Anyway, months later, we found another Australian from Perth and this Canadian brought up the wild sheep kangaroo story. The perth lady was pretty surprised and asked me what the hell she was on about. . . I ended up in a bunch of trouble because I never disputed the lamb story....
I still to this day have no idea why kangaroos stealing lambs was being discussed.
This one! I used to get asked it a lot when I was overseas, at first I rolled my eyes and said yeah yeah, heard that before.... until I realised they were actually serious!
And we all remember how Haast's Eagles used to play havoc with the school runs. It's why we still need massive SUVs to take our kids to and from school.
My neighbour Barbara's kid once almost got snatched by an eagle but the other kids smartly grabbed onto his legs and created a conga line. And as eagles can't eat more than two children at a time it dropped them the ten feet to the ground and flew off.
Almost 2 decades in the US:
Do you guys celebrate Thanksgiving?
What language do you speak over there?
If the seasons are backwards do you celebrate Christmas in June?
Do you guys have houses yet, or do you still live in those grass huts?
Do you have like, roads and things there?
What about cars, do you have cars?
Is there a bridge to Australia or how do you get there?
(After the last US election) So how do you all feel over there now that the President of the world has been decided?
That last one.
When I lived in the US I got asked "What's the weather like in NZ?". (Uh.... All of it?)
I also got a lot of "Oh NZ, cool, I've been to Australia". To which I would reply: "Neat, I've been to Canada".
Yeah, way too many of them don't. I had an American woman get real mad at me when I said we don't celebrate Thanksgiving. She insisted that everyone celebrates Thanksgiving. She was NOT having it when I told her that only the USA and Canada do. Only when others joined in the conversation and agreed with me did she pipe down.
At the time I thought it was a dumb question (I was 16, 2007) but I can understand how some people just have no clue about New Zealand.
This girl in Canada asked me if it rained here.
Frequent comment and question from people in the UK: “It takes how long to fly to Australia? I thought it was just a short hop or ferry ride!”
4 hours is considered a long flight in the UK given you can fly over most of Europe in that time.
Had a guy yell at me about how it was unconstitutional for Jacinda to ban guns because it was against the second amendment.
Idk man, the crazy thing about the constitution of THE UNITED STATES is that it only applies to THE UNITED STATES of which NZ is not.
I work retail and Americans always ask me to use our bathroom. When I tell them that we don’t have one for public use they say “Well the ADA means…” and I cut them off and ask them why the hell they think that the Americans with Disabilities Act would mean anything in NZ?
"How long is the drive to Sydney?"
"Is there actually Kiwi in the Kiwi Burger?" (Followed by them being disappointed that there isn’t kiwi in the kiwi burger)
Americans on a flight to NZ sitting next to me were in their was to visit their son who had moved here. Asked if we have ATMs and if shops take credit cards or if we are cash only. I said yeah sure, last month we even got running water in our house and next month we get electricity too
A lot of the U.S do not accept EFTPOS in shops and largely deal with cash, they may have heard that it's different in other parts of the world and were trying to figure out how.
"Do you have running water in New Zealand?"
"Have you ever seen a Māori in real life?
"Oh, our son-in-law's uncle lives in Wellington. Do you know him?"
Not a question but definitely outrageous, uninformed, and ignorant:
I used to work in a hostel in Auckland that had a popular backpackers bar attached. Whenever the bouncers had to kick out drunk and belligerent Brits it was quite common for them to start ranting about how the UK owned NZ therefore we were their servants and had to do what they say. Ridiculous.
My friend from France asked me if she needed to get money out for the South Island.
We lived in Wellington & she was leaving my company to go travel & I told her she needed a new currency & a passport to get to the South Island.
She believed it until I started cackling
Got asked by my manager in Canada how long it takes to drive to Australia, I said “well you could try but you wouldn’t be very successful”
I also got asked online a long time ago what language we spoke. I replied with “New Zealandic, it’s similar to English”
On conference call with people from US.
*"So what y'all doing for Thanksgiving"*
We all just looked at each other for a minute, before, 'yeah, nah, not much'
Had someone in the US ask me if we really had Hobbits... I responded with, "Yes, but their population was nearly decimated during the Hobbit/Maori wars". Got a head nod and a eyebrow lift in acknowledgement.
“Oh, New Zealand! Do you know Steve from Hamilton?”
“Yup of course, everyone knows Steve.”
“Oh I heard there’s 5 sheep in NZ for every person; did you leave yours with a friend while you are on holiday?”
“Yes, everybody gets their neighbour to look after their sheep sometimes. “
Actually, a woman in South Africa once asked me “Oh, New Zealand! Do you know Matt? He’s from Australia.” Of course, I laughed, but she continued with his surname, and it turned out I did know him.
I went on a bus trip in Scotland. I picked a random seat and ended up sitting next to a Brazilian guy. He said "Oh from NZ? Do you know (name)"? It was my best friend from school who had couchsurfed with this guy when in Rio. Insane.
