Forget rugby or cricket, New Zealand's true national pastime is trivia. Kiwis eat it up. Every written publication contains a quiz, and every bar has a weekly quiz night. Every morning around 10:15, my department gathers for "morning tea" to complete the quiz from the Wellington Dominion Post newspaper. It is serious business. The answers, which are already printed upside down, are further concealed to prevent cheating. The question is read aloud. We debate. We settle on an answer and move to question #2. This continues for 10 questions. We check the answers. The reader gives clues and "sounds like" hints for any questions we missed. The whole process takes about 35 minutes, and then it is almost time for my lunch break. The Kiwis are a hard-working and productive people.The Kiwis are well-rounded, but I am good for only one thing. I am the office expert for American trivia. You don't know pressure until you have 10 sets of Kiwi eyes staring you down. I feel like their opinion of the US as a whole is dependent on my perceived intelligence. I don't feel smart when I answer the questions; I just feel relieved. To be honest, quiz time makes me feel stupid because I have such a narrow frame of reference. Their knowledge of America far surpasses my knowledge of any other country.
In any case, I'm the only one who knew the answer to these (pretty easy) American questions: What does UCLA stand for? What city's transportation system is known as BART? What political couple was implicated in Whitewater? What is John McCain's home state? What author lived at Walden Pond? What state is abbreviated MT?
It's no coincidence that New Zealand has a gaming addiction. The anti-gambling PSAs are outnumbered only by the pokies. Buy just about any item at just about any store and you'll automatically be "entered in the draw" to win some fabulous prize. Today at work, we placed bets on the Melbourne Cup. Keep in mind that New Zealand typically refuses to associate with Australia. Cross your fingers for my guy Gallopin! He's one of the only Kiwi horses in the race. I stand to win 50 big ones!
3 comments:
team sitting pretty forever!
although there was an america-related question that i wasn't able to answer.
Did Shawn name us "sitting pretty" or something? I can't be expected to remember things from T's Pub.
Which question did you get wrong? I told the Kiwis that some Americans wouldn't know BART.
I forgot to mention another American question... On what US sitcom did Fran Drescher play Fran Fine? I would have looked more intelligent had I NOT know that answer.
haha i think we named ourselves that because we were able to steal seats from some guys.
and i totally got the BART question wrong. and i still have no idea of the right answer. too lazy to google.
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