Someone said to me the other day, quite innocently, "Are any of your friends and family caught up in those bush fires in Sydney?" I replied, I wouldn't know because I'm from New Zealand". My answer went right over her head and she said, "Yeah I know but, its really terrible and I thought they might be affected". So I said "Are any of your friends and family affected by the floods in he south of France? (even though I didn't know if there were any going on at the moment). My sarcasm again, went right over her head. So then I went onto explain that Sydney is a three hour and 45 minute flight away from New Zealand. Oh, really she said, it looks like five minutes on the map.
How can people be so naive and unknowledgeable? Hats off to her for watching the news though. I actually get it quite often living in the UK. People will hear my accent and ask, where are you from?, I detect an accent. I say "New Zealand" and then they start rabbiting on, "Oh my sisters husbands brothers Aunty emigrated to Melbourne". I usually say, Thats nice, my friends cousins brother in law recently moved to Iceland, which is in fact the same ridiculous comparison. Usually the person in question is so geographically challenged that again this just goes straight over their head. I did a quick google to prove my point, the distance between Sydney and Auckland is the same as London to Morocco, or Malta, Corfu, and Sardinia. Even Moscow, I should have turned around and said are any of your friends and family affected by the Chechnya crisis in Moscow? Because that is also essentially the same.
Some people also think Perth is next door to Auckland when in fact it is nearly the same distance as London to New York or London to Dubai.
I also get this one quite often: Thick person: "Where are you from?" Me: "New Zealand", Thick person: "Oh, whereabouts? My cousins boyfriends sister moved there in the nineties her name is Joanne and she works for a bank, I forget which town, It might be Christchurch or something starting with P, do you know her?" No I don't bloody know her, just like you don't know my brother in laws sisters ex wife who once moved to the Isle of Man to open up a bakery.
It's not just the English who are lacking in their geographical knowledge. Years ago when I was backpacking around Europe I met an American guy. He asked where I was from and I kid you not he said" Is that near Holland? Do you have telephones there? When I laughed and had steam coming out my ears he said, no seriously, I thought you lived in grass huts.
I mean, it's not surprising really, that no one knows where little old New Zealand is. It keeps getting left off maps all over the place. In fact there is a whole website with 79,000 followers that is dedicated to showing the world how many times New Zealand was left off world maps. Here is an article from Culture Trip explaining why we are often left off the map, (or peoples poor excuses). Some which include, "ran out of room" and "swallowed by clouds".
I would love to hear some of the ridiculous things people have said to you when they hear where you are from!
I’ve known Rhonda Scott since primary school. She was a nice friend growing up. But when she became a headmistress at a country school, I sat in a room with her with some friends, and she was all high and mighty, no respect, what I thought was a friend. I knew her since five years of age, a changed person. Now when I see her comments on passed teachers that taught us, she has no respect, what so ever. Very disrespectful comments for a so called Ambassador of New Zealand.