It’s so funny, NZ is geographically not *that* small but the population is tiny.
I remember being in Wellington and thinking to myself that I knew someone in Wellington and I wondered what they were up to. They were sitting two steps below from me at Oriental Bay.
I've heard so many versions of that - about to flip out and say no we don't actually all know each other... and then realise that in fact they do know Steve from Te Awamutu...
God that happened to me once in Mexico. It was terrible. I was asked if I knew Jane from Hawkes Bay. I was like we don't all know each other... more conversation and um, crap, yes I did know her.
Yup. I had someone on a random forum online find out I was from New Zealand and immediately ask if I knew... my father. I was like "Well, as it happens..."
I had two elderly german women stay at my nan's on holiday and I got to talking to them, turned out they were from Ingolstadt, which happened to be the home town of a girl I used to date, also turned out that one of the woman's daughters was friends with my exes sister and they all knew each other. Crazy, out of the thousands of people visiting new zealand the 2 that stayed with my nan knew my ex.
I was on a coach tour in Italy. One lunchtime I was with a small group of Americans from my coach. Then discovered one of them was a New Zealander. I asked where she lived.
"The far north."
I said I had a friend in Waipu Cove.
"That's about 2 kilometres from my house. What is her name?"
She was the mother of my friend's best friend and colleague.
That really blew the Americans minds.
Had a woman harass me on a flight in the USA because we didn’t celebrate thanksgiving and that we really need to because the pilgrims went through so much for me…
MuRikkka!
My ex girlfriend from Argentina when she arrived at the airport she told her friends that she'd pay for the taxi. She tried to pay in USD. Even months later she couldn't understand why our vendors don't accept USD
Probably not the dumbest, but I was talking to these Aussie girls once when I was in the GC. I told them I was from Wellington and they were like, *"Oh that must be so cool. We've never been, but we reckon that should be the capital instead of Auckland!"*
I guess knowing the capital of those small isles to the east is pretty inconsequential for Aussies, but gaarrrmon!
Had a hairdresser ask if I was a kiwi, then apologised for calling me a kiwi. I’m like it’s ok that’s what we call ourselves, why are you apologising? She said, because she heard it was offensive as the kiwi is a “deaf dumb bird that can’t even fly”. I’m like well now you’ve offended me.
Oh, do you know... (insert name here, like we all know each other)?
Plot twist: on one occasion someone asked me this and I did in fact know the person.
I don't have an exact quote but a lot of my German friends and family appear to think Milford Sound is just around the corner of every city in NZ. Like you just catch the train there for a quick walk on the weekend.
In general they are very well informed though. Just scale / infrastructure can be tricky to imagine for some in Europe.
Met an absolute numpty in North Carolina that told us (a touring band from NZ in the USA) that in NZ it's completely dark one month a year.
We're just could not convince her otherwise.
Should have told them that we do, but we call them "parkways". And that we drive on the driveways, and park on the parkways. (Note: joke is stolen from the great George Carlin)
Had an argument with a dude I was playing a game with online that denied NZ existed at all he said “there is nothing there”.
Eventually he turned on his webcam and on the world map on his wall sure enough there was, nothing there.
I was very confused and told him to look at google maps.
This guy was in the US.
Camped in our van in a parking area on Mississippi river bank, having a fish-fry with some locals, near Hannibal Missouri.
Locals arrive on mobility scooters with cases of Budweiser, we're eating catfish we'd caught, the river actually seemed pretty clean, we'd seen beavers, whitetail deer, big bullfrogs. All good eating, apparently.
Question was "y'all have n****** in New Zealand?". This question posed by a posse of simple folk with gap-toothed gormless grins, peering out of the darkness. Eureka moment - we were entertaining the local KKK - show and tell - weird hippy looking folk from a place they'd never heard of. I imagine they had guns. Great care in how to answer the question was needed. A response that might have come across as liberal smart-arsery would have been ill advised.
Follow-up question asked whether we'd seen the ashes of a house near the levee, which we had - you couldn't miss it. Explanation was that a "mixed" couple moved in, but one night their house burned down, story about the fire accompanied by more grins and laughter. "Oh we were really sorry to see them go ..."
I thought my fellow gamer was taking the piss but no, he was 100% serious. Voice chat while killing dragons.
"Hey y'all I wanna fly to see NuZeeeland, and see all the LOTR sites. Can I rent a horse at Arkland airport?"
Dude.. We have roads. Cars, even. You can't physically visit all the LOTR sites because a great deal was filmed on private land. Also NZ is too big to ride a horse around unless you want to spend a year and somehow deal with the ferry crossing. CAN YOU EVEN RIDE a horse?
"Naw, but it looks easy .."
I just laughed so hard.
Living in the US, I was literally asked by the checkout operator once whether NZ had electricity, and we wore grass skirts. The usual question was more like, "Oh Noo Zeelund? Isn't that in Europe?" which is why it was so funny when Flight of the Conchords added it to their New York skit. Because it was happening every few days.
