Posted at 14:04h
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Writing
A long time ago (December 2010) I wrote this little thing for Metro about being an Aucklander who spends a lot of time travelling outside of Auckland. Eight years later, I’m still an Aucklander on the move, and I feel like saying it all again. Enjoy.
If you’re heading south of the Bombays or north of Orewa this summer, gird your loins, brothers and sisters. They hate us out there. We are vegetarians at a butchers’ barbecue; we are Muslims entering Ground Zero; we are single and childless at a Plunket morning tea.
To non-Aucklanders, Aucklanders are to be pitied and/or despised for wilfully making a bad life-choice. We live in a city that is responsible for everything that is wrong with the nation. We steal their best lamb, their electricity and their tax dollars, and still can’t organise a piss up on a waterfront.
I didn’t really think of myself as an Aucklander until I started dealing with this kind of crap. I moved here 18 years ago for work opportunities and because, as a pregnant woman living in Queenstown, I didn’t fancy driving to Invercargill during labour because the hospital round the corner didn’t allow first-time-mothers. I had visions of giving birth on the side of the road, assisted by a Lumsden farmer (or a vet if he had time to call one) who figured he knew what he was doing because it couldn’t be that different from delivering a breached calf.
But I’ve come to think of myself as “an Aucklander” in the same way people learn to identify as “feminist” – I can’t stand the casual bigotry anymore so I’ve picked a corner.
Here’s the conversation I have every time I go out of town. Sometimes the name is different but the sentiment is always the same.
Non-Aucklander: Where are you from?
Aucklander: Auckland.
N-A: Poor you.
A: Why?
N-A: It’s shit.
A: Have you been there?
N-A: Nah, but my mate Kevin has and he says it’s shit.
So here is an open letter to Kevin. Feel free to quote from it if you’re out of Auckland this summer.
Dear Kevin,
I am sorry that you think Auckland is shit. You must have gone to the wrong part. It is quite big but I guess it is possible that you managed to miss all the good stuff if you were teleported to an industrial estate and stood very still for your whole visit.
You do make some valid points about its shit-ness. It is true that our traffic system is a disaster. However, after a bit of a wait you end up somewhere interesting with something going on. It’s pretty rare for the whole place to be closed. It is certainly no more frustrating than trying to get from Alexandra to Riverton in the snow.
Also, please note that I don’t actually live in the traffic. I live on the edge of a bush reserve. There are tui and kereru in my garden. Sometimes I catch a boat to work. If I’m driving home, I often stop at the beach and sit under a pohutukawa tree and stare at a volcano. I find this peaceful.
It is also true that we lock our doors here. I don’t find this difficult – just a quarter turn, anti-clockwise. And you’re right, I don’t leave my car keys in the ignition – I put them in my handbag. With a bit of practice, this becomes pretty automatic. It doesn’t ruin my day.
Yes, we have some Asians. And Muslims. And it’s a “bit dark” in South Auckland as you so quaintly put it. We find all this interesting because it reminds us of the places we have visited overseas. No, okay, not the Gold Coast. Other places.
When I visit my butcher, he doesn’t tell me I’ve already had lamb twice this week and I should have chicken. Also, if I’m out doing things after 9.30pm (imagine it, Kev) and I get hungry, I can buy something to eat.
I’m sure that (insert name of Kevin’s town/city here) is a great place to bring up kids. You can tell because they end up so curious about the world and all its possibilities, they move to Auckland first chance they get.
Yours sincerely…
