{"id":2762,"date":"2012-01-09T14:30:49","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T02:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auip.wordpress.com\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2012-01-09T14:30:49","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T02:30:49","slug":"student-perspective-some-notable-differences-between-us-and-nz-everyday-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/student-perspective-some-notable-differences-between-us-and-nz-everyday-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Perspective: Some notable differences between US and NZ everyday life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Breeana Laughlin, the 2011 New Zealand and Sydney Sustainable Business student blogger, writes:<\/em><\/p>\n

In my first few days in New Zealand, I learned the Kiwis like to do things a little bit differently.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Students in New Zealand use an adapter for their electrical devices<\/p><\/div>\n

– They talk in a\u00a0strange way that makes you smile.<\/p>\n

– The shape of\u00a0their electrical plug ins prevents you from using your so-called\u00a0necessities \u2013 hair dryer, laptop and IPod charger \u2013 without an adapter.<\/p>\n

– They use the\u00a0metric system (along with the rest of the world outside the United\u00a0States).<\/p>\n

– They drive on the other side of the road.<\/p>\n

– The Kiwi way of life seems less hurried and more carefree. Perhaps this is because they\u00a0have a low crime rate.<\/p>\n

– The police don’t carry guns.<\/p>\n

– Kiwis also don’t have to worry about poisonous animals or even predators when they tramp\u00a0(hike) through the beautiful mountainsides.<\/p>\n

Along with these slight variances from the American way of life come a few more subtle differences \u2013 \"\"<\/a>differences that that rest of the world could take a hint from.<\/p>\n

– In three days in\u00a0the city of Wellington I saw one truck. Cars are markedly compact and fuel\u00a0efficient.<\/p>\n

– Trash bins for ‘rubbish’ are commonly accompanied by recycle receptacles.<\/p>\n

– Businesses\u00a0hardly ever use disposable dishes. I haven’t seen any Styrofoam.<\/p>\n

– Instead of\u00a0sniffing for drugs, the dogs at New Zealand airports sniff for fruit to\u00a0prevent invasive pests that could disrupt their stunning, yet fragile environment\u00a0or damage their successful agriculture industry.<\/p>\n

– Windmills dot\u00a0the landscape.<\/p>\n

– Organic is a\u00a0common term.<\/p>\n

– The Kiwis pride\u00a0themselves on being ‘clean and green.’<\/p>\n

It seems these simple, hardworking and friendly islanders have somehow managed to catch onto the concept that caring about the environment not only makes sense, it’s a practical thing to do. And although nobody’s perfect, I applaud New Zealand for setting an example for the rest of the world \u2013 including Americans like myself.<\/p>\n

Being part of the Sustainable Business study abroad program has already opened my eyes to new ways of doing things.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Students in AUIP's Sustainability: Humans, Business and the Environment study abroad course gather together to enjoy the Wellington scenery<\/p><\/div>\n

As the group travels to the South Island, I’m eager to discover more ways New Zealand businesses are incorporating environmentally friendly practices into their operations. I realize that in order to create real strides toward sustainability we need not only the general public to buy-in to environmentally friendly ways of doing things, we also need private industries to change their ways. The little island country of New Zealand can serve as a model for the so-called ‘world powers’ and we can all move forward to change the way we treat our planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Breeana Laughlin, the 2011 New Zealand and Sydney Sustainable Business student blogger, writes: In my first few days in New Zealand, I learned the Kiwis like to do things a little bit differently. – They talk in a\u00a0strange way that makes you smile. – The shape of\u00a0their electrical plug ins prevents you from using your so-called\u00a0necessities \u2013 hair dryer, laptop…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2011-student-blogs","category-new-zealand"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}