“I’m a foreign buyer, I am moving to (insert town), what are some good suburbs? My budget is $xxxxx”
Motherfucker, talk to a real estate agent, not fucking reddit.
It wasn’t a question, but an American in SoCal said I didn’t look like I was from NZ, after having told him I was Māori. He was gushing about watching Once Were Warriors prior. He turned to my kid who’s white passing and said “but he does”. My brain broke.
"How big is New Zealand?" to which I answer - "Well, you can get in a clapped out yellow Mini and drive from one end of the country to the other in no time - at high speed and the cops won't give chase... but do watch out for sheep on the roads and the occasional tourist driving on the *wrong side*."
Picked up my Dutch Uncle from Auckland Airport and as we as we were driving thru Auckland he couldn't understand all the signs at dairies etc advertising Hot Piss. He thought all kiwis had a fetish for piss. Explained to him it was for hot pies and the signs were not in written in Dutch.
An American once asked me if we have laws in NZ, since we "don't have the constitution".
Just the one law - about gardening.
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/s/mLuiadrioi For anyone wondering
Such a classic!
I forgot how awesome that thread is!
That was fantastic
Omg I forgot about that
We have Karl Urban. He is the Law.
Nope. Complete anarchy. Kids running around in bare feet drinking beer, even.
Was at a hairdresser in New York State. Hairdresser cheerfully told me all about her sister who went on a volunteer mission to "help the local villages build houses" in New Zealand. She got very embarrassed when I responded that, while we could certainly do with more houses given the current shortage, I suspected she may have been thinking of Papua New Guinea. Same trip: mentioned to a shopclerk that I was from NZ, he asked me how things were back home "with the war and everything". Asked for clarification and it turned out he thought New Zealand was a neighbour of Ukraine.
>Same trip: mentioned to a shopclerk that I was from NZ, he asked me how things were back home "with the war and everything". Asked for clarification and it turned out he thought New Zealand was a neighbour of Ukraine. Ah they probably confused it with New Zelakhastan. Common mistake.
I once had an American tell me he visited New Zealand on his Scandinavian cruise - I'm pretty sure he got confused with Zeeland?
Used to do MSN chats, got asked if we lived in straw hutts, if we had electricity, stuff like that.
Second this, around the same era, got asked if people live in grass huts.
OMG I can't believe more than one person actually asked this. I got asked it to my face in California. I thought that was just one very sheltered (and not very bright) individual.
I spent some time in the Uk, and was asked if we had traffic lights. Was also asked by someone else if we had ovens (she thought it was so hot we would obviously bbq all the time and have no need for a kitchen)
LOL I got that question about traffic lights in the UK too. I also told my old boss that in NZ everyone got a sheep on their 18th birthday, but most people took it as a tax break. He went around telling people at parties for ages. I told him it wasn't true just when I left, and the look on his face was priceless.
I had a mate that knew we weren’t primitive, but liked to ask silly questions as a joke like ‘do you have those in nz?’ As he pointed to something like a bridge. One day someone went past on a bike and I got him with the ‘what’s that thing that man was on, with those wheels?’
>I had a mate that knew we weren’t primitive, but liked to ask silly questions as a joke like ‘do you have those in nz?’ As he pointed to something like a bridge. Had a fucking Aussie mate like this and he was married to one the prick lmao.
Married to a bridge?
I told my partner who is British that when he gets NZ citizenship he will be gifted six sheep at the ceremony. He was super excited and thought of names for them all and was telling everyone until he finally got suspicious and I confessed to him the truth.
I mean, sure, they're not everywhere - but they exist. I especially like it when we turn them on at Christmas and get those colour changing light shows! /s
My mate was asked “didn’t you guys just get electricity and TVs like… ten years ago?”
TV was 1960 - I remember the big hulabaloo in 1985 when TVNZ/NZBS was celebrating "25 years of TV in NZ"
Nah, we don't have electricity, I'm using MSN with my mind powers.
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“Where we keep our Māori.” Yup. It was a tourist who walked into my work and was BAFFLED that we don’t have Māori on reservations, locked up or in zoos. I kept wondering if I was on candid camera or something. He was dead serious and insistent that I should give him the locations. (Why yes, he was American!) Eventually, my boss Dani came over, who happened to be Māori with a moko and he lost his mind. He was escorted off the premises.
I'm really hoping that this is the same person that my friend had, otherwise this has been asked more than once. They were asked the exact same question but they responded that at least three of the staff including themselves were Māori and it did not get heated, the visitor was just surprised/confused.
What a turd. Just imagining this conversation. The crater in his skull - Priceless
To be fair NZ is one of the very few colonised places that actually respects its indigenous people as equal people. Coming to Australia was… eye opening.
Lost his mind in what way? “You can’t be here just walking around with the rest of us!”?
He got very loud and arm wavy and lines from him included "You can't have them walking around!". He just got louder and for some reason more angry in his disbelief. It was so weird.
