New Zealand: More than just lord of the rings....  (PART ONE)



Aotearoa : Land of the long white cloud

Well in case you didn't know, two of GW's universally renowned best members are actually from New Zealand, myself and Climbtree. No doubt this made you curious about this mysterious land and how it could possibly raise two of the greatest possible posters in the history of Gaming World. Well known IRC troll Oblivion is also from a small 40 people strong community known as Invercargill which is located in the South Island of New Zealand. If you have ever wondered why he comes across as being angry or spiteful this is likely to be the reason.



Sport

Sporting in New Zealand is generally a really big deal, the majority of Kiwi's feel a great sense of pride for their country and often a sports achievement is more important to us than an economic or political achievement haha. Possibly our biggest rival in sports is Australia, this is comparable to the rivalry between Sweden and Finland or Canada and America (except they are the same country). Our biggest sport is definitely Rugby (think football except without pussy shoulder pads) and our team is known for being one of the best in the world. At the start of each game our Rugby team likes to start with a traditional maori war dance known as the haka. Some fans either love this or think it is a joke, my opinion is a mixture of both.

Kind of cool:

Fucking stupid:


Either way I think it is over done. Our Rugby team is known as the All Blacks and at least the majority of children grow up worshipping one of these guys. It is funny to note that our Hockey team was going to be named the Black COX until someone was smart enough at the finalization of this decision to speak up and say something, I was going to google some stuff about this team for you guys but I dont exactly want to type Black Cocks into google.


New Zealand Politics

In New Zealand, politics happen in building. This building is called the beehive, here it is:

It is called the beehive because of the way it looks. Inside the beehive is the government.

New Zealand compared to America

In America they have the Whitehouse and in New Zealand they have the beehive. No-one lives in the beehive though, not even bees!
Instead of a president, New Zealand has a prime minister. The current prime minister is Helen Clark. She is our first elected female prime minister. Before her was Jenny Shipley, who was also a woman. She took over from Jim Bolger, a man who became leader of the country even though he dropped out of school at 15 to become a farmer! Farming is very important in NZ.
New Zealand is unlike the US of A in that it is practically communist. I heard one time the government needed some money and the USSR offered to give them some because they thought we were socialist too! New Zealand has had a Labour government for the last 9 years. Labor grew out of trade unions or something and they like high amounts of social welfare. New Zealand is like Sweden in this sense but not as icky.

Political Parties

In New Zealand there are three main political parties. These are just groups of politicians and have nothing to do with balloons or pin the tail on the donkey. These groups are Labour, the Greens, and National. People from these groups are the only ones that are in the News.

The Green party is in a coalition with Labour which means they have some say in government policy. This is big news because green parties are usually silly. The New Zealand green party has before argued for marijuana legalization and was tricked by the dehydrogen monoxide joke on the internet. It's leader is Jeanette Fitzsimons, an attractive woman which some say is the only reason she is the leader. The green party also includes Nándor Tánczos. Nandor has dreadlocks and famously wore them in a turban style with a suit made of hemp. He makes a lot of visits to universities. He smokes marijuana recreationally on occasion, even though smoking is bad for you. He is a quirky guy but is quite articulate. He is also a rastafarian.

Scandals

Our biggest political scandal was when Helen Clark was escorted by speeding police vehicles to a rugby game. Another politician was in the news for mooning someone, imagine that! Several have been caught drink driving. There was a bit of ruckus made over Georgina Beyers: http://www.georginabeyer.com/. She used to be a man and a gay prostitute.


Afura edit: Yeah I would totally go there.

Currently there is a scandal over a Samoan minister abusing his powers to make an Asian man paint his house. His name is hard to remember.

This is an actual billboard in New Zealand for Hell's pizza


Afura's turn again.

Music

In my opinion New Zealand music is a mixed bag, a lot of government funding is going into our national music scene at the moment but in general it's pretty amateurish, I actually find myself cringing with embarrassment when I watch a lot of our music videos. Our alternative, reggae/dub and electronic music is generally world class, however our hiphop scene is actually terrible, I can't think of one single artist I like. Not one. So lets get the embarrassment out of the way shall we?
Similar to the United States, Hip hop is most popular in New Zealand among black (or brown) people and while you guys have badasses like Ghostface we have guys making cliché trash.
This is so embarrassing I actually feel bad.


Hahaha oh man please make it stop, please. Here is a song the same guy did with Akon.
.

Our Reggae and Electronica scene is pretty good and the cool thing is most of it is centered in the capital city where I live: Wellington. I think Reggae is mainly big in New Zealand cause up in the more isolated towns right up North a lot of people secretly grow Marijuana on big farms with traps and stuff. So they all love weed or something, but yeah really good music as the scene is pretty old and established.

Cool songs: (ignore the crappy videos, these are rad songs)




Did you notice how the guy at the beginning had a Wu Tang top on? Thats right


Conclusion:

Well that is it for part one and part two will  focus on our indigenous race the Maori, New Zealand food, enviornment and movies.Until then, feel free to be envious, ask me and Climbtree questions or whatever!

What a cute kiwi ;)