Monday, May 5, 2008

A few cultural things



This is a NZ Maori Haka. The Haka is a war cry/war dance. Back in the days of tribal wars and such this would have been the prerequisite to a battle. Freaky huh? Now it's used at the beginnings of rugby games, among other things. But can you imagine a half naked warrior with tattoos all over his face (cultural tattoos) and a large spear threatening you with this before hand? The chest-slapping is the modern version of what they used to do - scratching their bare chests till they bled as they did this. Eek.

Pretty kool. Watched my friend help the groom out at a wedding - husband was a Kiwi (NZ-er) and so were some of the groomsmen, and the bride was an American. Intimidating huh?



Some NZ scenery. We do have cities and towns though.



This is some of our city. To be fair it's the tourist area by the beach. But no one really wants to take scenic video of the suburbs.




And a few excerpts of Kiwi accent. There's a lot of different ones - but they sound similar. The most different would be the guy in the hat and glasses - he's probably one of the more "mucky" sounding accents. The little girl's pretty true to character, as well as the guy who says, "I don't have a Kiwi accent. ..... DO I?"

Just thought you'd like to see a bit about where I live.

5 comments:

  1. I've always loved listening to Austrailian and NZ accents. I think they sound so cool!

    I'm from Michigan, USA, so I don't have an accent. HA HA HA!!! (Just kidding, I do...and I'm okay with that!)

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  2. I love the haka :) It my favorite ad on tv when they have ad for ruby games and show all blacks.

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  3. My sons football team in Missouri does the haka. Scares the other team spitless. It doesn't hurt that there are more than 100 boys on the team and they've won the state championship four of the last years!
    Stacey

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  4. Could you maybe post about why New Zealanders are called Kiwis? I don't think I've ever heard why.

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  5. How much has your accent changed whilst living in NZ. Will be interesting to see if Oceana's end's up being blended or not. Asking because as a child I was an ex-pat Aussie in a few different countries, and depending on where I was living really impacted on my accent. When I lived in Scotland, it would drive my parents around the twist trying to understand me at times, lol. Now you wouldn't even know that I ever had anything but an Aussie accent, however my little brother's (34), still sounds like a blend of different countries. He hates being asked where's he's from...hehehe.

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