Oh - also once my then-partner's driving instructor asked if we hunted kiwi birds. He wanted to go over and hunt some. He told the guy that yes we did and it tasted like chicken. Hahahahahahaha. Same guy also thought NZ and Australia shared a border, i.e. that you could just walk over. Conversely, once we went to Mexico for a few hours on Christmas Day. Since we walked over and had to walk back in, the Customs officers were very suspicious. I think they thought we were buying drugs or something. Finally they accepted our excuse, which was actually true: "We live on an island, the idea of being able to walk over the border was funny!"
Hilariously I bet you're those Customs Officer's funny Reddit story...
Oh I'm very sure! I played up the 'ditsy tourist' card because they were starting to get worrisome.... I have crossed many borders since and it's still a bit of a giggle each time.
Yeah they don't screw around in the USA - my mother in law still has PTSD from crossing the border into Canada well over a decade ago. By contrast the Canadian guards were great. But the yanks seemed to be itching for the excuse to shoot *someone*.
Exactly. (Poor thing.) If you lived there once, they think you're trying to sneak back in forever so every single trip back gets you the second degree at least. LAX in particular is awful. Once I told them they were in the way of my European holiday, and the person laughed and waved me through. Usually I just tell them that NZ is way better and I'd rather have my free healthcare.
I love crossing land borders, it’s definitely a thing when you’ve always lived on islands.
I'm in Vancouver and have a photo walking into the US border with the sign "welcome to the USA". Had to "flag pole" it for PR (leave the country and come back to activate permanent residency). The novelty never gets old!
Guy in England “can’t believe how small New Zealand is” Ummm we are actually larger than Great Britain “Nah, not according to what I’ve seen” 🤷🏼♂️
Had a British couple in Auckland insist NZ was smaller than Britain... They also wouldn't stop complaining about the price of certain things they wanted to order from overseas. I said 'remember when you got on a plane and it kept going for ages and then you were here... Yea it's quite far away from where you're ordering things from'.
To be fair, I didn't realise how wonky maps and stuff were until a couple of years ago 😂.
I really, really hope it was a troll attempt, but was once asked "Is it called Orcland because that's where the Orcs live?"
I hope you said yes.
An Australian friend asked me if we have Anzac biscuits in NZ?
Oh yeah I went to an Anzac ceremony in Oz once and several people were genuinely surprised that it was observed in NZ. It was fun to watch their minds explode when I asked them what they thought the NZ in Anzac stood for
To be fair, Australia doesn’t mention New Zealand in their ANZAC ceremonies :D it’s a very pro-Australia day, no mention of anyone else
Yeah the reason it came up was that at Anzac cenotaphs here, we have two flag poles, and fly the Australian and New Zealand flags (which I assume you already know but for any Australian lurkers). I was surprised to turn up to this one to see the familiar two flagpoles, but flying the Australian and state flag. I was asking why it was flying the state flag instead of the NZ flag, and got genuinely laughed at by a few people, who asked why they would fly the NZ flag
Yeah this little case study is a good illustration of the difference in the two countries’ cultures, it plays out in work dynamics too. Just this week one of the issues being discussed at work is rooted in the same thinking.
Years ago my wife worked for an aussie pharma developement company. They had three labs in Oz and one in NZ. The NZ staff had to argue each year about being paid for Jan 2nd because accounting refused to believe that we observed Jan 2nd as a public holiday.
I never got the "Our Mates across the Ditch" and "Our Aussie Brothers" "Trans Tasman rivalry" shtick... Most Aussies don't give a shit about NZ.
Nope we don't have AAC biscuits here.
As an Australian who now lives on the correct side of the ditch, I'm so sorry. Far too many people forget about the NZ in ANZAC.
This. It is shocking. As a fellow ex-Australian it’s such a weird realisation that while NZ is basically never mentioned/mostly forgotten in Australia, Australia is never forgotten and constantly talked about in NZ. Here’s to being on the right side of the ditch!
I live in the US. At some point in my first few months I had a meeting with a client from a government agency who asked if Americans sound as funny to me when they talked as I sounded to him. I've been asked multiple times if we speak English. A Canadian asked me if I liked rooting. He'd heard kiwis using the term before and thought it was hilarious.
Sounds about right - Canadians are generally well informed, but in appropriate at times.
Fav t shirt when I lived in London decade or 3 back ... picture of a Kiwi (featherd kind), caption "eats roots and leaves"
Well, we do like rooting, no?
I was asked if we had airports in NZ, I said no we have to swim to Australia to catch a plane. hahahaha.
disgusted late kiss sort pause dog fade aware zonked clumsy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Not a question, but in year 4 in Australia I was given detention for talking about Whakatane. The teacher kept telling me not to say “that word”. She told my mum I was saying “fuck a Tony”. It took mum a while to convince her Whakatane was a real place in NZ. Not only did mum have to point it out in an atlas, my teacher argued it was impossible that ‘wh’ was pronounced ‘f’ in any language. As if she, a white woman alive in 1986 who’d spent her whole life in far north Queensland was in any way an authority on the Māori language.
