In writing my first letter back to Georgetown, I was pretty enthused about how easy it was to talk about religion in New Zealand's culture after only experiencing the Kiwi way of life for five short weeks.
Having just passed the three month mark, I am finding that it is not as apparent as I originally thought. In general my first impression about Maori culture's place in secular New Zealand was correct; European Kiwis make quite the effort to recognize the indigenous Maori tradition. That said, I think that in the first few weeks, the diversity of Auckland misrepresented the rest of the country's religious behavior, and furthermore, the presence of differing cultures didn't reflect the presence of differing religions as I thought it did.
The first three meals I had in New Zealand came from different quarters of the world; I had mouth-watering Pad Thai, spicy Indian curries, and the New Zealand imitation of New York pizza. My taste buds' global journey reflects the cultural diversity reported in the 2006 census. Of the four million or so who responded, little over 50 percent of Auckland considered themselves to be European, while the rest is quite evenly divided between Maori, Asian, Pacific, New Zealand, and other. Beyond that 10 percent of New Zealand identified with multiple groups. On any given day you can hear German, Korean, South African, British, American, Russian, and other varying accents from around the world. There's really countless ways to convey to you how many different ethnicities exists here.
In mid-April I journeyed to the South Island where everything is bigger, more spread out, and in every way of the word, whiter. There seemed to be no diversity in the small towns on the West Coast. There was the occasional Korean BBQ or Pacific Island craft shop, but for the most part, the South Island was dotted with little towns of European decent. While I was down there I started to reflect on my previous impressions of New Zealand in terms of its religious identity. Up until then I had recognized both the Maori awareness and the cultural diversity and assumed that religion was casual but just as diverse. However, I started to list the times in which I thought I had felt the presence of religion in everyday Kiwi culture and found I had scarcely any occasions. I have never felt like religion plays a role in everyday life that resembles anything I'm used to back home.
Again the census from 2006 supports what I've been experiencing here. Of those responding, 55 percent identified with Christianity, down 5 percent from 2001. The second largest response was no religion, which had climbed 5 percent from 2001 to 35 percent. However, the most odd response was ignored by the official census report: 20,000 Jedi Knights, a non-theistic fictional group from the Star Wars trilogy, were considered to be responses outside scope by Statistics New Zealand. Although the number of Jedi plummeted from 53,000 in 2001, the fact remains that 1.5 percent of respondents to the census considered the religion question a joke, and furthermore, it's clear that the country is divided between Christianity and some form of agnosticism.
Yet, that doesn't change the fact that each part of New Zealand recognizes and in its own way celebrates religious holidays. While I've only been here for Easter and Good Friday, both days stand out as the two quietest days of the semester; no shops were open on Easter Sunday and in Queenstown, a city known for its extreme sports and extreme nightlife, alcohol purchase was banned for an entire 24 hours. No Kiwi I've encountered thinks it is weird either; all of my non-Christian Kiwi friends laughed at me when I suggested doing anything in town on Easter Sunday. I also don't get the impression that the 55 percent of the population who are Christian drive this observance, since even the most Christian of my friends didn't so much as attend church. As an outsider, I'm having trouble understanding how I can see and feel that there is no intensive religious presence here in New Zealand, yet everyone knows and celebrates Christian holidays (Passover was a completely foreign concept to my Kiwi buddies).
I don't think I'll be able to completely understand the balance between the absence of religion and religious observance here in my last month. However, I can say that somehow this wild paradox seems to fit into what I know as the New Zealand identity. New Zealand to me is a set of oxymorons. It is big in terms of how much open untouched land there is and small in physical size. It is wild since there is so much natural beauty yet civilized because you can access and coexist in nature so easily. Kiwis are rambunctious in that they like to get rowdy, but they're also laid back as seen through their hatred of rigid plans and regulations. There are tropical beaches in the north and frigid arctic landscapes in the south. Dangerous active volcanoes and other thermal hazards threaten a peaceful and safe habitat completely absent of hazardous species of plants, mammals, insects, and reptiles. The list could go on, and adding the religious and non-religious conflict seems to fit. I think that is the point: religion is not taboo here and just exists as a part of life, even if some do not identify with it. I don't have a concrete statistic or observance to back that up, but it is the best way I can personally understand the lack and simultaneous presence of religion in New Zealand.
