Are Kiwis Friendly?

So we keep getting asked if Kiwis are friendly or not and if we are finding people in Nelson friendly or not. We’ll write this one jointly as we are both getting asked this question a lot since we are Americans living abroad.

The easy answer is simple, yes, they are very friendly and nice. Most of them. And, as in the States, it matters where you are because busy Auckland was much less friendly than small town Nelson. City folk. But as it is anywhere, it also depends on the person too. I’ve made a point to smile at everyone I walk by as we trek around the town centre, just to appear friendly and solicit a smile in return. Some people do, some don’t, in Auckland and Nelson alike.

But then you find shopkeepers to be very friendly, the Telecom folks who signed up our phone were extremely helpful, and grocery check out people have been quite cheery. What on earth do Kiwis have to fret about, look around! They know where they live and it’s beautiful and relaxed and very low-pressure.

I’ve not encountered anyone I would consider flat out rude. I would say that Nelson is as we expected and as we were told: residents are friendly as heck to tourists but some residents are less friendly to foreigners who move there until they get to know them. Our neighbors have been very pleasant, but they are also older and more inclined to be relaxed. Then there was the car with two youths (I group together all kids aged 12+ and call them “youths” now, consider them to be a class of animal, a pack that roams looking for no good) driving by as Don was taking a picture of a road in the city centre and they purposely leaned out of both windows and stuck their middle fingers up in the air to get into his picture. They missed. But how f***ing obnoxious! Youths—they are so annoying and they travel in packs, evil packs. The funny part is they have to wear uniforms (unies) to school, so they all look ridiculous when they’re being evil.

Anyway, youths are the rudest and them aside, everyone else has been really nice. If you are nice to them, they’re very nice back. I think they might have expectations of Americans, but if you don’t feed into that, you’re fine.

Don here: I’ll add to this a bit. I’ll say there are a shitload of youths here. The majority of people down here are either under 19 or over 65. Anyway, went over to the neighbor to borrow a step ladder the other day. Lilly is up there is years (mid-60’s I’d say…if elders are reading, I’m sure I’ll get comments on this) and very friendly. Turns out her daughter lives down the street and is hosting a student from Seattle. She invited us for tea with a group of her friends (10 to be exact) but I declined since we were a mess from cleaning. She gave me the scoop on all the neighbors (well all except one): the couple next to us are in their 90’s and moving to a retirement facility in Auckland this week. Lady on the other side will be happy to hear that we aren’t noisy (I guess the last tenant was). Two people across the street are away on holiday but very nice. She did start to say something about another but just stopped and said something under her breath I didn’t catch.

Just got off the phone with a guy about extermination (pests, not people…that was a different call). He was happy to go on and on about cockroaches (reason for my inquiry) and was in no hurry to get off the phone. He wasn’t trying to sell me his services, just trying to help. Same was true of the Telecom people, they wanted to make sure we had our phone connected in 2 hours and our internet up within 24 hours—and it was. Screw Comcast!

Short story long…place we bought our TV – everyone was very nice and helpful. Kier (store manager) looks mean but really opens up when you get to know him. No, I didn’t take him to dinner; we’ve just been in the store a lot asking about our TV. It was to be shipped up from Christchurch and they would give us a call when it arrived. Well I know how that “give you a call” works in the States so we were stopping by frequently to check on the status. It didn’t show up on the truck yesterday so they were going to offer us a loaner in the meantime. Turns out the TV showed today and they did call – unreal. They then offered to deliver it, and did for free. (Of course, we live not 5 minutes from the store/town centre). We now have a TV – I needed one before Project Runway and Rockstar Supernova.

We’re off to get tequila and cointreau for our first margaritas, we’ve had to graduate from wine today, it’s just time. But rest assured, our cabinets are stocked with bottles of wine we’ve collected from the sales!