Central Otago is obviously aware of the modern world, but chooses to wave a well-tanned hand in its general direction with a sense of earthy disdain for such elitists. This begun to be pointed out to me when I revealed my upcoming plan to move north to the comparative megalopolis of Auckland in order to find teaching work at the end of the month: an almost universal ‘huh’ emitted from the cracked lips of the locals, along with a begrudging agreement that the jobs were, in fact, to be found there. Alexandra as a whole is actually quite aware of international pressures – it being a huge net exporter of fruit and thus in contact with others as a matter of course – and in fact delights in finding new ways to extract money from any visitors/foreign workers that fall into its net. Backpacker hostels are able to wage an escalating price war during the picking season, as those just arriving in town don’t yet have the connections necessary to move into some poly-national conglomerate of a house (as I did). Similarly free internet access (a reliable fixture in public libraries nationwide) is shunned in favour of a series of improbable businesses charging for the privilege: this episode is actually being uploaded for you from the seating area of the only restaurant I’ve ever come across that specializes in both pizza and Thai food (imaginatively called ‘Pizza Thai’). The world has, in fact, come to the extreme south of New Zealand.
The extreme south of New Zealand, however, seems to have been content with how things were in 1990 or so, by my estimation. Perhaps the most fun way this is shown is in the most popular – by far – hairstyle among boys and young men (up until about age 26 or so): the crazy rat-tail/semi-mullet. Particularly good specimens of this cut have been seen in the wilds of the grocery store, where everyone sees everyone between 3 and 6pm, in the form of bleached blond, green-dyed, or the rarer dreadlock version; the best time for rat-tail sighting, however, was the New Years’ family street party at the next town over (Clyde), which resembled nothing so much as the backstage area for a theatrical production of ‘An American Tale’. If it were just an idiosyncratic haircut, though, I could easily dismiss it as an isolated fad and not one related to the onset of the 90’s.
The rat-tail might fall out of fashion for grown men around the time, say, you have your second child, but one statement remains forever young amongst the rural southern New Zealander man: the heavy-metal t-shirt. Admittedly this must be somewhat the product of the limited section of bands that look at New Zealand as a high-enough profile place to tour (or at least profitable enough, which points to a vicious cycle if you think about it), but even taking that into account the sheer percentage of young men to be found sporting almost universally black Pantera, Megadeth, Disturbed, Metallica, or Iron Maiden shirts – to name a few favourites – can be staggering at times. While I can be convicted as a musical elitist of sorts, I am not to be denied my amazement at how common these shirts (normally to be found on only the most meth-addicted of facially-pierced headbangers back in ‘the real world’) were in this dusty corner of the cultural world. Most remarkably I saw a professional of some kind – demarcated by his need to wear a collared dress shirt and matching tie to his office – whose Guns ‘N Roses shirt’s tour logo/dates were clearly visible through the back of his white striped shirt. Southern Kiwis, obviously, love to rock out.
This phenomena, however, comes to an abrupt end about the time one’s third child (children being more common than melanoma-free skin in the sun-blasted south) stumbles into the pyramid of soup cans at the Pak N Save. A grace period of about a decade is ushered in, in which dress and demeanor becomes approximately that of the modern world, which leaves little to satirize. The omnipresent biker-style wire/flame/chain tattoos merely peek out from the sleeves of faded polo shirts branded with the local brewery’s logo, rather than being unstoppable white-trash showpieces, and profanities dip down to being only 20-30% of the total words spoken in public. Once this era ends, however, a glorious new one begins.
Yes, here we have the final stage of southern men’s casual/professional attire: the short shorts, high socks, and work boots look. When I first came to New Zealand I imagined this to be the sole province of Australian sheep-shearers, but I was demonstrably wrong. After the age of 50 or so this is how men are seen, usually with a reddish sheen acquired while building up a rock boundary wall over the course of an afternoon and a case of Speight’s gold medal ale. The rat-tail may be a forgotten item of the past by this point, but the careless disregard of modern mores regarding appearance is still fully evident; Central Otago is nothing if not consistent.
In this way, rural New Zealand is a heartening kind of place. It exists in its own universe of style and substance, where the number of acres of trees or heads of sheep you have is much more important than the shade of blue your jeans are or the relative hairlessness of your female legs. It’s unfair to say that time has forgotten Central Otago; rather, time has blown over it like so much dust after a summer with only the merest sprinklings of cultural rain. Everyone has dirt under their nails, a twenty in their pocket, and 5 in their stomach; there are worse ways and places to spend a month abroad.I’ll leave you with a joke taken from a local convenience store’s specials board, in lieu of their actually offering any discounts of any kind to us filthy foreigners:
How do you make a cat go woof? Pour petrol on it!
And……scene!
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