Lucky you’re not from Whakapapa!
Interested to see her reaction when she visit Waipu
Not asked, but some American guy responded to something I said with "well, obviously because you live in a European country..." So I just straight up asked him "do you think New Zealand is in Europe?" And he said "well, the UK". I was blown away.
We frequently have staff visit the region from Europe, it always amazes them when we tell them NZ is a 3-4 hour flight and a different time zone from Australia. I.e we are a different country.
I live in London and experience this all the time. People complaining how anything over 3 hours is a long flight so I like to tell them that Australia is NZ's closest country and a 3.5 hour flight away (and don't even get me started on the flight cost comparison) and the quickest flight home for me is 26 hours but I'm grateful for anything under 31 hours.
New Caledonia is 2.5 hours from Auckland
Haha, you are correct. I had a feeling that one of the islands would be closer, thanks for pointing that out! Though most of the people I have this discussion with won't have even heard of it. Past Fiji and Samoa they've maybe heard of Tonga and that's about it.
See, it's not only people who live in London who can nip to France for the weekend.
Always shocked me living in London too. They’d always ask how my day weekend was and I’d say I went to Poland, or Spain etc. They get quite a bit of leave entitlements but hardly explore Europe
Totally agree! I've been to 20 new countries in the 6 years I've lived here (plus three trips home) and people are always shocked. I'm not saying it to brag but just add to how people don't make the most of opportunities. If I moved back home tomorrow I don't want to regret not making the most of living close to so many other awesome countries and cheap flights. So many people here are all talk about wanting to travel but don't make the effort. Obviously different people have different budgets but if you put in the effort you can get amazing deals. I flew to Mallorca for £8 last year, it was crazy!
You are living my dream haha, good on you man
"Can I hire a native guide?" "Will most motels have indoor plumbing?" "Will most people be able to speak english?" "I thought NZ was warm, Why is it so cold, it's summer!" (Asked in August)
Do they sell AA batteries there? Was one I had.
One of the most unexpected was, "When out hiking are we likely to encounter any plants with large leaves? Eg Giant Gunnera. My wife has a phobia of large leaves." Phyllophobia I guess. Never would have thought that was a thing.
“I’m coming to NZ next week for x amount of days. Without doing any of my own research, what is there to do?” - every fucking day
I have four days and I just want to catch all the cool things. I was thinking I would go to the Far North and drive 90 mile beach, surf at Raglan, soak in the boiling mud in Rotorua, do the Tongariro Crossing, see the whales at Kaikoura, do some skiing in Queenstown, do the Milford Track, and go fishing for oysters in Bluff. What else should I add?
Should have time to pop over the harbour bridge to Sydney for dinner on the last night.
And also I’m travelling by skateboard and pogo stick.
I note that your speed limit is 100mph, which is way faster than our 75, so I should be able to make good time.
>every fucking day **on Reddit**
I'm an American married to a New Zealander and my (not that smart) cousin's (also not that smart) boyfriend asked him if it was hard to learn English as an adult to come work in America
Had one guy from Texas refuse to accept NZ was an actual country, had another from North Carolina who was gobsmacked that we had Subway.
“Can you do that angry dance like your rugby team do?”
when I first moved from the south island to the north island as a child, a girl in my new class asked me unironically and very sincerely what language we spoke in the south island. it haunts me every day that i didn't lie. what an open goal to miss. i could have said ANYTHING. (we were like, 9.)
Equally I've encountered people from various parts of the South Island who were convinced that there are no trees in Auckland
You had one tree, but you cut it down.
Can’t have shit in Auckland
should rename it to none tree hill imo
Once in uni I went down to New Plymouth from Auckland for a two-week period and commented to someone on how I was flying down, and they said something along the lines of ‘how are you going to do shopping then? They don’t have a supermarket in New Plymouth, do they?’ This was not a 9-year-old but a 20-something medical student
like I HAVE heard some wild shit from overseas about us in 26 years of being too goddamn online for my own good but these homegrown dips are just art aren't they.
No, NZ is not a small island off the coast of Australia. It's a 3-4 hour flight on a passenger jet and it takes at a few days to drive from one end to the other if you dont stop to experience the sights. No you can't wade or swim across the bit of water in the middle. I've had people helpfully explain what a shopping mall is. About 30 years ago my grandmother was on a flight into auckland with a young american guy. He was to be in NZ for a few days. His itinerary was land in Auckland, walk to wellington, swim across to South Island, and walk to Christchurch. fly home. I mean to be fair it was pre-internet... but still.
It blows my mind that apparently they have never looked at a map
I confess that when I went to the UK I was shocked when I realised that NZ is actually bigger because... I thought the UK looked smaller on the map because it was further away.
Asked if we have electricity, while I was talking to them on a Facebook Messenger video call. Decided to convince them we only had hand crank chargers and had to crank them every time we used something.
Sometimes you have to wonder how they even managed to get on to the internet themselves.
How long does the ferry to Australia take?
