Auckland, New Zealand: Peaches and Silverbeet

1/11/09

Tonight a full moon

Hung ripe over Cockle Bay

Orange as peach flesh

1/18/09

Silver beets outside

Bend down in the summer rain

As if bowed in prayer

I woke this Sunday morning to the sound of rain on the vegetable leaves in the garden outside my open window. It’s been two weeks now since I arrived in New Zealand and summer here is treating me well. It was an incredibly soft landing, thanks to my friend Rachel’s awesome family and their hospitality. I’m staying in their extra room and it’s nice to have people around when I finally get home from the city around 7 p.m.

Yes, dear friends, the Cambridge course for teaching English is totally kicking my butt. I leave for the bus at 7 a.m. and get home at 7 p.m. to shove some food in my face and create lesson plans for the next day, but I am learning quite a bit. For example, how much I managed NOT to learn in 20 years of schooling regarding tenses, parts of speech and the basic phonology and rules of the English language. All of which, I’m convinced, my beginner level students know more about than I… me… I. Crap. See.

And so my students. It’s great to have students again. And they are a hoot. All of them come to our school because we teacher/plebes give our lessons for free, which seems like a fabulous bargain, until you realize we only know about 50% of what we’re talking about. But I digress.

At last count in our class we had 2 Koreans, 2 Japanese, 2 Chinese, 1 Italian and… wait for it… a lady from Kazakhstan! Oh my holy wow. And she’s totally my favorite. The Chinese ladies are awesome as well, although one of them walked out last week when one of the teacher/plebes asked her to put her dictionary away. The Korean guys are awesome as well, a goofy countenance and willingness to make a mistake go a long way in the language classroom. My favorite is Jin. He told me he likes my classes a lot and I was pretty flattered, but attempted not to fan any unneeded flames with over-exaggerated relief (“They like me! They really like me!).  And the Italian guy is reliably hilarious as well, although I’m pretty sure he’s usually stoned.

All in all, I am thoroughly enjoying myself and have even found some time for rest. Today, however, I spent 8 hours making lesson plans for this week and I think I may have had a wild half-cocked grin and disheveled hair when the family finally came back from their afternoon walk. That crazy American… she’s always sitting in the corner, stroking her books and muttering to herself (yes, my precious….).

As for general impressions of New Zealand, well, if I thought I’d be floating up on the beach with my piano and waiting for Harvey Keitel and his tattooed friends to come and trudge me into the forest, that wasn’t what happened. Good news is, I still have all my fingers.

All kidding aside, New Zealand has been an unusually soft landing, with very little culture shock to speak of. A few of the things that have struck me thus far about New Zealand include: being the first country in the world to grant women’s suffrage, legalized (and regulated) prostitution and hermaphrodites in public office – pointed out by the father of my family here as something that will doubtless be a long time coming in the overly provincial United States (Sorry Mr. MILK, you don’t hold a candle).

I have been blown away as well with the sheer numbers of Asian folks living in the city. All the kimchi (Korean pickles), onigiri (Japanese rice balls) and sembei (Japanese crackers) are mine for the taking and readily available at every corner store. Super yum. I headed out for a Japanese food girls night out on Friday, complete with the threat of Japanese/Korean style karaoke at the end of the evening (the others being saved only by the fact that my latest bus was 11:30).

I even wandered into one of the alleys of shops in Auckland and encountered – Engrish! I’m so happy you happy! Rock time! An apple doctor way! Unfortunately, I could only fit my head, neck and half a boob through the head hole and into the shirt before sheepishly taking it off and saying, “it’s a little small” to the shop girls giggling behind the counter. “That’s biggest size.” Yes. Of course it is.

Also striking (and inspiring) is the firm belief in a God given right to at least 4 weeks paid vacation a year and a widespread belief that all retail stores should close promptly at 6 p.m. (with a gleeful shut down of all most-needed services 15 minutes prior). This weekend, there was an editorial in the newspaper decrying the fact that there are typically only 3 to 4 weeks off in December, and most of those are taken up with Christmas and New Years. And, when I told my family here that at one of my previous jobs I had only 5 days vacation per year there were audible gasps and they asked “But, how can they do that?” Yes, I see a future for myself working in a foreign company with such civilized policies. Yes, I most certainly do.

In other exciting news, I bought myself a hot pink phone, the likes of which I have secretly lusted after for years now. I almost bought myself one back in ’07 but resisted, deeming it frivolous. So imagine my joy when I found myself buying a new phone in New Zealand and the guy helping me in the shop said, “well, we have the black one, then there’s this one, I guess, or whatever.” At which point he pulled out the shiniest most awesomest hot pink miracle I’d ever seen. And, 10 minutes later, I walked out of the shop, my hot-pink-pre-paid-rider-bb-gun-cellie slung low in my back pocket. Eat that Alfie.

Which pretty much concludes my experiences thus far. Course concludes in 2 weeks, at which time I’m free! And heading to Australia for a few weeks, then back to NZ for a 4-week backpacking extravaganza. And I’m ready! Rootin’ tootin’ ready.