The first three meals I had in New Zealand came from different quarters of the world; I had mouth-watering Pad Thai, spicy Indian curries, and the New Zealand imitation of New York pizza. My taste buds' global journey reflects the cultural diversity reported in the 2006 census. Of the four million or so who responded, little over 50 percent of Auckland considered themselves to be European, while the rest is quite evenly divided between Maori, Asian, Pacific, New Zealand, and other. Beyond that 10 percent of New Zealand identified with multiple groups. On any given day you can hear German, Korean, South African, British, American, Russian, and other varying accents from around the world. There's really countless ways to convey to you how many different ethnicities exists here.
In mid-April I journeyed to the South Island where everything is bigger, more spread out, and in every way of the word, whiter. There seemed to be no diversity in the small towns on the West Coast. There was the occasional Korean BBQ or Pacific Island craft shop, but for the most part, the South Island was dotted with little towns of European decent. While I was down there I started to reflect on my previous impressions of New Zealand in terms of its religious identity. Up until then I had recognized both the Maori awareness and the cultural diversity and assumed that religion was casual but just as diverse. However, I started to list the times in which I thought I had felt the presence of religion in everyday Kiwi culture and found I had scarcely any occasions. I have never felt like religion plays a role in everyday life that resembles anything I'm used to back home.
Again the census from 2006 supports what I've been experiencing here. Of those responding, 55 percent identified with Christianity, down 5 percent from 2001. The second largest response was no religion, which had climbed 5 percent from 2001 to 35 percent. However, the most odd response was ignored by the official census report: 20,000 Jedi Knights, a non-theistic fictional group from the Star Wars trilogy, were considered to be responses outside scope by Statistics New Zealand. Although the number of Jedi plummeted from 53,000 in 2001, the fact remains that 1.5 percent of respondents to the census considered the religion question a joke, and furthermore, it's clear that the country is divided between Christianity and some form of agnosticism.
Yet, that doesn't change the fact that each part of New Zealand recognizes and in its own way celebrates religious holidays. While I've only been here for Easter and Good Friday, both days stand out as the two quietest days of the semester; no shops were open on Easter Sunday and in Queenstown, a city known for its extreme sports and extreme nightlife, alcohol purchase was banned for an entire 24 hours. No Kiwi I've encountered thinks it is weird either; all of my non-Christian Kiwi friends laughed at me when I suggested doing anything in town on Easter Sunday. I also don't get the impression that the 55 percent of the population who are Christian drive this observance, since even the most Christian of my friends didn't so much as attend church. As an outsider, I'm having trouble understanding how I can see and feel that there is no intensive religious presence here in New Zealand, yet everyone knows and celebrates Christian holidays (Passover was a completely foreign concept to my Kiwi buddies).
I don't think I'll be able to completely understand the balance between the absence of religion and religious observance here in my last month. However, I can say that somehow this wild paradox seems to fit into what I know as the New Zealand identity. New Zealand to me is a set of oxymorons. It is big in terms of how much open untouched land there is and small in physical size. It is wild since there is so much natural beauty yet civilized because you can access and coexist in nature so easily. Kiwis are rambunctious in that they like to get rowdy, but they're also laid back as seen through their hatred of rigid plans and regulations. There are tropical beaches in the north and frigid arctic landscapes in the south. Dangerous active volcanoes and other thermal hazards threaten a peaceful and safe habitat completely absent of hazardous species of plants, mammals, insects, and reptiles. The list could go on, and adding the religious and non-religious conflict seems to fit. I think that is the point: religion is not taboo here and just exists as a part of life, even if some do not identify with it. I don't have a concrete statistic or observance to back that up, but it is the best way I can personally understand the lack and simultaneous presence of religion in New Zealand.
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