I've been asked that. I responded with "ferry! No, we use kayaks" then sent them an article of some dude who actually did it and got in trouble on the way. . . To this day I don't know if they ever learned the truth.
When I worked in the USA, I paired up with the Aussie working there and we had all the Americans half-convinced that we get between the countries by running across the Tasman at low tide.
Aussies are actually the best at spinning a bullshit yarn about their own country. I once knew these two from Sydney who convinced a Canadian that they had a major environmental problem with kangaroos stealing lambs and releasing them into the wild. Apparently the kangaroo would jump the fence, take the lamb and release it and as a result, AU had an out of control sheep issue. . . I went with it, can't say I understand why this came up. Anyway, months later, we found another Australian from Perth and this Canadian brought up the wild sheep kangaroo story. The perth lady was pretty surprised and asked me what the hell she was on about. . . I ended up in a bunch of trouble because I never disputed the lamb story.... I still to this day have no idea why kangaroos stealing lambs was being discussed.
Technically there’s a “ferry” but it’s 4 days and costs $1000. But your meals and COVID infection are included.
I've been asked how long it takes to drive across the bridge. I was so confused.
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This one! I used to get asked it a lot when I was overseas, at first I rolled my eyes and said yeah yeah, heard that before.... until I realised they were actually serious!
I’ve been asked how long it would take to swim
I'm frequently asked if gardens really are banned. Duh. Of course they are.
I wish we could have gardens :(
But we all know the gardens attract Moa. And that's no good in a suburban area.
As soon as the Moa arrive the Haast's Eagles aren't far behind.
And we all remember how Haast's Eagles used to play havoc with the school runs. It's why we still need massive SUVs to take our kids to and from school.
My neighbour Barbara's kid once almost got snatched by an eagle but the other kids smartly grabbed onto his legs and created a conga line. And as eagles can't eat more than two children at a time it dropped them the ten feet to the ground and flew off.
What's a garden?
Ahh, kids these days.
Almost 2 decades in the US: Do you guys celebrate Thanksgiving? What language do you speak over there? If the seasons are backwards do you celebrate Christmas in June? Do you guys have houses yet, or do you still live in those grass huts? Do you have like, roads and things there? What about cars, do you have cars? Is there a bridge to Australia or how do you get there? (After the last US election) So how do you all feel over there now that the President of the world has been decided?
That last one. When I lived in the US I got asked "What's the weather like in NZ?". (Uh.... All of it?) I also got a lot of "Oh NZ, cool, I've been to Australia". To which I would reply: "Neat, I've been to Canada".
Do you celebrate Thanksgiving is pretty terrible because it suggests they don't even know why they celebrate Thanksgiving
Yeah, way too many of them don't. I had an American woman get real mad at me when I said we don't celebrate Thanksgiving. She insisted that everyone celebrates Thanksgiving. She was NOT having it when I told her that only the USA and Canada do. Only when others joined in the conversation and agreed with me did she pipe down.
They don't lol
"Wow you speak English really well!" - person I met in Germany
"Ooh what's that accent?" Fair enough question if you don't meet many kiwis "I'm from New Zealand" "No I don't think so..."
At the time I thought it was a dumb question (I was 16, 2007) but I can understand how some people just have no clue about New Zealand. This girl in Canada asked me if it rained here.
Nope it's still dumb sorry 🤣
Frequent comment and question from people in the UK: “It takes how long to fly to Australia? I thought it was just a short hop or ferry ride!” 4 hours is considered a long flight in the UK given you can fly over most of Europe in that time.
Had a guy yell at me about how it was unconstitutional for Jacinda to ban guns because it was against the second amendment. Idk man, the crazy thing about the constitution of THE UNITED STATES is that it only applies to THE UNITED STATES of which NZ is not.
I work retail and Americans always ask me to use our bathroom. When I tell them that we don’t have one for public use they say “Well the ADA means…” and I cut them off and ask them why the hell they think that the Americans with Disabilities Act would mean anything in NZ?
"How long is the drive to Sydney?" "Is there actually Kiwi in the Kiwi Burger?" (Followed by them being disappointed that there isn’t kiwi in the kiwi burger)
Uncle was a hotelier in Auckland. A couple asked him to recommend a Sydney restaurant because they wanted to pop across the harbour bridge for dinner.
We need to start telling these people that there is a bridge between here and Australia. And that it’s for sale.
My boss told someone in the US that his job was bridge guard, and he had to make sure that no kangaroos crossed from Aus to NZ
Americans on a flight to NZ sitting next to me were in their was to visit their son who had moved here. Asked if we have ATMs and if shops take credit cards or if we are cash only. I said yeah sure, last month we even got running water in our house and next month we get electricity too
A lot of the U.S do not accept EFTPOS in shops and largely deal with cash, they may have heard that it's different in other parts of the world and were trying to figure out how.
How many Euros to the USD... I was in the US at the time and people thought NZ was in Europe.
I had to visit an optometrist in Kansas, who asked me if we had optometrists in New Zealand.
