Watching the Kiwis

Ok, time to report some of my findings on New Zealanders:-

Observations:
1. The accent - Well NZ accent is very subtle in general, I don't have much problem understanding them, and neither do they have much trouble understanding me (big contrast with my last Sydney/Gold Coast trip in Australia). The one funny thing bout the accent is the way they pronouce 'e' the way we pronouce 'i'. Therefore, 'head & neck' sounds like 'hiad & nick', 'desk' becomes 'disk', 'tension' -> 'tinsion', and 'medicine', 'midcine'.

Example: (for bist effict, rid this aloud)
sex - one liss than sivven

It was kinda amusing (and sometime hilarious) when I first hear them, but I'm getting used to them now. Oh they also love to use 'aye' a lot by the way, not unlike the 'la' we Malaysians have the habit to use at the end of our sentences. Well in general, I'm surprised by how gentle the accent sounds, since I was expecting something harsher, like the Australian accent. But they do have the habit to mumble once in awhile though, which is when I can hardly understand anything lol.

2. The opening hours - Yes I DID expect shops to close down early in the Australasia region, but imagine this: Most shopping malls are closed around 4.30-5pm on a Sunday!!! I mean, what the hell?! How am I supposed to spend my weekend nights then? The only things you can do to entertain yourself at night is drinking here really. Which brings me to my next point... (Before that, I juz wanna confess that I REALLY miss Malaysian night life...) <=(

3. The drinking orgy - Alright I've overexaggerated there. But it's true to a certain extent: people here engage in binge drinking more often than not. It's as if their sole purpose of visiting a bar or having a drinking party is to get drunk. Then you'll see the most well-behaved people saying all kinds of incomprehensible rubbish, while some of us even received some racist remarks and all (someone thrown an egg at one of us while we were walking back along a road at night). And god when they drink, the stink of beer stays at the place for hours. And they get pretty rowdy when they're high too, which is rather annoying for someone who enjoys the quiet and peaceful enviroment of NZ.

4. The diet - Strange enough, the diet here in Auckland (read: Auckland, not NZ. I have no idea how things are outside Auckland) is filled with all sorts of Asian delights. Rice is a common staple food, Japanese/Chinese/Korean restaurants can be found everywhere, they have a nice selection of indian dhal, and best of all, the satay here actually taste better than the ones in Malaysia! The lamb here is delicious, but the pork here juz turns me off. It has the weird, unpleasent aroma with it. Quite a pity actually, since it's refreshing to see pork everywhere here compared with Malaysia.

Oh and they have really light lunches here. The people here often have sandwich for lunch. Which is REALLY bad for me, since lunch is usually my heaviest meal of the day back home. And of cuz, supper is almost non-existent here. Thank god they do have a wide selection of instant noodles here, again, due to the high Asian influence in their diet. Indomee, maggi mee, hokkien mee, singapore fried noodle, vietnamese nice noodle, korean kimchi noodle, japanese udon... All these you can get easily in the instant noodle section of the supermarkets/asian grocery shops here.

5. The multiracial community - One of the reason I feel quite at home in Auckland is due to the fact that there's quite a multiracial community here. There are more than 15% of Asians here (18.9% according to the 2006 census), 25% are Maoris or Polynesians while the rest are causcasians. Even the caucasians are from all over the world: UK, Europe, North America, South Africa (quite a number of them. funny accent)... A very colourful community indeed. I've been with chinese, middle-eastern, maori, and american doctors in my hospital attachments so far, and it's been quite an interesting experience learning from them. It's a relief that I'm not a minor minority here really lol.

Well that's all I can think of for now. Well update more if I recall any further observations! ;)