Have things (for tourists) in New Zealand improved any since 1954?

[KingOrfeo]

I know we have some Kiwi Litsters, and I just happened to come across this in a review of Robert Heinlein's Tramp Royale:

Apparently, the pit of misery, the region without hope, the most god-awful place in the whole southern hemisphere circa 1954, was New Zealand. The chapter dealing with this unhappy visit is called “The Dreary Utopia,” and its dreariness was of varied kinds. This is the only piece of travel literature I can recall in which the writer truly, deeply hated a Post Office system. The problem was not that Heinlein was a free-market ideologue hostile to New Zealand’s welfare state and tightly-controlled economy. Uruguay had a lot in common with New Zealand politically and economically in those days, but Uruguay also had restaurants that served non-poisonous food, and not everybody there shortchanged visitors all the time. Such were the petty vexations of the country that Heinlein spluttered even at the famous narrow-gauge railways, which in a better mood he would have liked. No doubt part of this antipathy was due simply to the fact the tourist industry was not yet well-developed, but for once the Heinleins forbore to seek private hospitality. They did have a letter of introduction, to a former prime minister no less. Heinlein would not use it, however, because it would have been so difficult to stop himself from telling his host how much he hated his country and everything in it.

Heinlein does record one good thing about the visit: a nice young woman at a zoo showed him and Virginia a kiwi. This was just before the Heinleins left for the airport. Virginia had dropped her objection to air travel in order to leave the country with the greatest expedition. They flew to Hawaii and then home, leaving the rest of the northern hemisphere for another day.

 

[oggbashan]

What a visitor/tourist thinks of a place they visit depends on their own attitude.

If you like different things and exploring unfamiliar locations and customs? You'll enjoy wherever you visit.

If you are constantly complaining that it's not like home, you won't enjoy anywhere.

New Zealand in 1954 had many places to visit and much to see. The tourist industry has developed massively over the last 60+ years but the landscapes are the same, just more accessible - or at least some of them are.

In 1954 New Zealand probably struck Heinlein as backward. It probably was, still set in 1920s attitudes compared with US cities. But he could have enjoyed it if he had let himself experience it as it was, not as he expected it to be.

 

[oggbashan]

New Zealanders haven't forgiven Heinlein for his portrayal of their country in his novel Friday.

What he experienced was similar to what he would have found in rural America before WW2 - fear and suspicion of strangers particularly from another country.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[chillywilly2]

My son liked it a lot this winter...except Christs Church...the earthquake devastated that place

 

[KingOrfeo]

New Zealanders haven't forgiven Heinlein for his portrayal of their country in his novel Friday.

What he experienced was similar to what he would have found in rural America before WW2 - fear and suspicion of strangers particularly from another country.

I recall that, but I did not get any impression he meant it as a thing specific to Kiwi culture; it was simply natural humans' prejudice against APs, and Friday encountered that in some form everywhere.

 

[KingOrfeo]

What a visitor/tourist thinks of a place they visit depends on their own attitude.

If you like different things and exploring unfamiliar locations and customs? You'll enjoy wherever you visit.

Well, on this trip Heinlein toured several countries in South America, as well as South Africa, Australia, Singapore and Indonesia, and apparently EnZed was the only place for which he had such harsh words.

 

[BotanyBoy]

No, it's been totally decimated and ruined by evil whites with all their whiteness.

 

[pointless]

they probably just weren't as into incest as he would've hoped.

 

[KingOrfeo]

they probably just weren't as into incest as he would've hoped.

He should've gone to Pitcairn Island instead.

 

[KingOrfeo]

No, it's been totally decimated and ruined by evil whites with all their whiteness.

Even in threads that are actually about race relations, white privilege, BLM, etc., that shtick of yours got old long ago and smells like it, Bot. Bringing that sort of thing into this sort of thread is probably a sign of mental illness.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Even in threads that are actually about race relations, white privilege, BLM, etc., that shtick of yours got old long ago and smells like it, Bot. Bringing that sort of thing into this sort of thread is probably a sign of mental illness.

Hey I'm just being progressive and letting everyone know how evil white people are.....especially the males.

Because that's progress!!

 

[KingOrfeo]

Hey I'm just being progressive and letting everyone know how evil white people are.....especially the males.

Because that's progress!!

You ain't entirely white, but please kill yourself anyway.

 

[BotanyBoy]

You ain't entirely white, but please kill yourself anyway.

Exactly which is why I have no problem spreading the truth about the evil, oppressive, born Nazi's known as whites.

No. There are too many white people to quit now.

They must all exterminated, because that's progress!! And social JUSTICE!!