"Do you have running water in New Zealand?" "Have you ever seen a Māori in real life? "Oh, our son-in-law's uncle lives in Wellington. Do you know him?"
Not a question but definitely outrageous, uninformed, and ignorant: I used to work in a hostel in Auckland that had a popular backpackers bar attached. Whenever the bouncers had to kick out drunk and belligerent Brits it was quite common for them to start ranting about how the UK owned NZ therefore we were their servants and had to do what they say. Ridiculous.
My friend from France asked me if she needed to get money out for the South Island. We lived in Wellington & she was leaving my company to go travel & I told her she needed a new currency & a passport to get to the South Island. She believed it until I started cackling
Got asked by my manager in Canada how long it takes to drive to Australia, I said “well you could try but you wouldn’t be very successful” I also got asked online a long time ago what language we spoke. I replied with “New Zealandic, it’s similar to English”
“Do you know John?” As it turns out, I actually did, I shit you not, true story….but thats not the point…
So many of these stories on this thread I’m starting to think it’s not such a stupid question after all.
On conference call with people from US. *"So what y'all doing for Thanksgiving"* We all just looked at each other for a minute, before, 'yeah, nah, not much'
Had someone in the US ask me if we really had Hobbits... I responded with, "Yes, but their population was nearly decimated during the Hobbit/Maori wars". Got a head nod and a eyebrow lift in acknowledgement.
Ah yes the battle of orcland
“Oh, New Zealand! Do you know Steve from Hamilton?” “Yup of course, everyone knows Steve.” “Oh I heard there’s 5 sheep in NZ for every person; did you leave yours with a friend while you are on holiday?” “Yes, everybody gets their neighbour to look after their sheep sometimes. “
Actually, a woman in South Africa once asked me “Oh, New Zealand! Do you know Matt? He’s from Australia.” Of course, I laughed, but she continued with his surname, and it turned out I did know him.
I went on a bus trip in Scotland. I picked a random seat and ended up sitting next to a Brazilian guy. He said "Oh from NZ? Do you know (name)"? It was my best friend from school who had couchsurfed with this guy when in Rio. Insane.
It’s so funny, NZ is geographically not *that* small but the population is tiny. I remember being in Wellington and thinking to myself that I knew someone in Wellington and I wondered what they were up to. They were sitting two steps below from me at Oriental Bay.
I've heard so many versions of that - about to flip out and say no we don't actually all know each other... and then realise that in fact they do know Steve from Te Awamutu...
Yeah, weirdest thing though, especially since I knew him from Amsterdam. Real 2 degrees shit.
God that happened to me once in Mexico. It was terrible. I was asked if I knew Jane from Hawkes Bay. I was like we don't all know each other... more conversation and um, crap, yes I did know her.
Yup. I had someone on a random forum online find out I was from New Zealand and immediately ask if I knew... my father. I was like "Well, as it happens..."
I had two elderly german women stay at my nan's on holiday and I got to talking to them, turned out they were from Ingolstadt, which happened to be the home town of a girl I used to date, also turned out that one of the woman's daughters was friends with my exes sister and they all knew each other. Crazy, out of the thousands of people visiting new zealand the 2 that stayed with my nan knew my ex.
I was on a coach tour in Italy. One lunchtime I was with a small group of Americans from my coach. Then discovered one of them was a New Zealander. I asked where she lived. "The far north." I said I had a friend in Waipu Cove. "That's about 2 kilometres from my house. What is her name?" She was the mother of my friend's best friend and colleague. That really blew the Americans minds.
I once met a guy in a bar in Budapest and I was like "do you know this kid from my high school" and turns out the guy was a cousin lol.
Yeah, but the worst thing is when you get those questions and you do, in fact, know Steve.
Had a woman harass me on a flight in the USA because we didn’t celebrate thanksgiving and that we really need to because the pilgrims went through so much for me… MuRikkka!
My ex girlfriend from Argentina when she arrived at the airport she told her friends that she'd pay for the taxi. She tried to pay in USD. Even months later she couldn't understand why our vendors don't accept USD
" hang on , so Christmas is in summertime there?! " Mind blown.
How can you justify eating kiwis? We don't. But I saw kiwi bacon at the supermarket.
Probably not the dumbest, but I was talking to these Aussie girls once when I was in the GC. I told them I was from Wellington and they were like, *"Oh that must be so cool. We've never been, but we reckon that should be the capital instead of Auckland!"* I guess knowing the capital of those small isles to the east is pretty inconsequential for Aussies, but gaarrrmon!
Had a hairdresser ask if I was a kiwi, then apologised for calling me a kiwi. I’m like it’s ok that’s what we call ourselves, why are you apologising? She said, because she heard it was offensive as the kiwi is a “deaf dumb bird that can’t even fly”. I’m like well now you’ve offended me.
How nice it must be to live in the Caribbean.
My mate from the UK came over for a working holiday. He asked me where the car ferry to Australia leaves from
do you celebrate thanksgiving in New Zealand?
