Culture wise is it more like America or Europe?

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marcus_rennen@xtra.co.nz

New Zealand has a unique and totally stella culture all its own. Yup definitely influenced by many other cultures notably European.
However thats where the similarities begin and end.
New Zealand is a vibrant and young nation.
Its indigenous peoples - The Maori - have a philosophical and centuries old tradition of 'belonging' and 'inclusion'.
In fact many facets of the Maori culture have successfully been integrated into everyday New Zealand life. The Maori language is now so readily accepted you would think they all speak it, similar to the french-canadians.
Your 21st century average kiwi is down to earth, extremely friendly and has a great sense of humour.
Irish, Scottish, English and Welsh heritages flourish in these most distant of southern of lands.
Australian, Pacific Island and Latin American accents can also be heard.
American, Canadian, South African, Asian, Swiss, Swedish, Finn, French and loads more make up this amazing melting pot of coffee coloured peoples!
So its not about are we American or European.
We are Kiwis.
We are New Zealand.

yankiwi

Hi ya Voice,

It's neither.
New Zealand is more like Paradise.

=)

dont_feed_the_models52

I would say Europe. Probably like said above, more Britain Europe as they settled in New Zealand a long time ago. They came in large numbers on boats to "escape" Britain where they were going through a time of unemployment and rough times. Although Polynesian people would have first settled in New Zealand and there is more of their culture now. Here is a couple of articles if you are interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_New_Zealand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand
http://www.teara.govt.nz/NewZealanders/NewZealandPeoples/HistoryOfImmigration/3/en

Hope I helped.

Š“Ń¨Ń€Šø

It's like europe. You'll find a lot of similar things between NZ and europe. And if u wanna know a country like the US then it has to be Australia.

The happy atheist

I've lived in New Zealand all my life (40+ years) and would have to agree with what akpinnz said. Sadly, what was once called New Zealand culture (with its can do attitude and the ability to fix anything with a length of number 8 wire) is slowly disappearing. Maybe in small rural communities throughout NZ you'll be able to find what I would call the real Kiwi bloke and sheila, but in the cities, that would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Neil J

to be honest, NZ seems to me to have adopted the better parts of both cultures, but increasingly like USA with fast food joints, and commercial retail parks being built, but outside of the larger towns and cities, it is a lot more like britain of 20-30 years ago

Little Miss Sweet As !

More like Europe, we have a lot of English influence. Not much at all in common with America...apart from the t.v shows.

Im a Kiwi living in America, been here for 5 years. Not much in common with the Yanks at all!!....from $ to schooling, to food to sports.....

akpinnz

As an American immigrant to New Zealand I would definitely have to say it's more like America than Europe. New Zealand has that egalitarian streak that makes it very different from Britain and it's youth culture and styles are obviously emulating California surfer/skateboarder laid-back style. There are more McDonalds per capita in NZ than any other country in the world and I've honestly seen heaps more KFC's and Subways in Auckland than I ever saw back in the US.

There are also a lot of malls and mini-malls that remind me strongly of home. Finally, the spread out nature of NZ cities is unlike anything you'd find in densely populated Europe. Auckland is very much like a mini-Los Angeles in the way it's suburbs are spread out. Oh, and there are a lot more American shows on TV than British, with the exception of the programmes on TV One.

There are certainly plenty of things distinctively Kiwi though, like walking around and even going to school barefoot. Or wearing singlet, shorts and jandals to the market in mid-winter to get some NZ Marmite! I could go on and on, but the question isn't about Kiwi culture just whether it's more like the US or Europe.

weaniez

hey, its definatly a mixture of both... its kinda its own culture, a bit hard to explain unless you have a specific element you want to know about??

olwenc

Most closely attuned to Britain rather than continental Europe

travel_stories

New Zealand has its own culture that has derived from British origins, but with our Maori people, and now a very wide number of cultures - Polynesian, European, Asian, South African,etc living here I would not say it is more like UK than the US. We are a fairly relaxed laid back lot and are still a long way from the out there US personality but perhaps not as reserved as UK. Like both countries we have many ethnic restaurants, cultural festivals, schools in Auckland where the students have up to 80 different first languages other than English! If I had to say one or the other it would be British by a small margin.

LovelyLady

I hope Europe. Pretty sure, Europe. But you'd have to check with someone who lives there.

NZ Guy

More like the UK.
TV can reflect what a country is like, and New Zealand gets a mixture of TV programmes from the UK and the US. With lots of New Zealand programmes.

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