 

[KingOrfeo]

New Zealand is beautiful and bountiful. It is a place with incredible things to see. The kiwis are wonderfully cute, but only a tiny part of its charm. You can ski and swim on the same day if you have a mind too, the wild swimming is among the best in the world imo. The lAndscapes can be breathtaking, or you which they were ( Roturua) ( sp). It's a place of great, great beauty in nature , warmth but no messing around in its people generally. Better fish n chips than Britain, great icecream

What about cuisine? Is there such thing as a distinctive NZ cuisine?

 

[KingOrfeo]

Are there any eateries in Auckland or Christchurch anyone would particularly recommend?

 

[Miles]

Even in threads that are actually about race relations, white privilege, BLM, etc., that shtick of yours got old long ago and smells like it, Bot. Bringing that sort of thing into this sort of thread is probably a sign of mental illness.

YOU keep responding to it, so it will naturally keep doing it.

 

[ishtat]

Which speaks better of NZ, Heinlein or this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgRVK2ge1ys

 

[hashtag46]

Coincidentally, I read J.R.Saul's "Voltaire's Bastards" a few weeks ago, and the author dedicated
almost an entire chapter to NZ.


He claimed that, after witnessing their economies go downhill under the umbrella of the neoliberal-globalistic- corporatist Thatcher type of ideology that arose in the 70's,

NZ, Malaysia and Brasil were the 3 countries who had the courage to say No to globalisation.
And that their economies improved significantly since then.


Of course the book was written many years ago and things might have changed since then, but it was interesting to see a different perspective from Heinlein's that oggbashan mentioned.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Coincidentally, I read J.R.Saul's "Voltaire's Bastards" a few weeks ago, and the author dedicated
almost an entire chapter to NZ.


He claimed that, after witnessing their economies go downhill under the umbrella of the neoliberal-globalistic- corporatist Thatcher type of ideology that arose in the 70's,

NZ, Malaysia and Brasil were the 3 countries who had the courage to say No to globalisation.
And that their economies improved significantly since then.


Of course the book was written many years ago and things might have changed since then, but it was interesting to see a different perspective from Heinlein's that oggbashan mentioned.

Well, he's writing about the country decades later, and not from a tourist's POV. Heinlein apparently had nothing good or bad to say about NZ's fiscal policies.

 

[hashtag46]

Well, he's writing about the country decades later, and not from a tourist's POV. Heinlein apparently had nothing good or bad to say about NZ's fiscal policies.

I was referring to the admiration and almost fascination with NZ. Quite a different tone from Heinlein, if I understood ogg's post correctly.


As to J.R.Saul's book:
I focused mostly on the "sociological" aspects, so to speak and I might have misunderstood the economic -legal ones, in which I'm less skilled.
But Saul was referring to what happened between the 70's and 2000. No speculations about post - 2000, so he couldn't have been that wrong.

I don't have the book right now but I will post later a snapshot of the passages in question.
Because I'd be keen to read people's opinion.
Fascinating stuff in that book.

 

[Miles]

I read somewhere that NZ has a problem with a mass East Indian migration trend occurring and it is causing problems for the locals with rapes and such. The article said that they banned single males from entering the country which led to many of them pretending to be females so that their applications would be accepted. A sick and twisted bunch.

 

[hashtag46]

Well, since I lived there for a couple of years:

I actually found most kiwis to be quite tolerant and hospitable.

Minus Invercargill. Shitty depressing weather in an ugly town cut off from everybody else leads to shitty moods and attitudes.

 

[hashtag46]

New Zealand is beautiful and bountiful. It is a place with incredible things to see. The kiwis are wonderfully cute, but only a tiny part of its charm. You can ski and swim on the same day if you have a mind too, the wild swimming is among the best in the world imo. The lAndscapes can be breathtaking, or you which they were ( Roturua) ( sp). It's a place of great, great beauty in nature , warmth but no messing around in its people generally. Better fish n chips than Britain, great icecream

Unicornia.

 

[magicalmoments]

I've never heard of heinlien but I imagine new Zealand in 1954 would have been pretty dire. Probably not much improved from Mark Twain's visit in the late 1890s, although he gave a fairly positive report.

I see in today's paper that some German outfit has judged Wellington new Zealand, our capital city, as the best place to live in the world. As a former resident of the city I can certainly say it is the best city I have ever lived in.

Also lonely planet judged the province of Taranaki, my current home, as the 2nd best tourist destination in the world, I think that's what it was.

New Zealand also routinely features in the top five of the most free and uncorrupt countries in the world.

We also have a reputation of being clean and green as well, although that has been called into question recently with the impact of intensive dairy farming on the environment.

In my opinion there is an under current of systemic and institutional racism within the majority European ethnic group, although almost all of them would deny this.

All in all it's not a bad place to live, I certainly have never been tempted to live elsewhere and I've visited a large part of the world.