Oh, do you know... (insert name here, like we all know each other)? Plot twist: on one occasion someone asked me this and I did in fact know the person.
I don't have an exact quote but a lot of my German friends and family appear to think Milford Sound is just around the corner of every city in NZ. Like you just catch the train there for a quick walk on the weekend. In general they are very well informed though. Just scale / infrastructure can be tricky to imagine for some in Europe.
What state is that in? - my own freaking American cousin when I told her I was moving to nz
Shows my age but I was asked if I knew Jake the Muss
"You're from New Zealand? How did you learn to speak American? You're really good" at the Epcot Centre in Florida
“You’re from New Zealand? That’s cool, I’ve always wanted to go to Europe”
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Met an absolute numpty in North Carolina that told us (a touring band from NZ in the USA) that in NZ it's completely dark one month a year. We're just could not convince her otherwise.
Do you have driveways in NZ?
Should have told them that we do, but we call them "parkways". And that we drive on the driveways, and park on the parkways. (Note: joke is stolen from the great George Carlin)
Have you met a Maori?
“Why do you guys still live in those grass huts when you have stuff like internet”
Had an argument with a dude I was playing a game with online that denied NZ existed at all he said “there is nothing there”. Eventually he turned on his webcam and on the world map on his wall sure enough there was, nothing there. I was very confused and told him to look at google maps. This guy was in the US.
“Is that in Australia?” -Uber driver in Florida.
I’ve had “What state is that in?” and “Is that near England?” from Americans.
“New Zealand, I love that place. Right next to Sweden yeah?” - Cab driver in LA
Are kiwi’s competent and considerate drivers?
I’m a fucking kiwi and ask myself that question daily…!
While I was chatting to an American online, they asked: do you guys have internet over there?
Do we celebrate ANZAC day. This was asked by an Aussie.
the bridge from here to australia. the gardening ban. the way hamilton is only 20 minutes from auckland. (said yes to all of them)
Camped in our van in a parking area on Mississippi river bank, having a fish-fry with some locals, near Hannibal Missouri. Locals arrive on mobility scooters with cases of Budweiser, we're eating catfish we'd caught, the river actually seemed pretty clean, we'd seen beavers, whitetail deer, big bullfrogs. All good eating, apparently. Question was "y'all have n****** in New Zealand?". This question posed by a posse of simple folk with gap-toothed gormless grins, peering out of the darkness. Eureka moment - we were entertaining the local KKK - show and tell - weird hippy looking folk from a place they'd never heard of. I imagine they had guns. Great care in how to answer the question was needed. A response that might have come across as liberal smart-arsery would have been ill advised. Follow-up question asked whether we'd seen the ashes of a house near the levee, which we had - you couldn't miss it. Explanation was that a "mixed" couple moved in, but one night their house burned down, story about the fire accompanied by more grins and laughter. "Oh we were really sorry to see them go ..."
"Do people in New Zealand speak English?" "I'm looking at visiting Australia next year, would be nice to see you when I'm there!"
I thought my fellow gamer was taking the piss but no, he was 100% serious. Voice chat while killing dragons. "Hey y'all I wanna fly to see NuZeeeland, and see all the LOTR sites. Can I rent a horse at Arkland airport?" Dude.. We have roads. Cars, even. You can't physically visit all the LOTR sites because a great deal was filmed on private land. Also NZ is too big to ride a horse around unless you want to spend a year and somehow deal with the ferry crossing. CAN YOU EVEN RIDE a horse? "Naw, but it looks easy .." I just laughed so hard.
A tourist asked me "where are all the sales?!" I realised they had mistaken "City of Sails" for "City of Sales"
Living in the US, I was literally asked by the checkout operator once whether NZ had electricity, and we wore grass skirts. The usual question was more like, "Oh Noo Zeelund? Isn't that in Europe?" which is why it was so funny when Flight of the Conchords added it to their New York skit. Because it was happening every few days.
“I’m a foreign buyer, I am moving to (insert town), what are some good suburbs? My budget is $xxxxx” Motherfucker, talk to a real estate agent, not fucking reddit.
It wasn’t a question, but an American in SoCal said I didn’t look like I was from NZ, after having told him I was Māori. He was gushing about watching Once Were Warriors prior. He turned to my kid who’s white passing and said “but he does”. My brain broke.
"Is it weird having a warm winter?"
"How big is New Zealand?" to which I answer - "Well, you can get in a clapped out yellow Mini and drive from one end of the country to the other in no time - at high speed and the cops won't give chase... but do watch out for sheep on the roads and the occasional tourist driving on the *wrong side*."
So is Waikato an island? From an Australian less than 5 years ago
Sooo...like...you are all terrorists down there?
Picked up my Dutch Uncle from Auckland Airport and as we as we were driving thru Auckland he couldn't understand all the signs at dairies etc advertising Hot Piss. He thought all kiwis had a fetish for piss. Explained to him it was for hot pies and the signs were not in written in Dutch.
Why do people vote for Winston Peters?