November 18, 2025 • 32 mins
Everything Will and Mango read about New Zealand made them want to visit! From how Hokey Pokey became the country's favorite ice cream flavor, to why the nation is giving away free gym memberships... to birds, to the reason the coffin clubs are taking off, Will and Mango dig deep into the country's history to discover why New Zealand is so much better than the Old one.
This episode originally aired on December 5, 2019.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
So you're never gonna believe this, but I finally found
a new Zealand bird that's even more endearing than the Kiwi.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I actually feel weird saying this, but i know I
need to congratulate you, because I'm pretty sure this has
been a dream of yours for a while now. So
so congratulating.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, thank you. I mean Sundays, I doubted it was
even possible, But this week I read about these big
green parrots that live there called Chaos, and they are
so mischievous and so clever that I just had to
give them the top spot because I know it's a
controversial pick, but I like to keep things spicy.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Wait, you're saying this is actually controversial.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, So i'mlike Kiwi's kaas aren't universally adored. They are
kind of these one and a half foot tall mischief makers,
and they will steal laces from boots or strip the
rubber off your windshield wipers. But the wildest prank I've
heard is that kias actually dragged traffic cones into the
middle of the road and leave them there and some
researchers believe this is an intentional act, like it's a
(01:12):
crafty way to get drivers to slow down enough that
the parrots can beg for food.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Wow, I mean that is kind of a nee trick.
It also does sound a little bit dangerous. I wonder
how many of these get hit.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, I mean it's become a real problem. But the
good news is that there's this conservation team in New
Zealand that's been testing this ingenious way to keep the
kaas distracted. They've installed all these little parrot gyms by
the roadside, and so it kind of looks like a
miniature jungle gym with swings and spinning toys and little ladders.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I guess I kind of feel like everything you've said
to this point may not actually be true, but I'm
gonna go with it. So are these you call them gyms?
Are these gyms actually helping?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah? They are so far fewer birds are messing with
traffic cones and the roads are a whole lot safer.
But you know, these parrot gyms aren't the only out
of the box solution that NEWSS come up with over
the past few years. From state approved wizards to car
driving dogs. The country has plenty of eccentricities to go around,
so for today's show, I thought we could dive into
some of that.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh hot Ticketter on the other side of the
soundproof glass, just sipping his way through what he claims
is a hokey pokey milkshake. That's what That's what he says.
At least that is our friend and producer loll So.
I don't know what a hokey pokey milkshake is.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
You dip one finger in, you dip one finger out,
I guess. So anytime anyone says hokey pokey, it reminds
me of that shirt we made at Metal Floss.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I was trying to remember it that it said hokey
pokey anonymous. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah? And the tagline was a place to turn yourself around,
which I kind of loved. I actually saw someone in
that shirt this year, which which amazs me, that's awesome.
Let's keep the focus on loll here the way he
likes it. Well, what exactly is a hokey poke milkshake?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, so I've pulled it up here.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So hokey pokey is I guess what we'd call honeycomb toffee.
You know, we always call things honeycomb toffee. But it's
like this light, crunchy candy made from brown sugar and
corn syrup. And apparently everyone in New Zealand fell in
love with the flavor way back in the nineteen forties
and they have been obsessed with it ever since, especially
when it takes the form of milkshake.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So now I see why he just seems so happy
over there.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I mean, it's a great nickname. I also really like
the cup he's drinking it from. I wish listeners could
see it. It's a white cup with a red and
blue cartoon giraffe on the side, and in big red
letters it says the longest drink in town. I mean,
if you're going to tell how big your beverages, it
feels so much cooler than like a big goal.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, A long drink. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I actually I looked this up too, and the longest
drink in the world cup is actually pretty iconic. So
this design debuted in the nineteen sixties and for the
next several decades it was featured on just about every
paper milkshake cup in the country.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It became synonymous with summertime in New Zealand, and thanks
in large part to that widespread nostalgia, the longest drink
in the world is still served up at New Zealand
ice cream parlors today. Also, just because I kind of
fell in love with the lingo this week, I have
to mention that if you're inspired to bring ice cream
or cold milk to work, just like Loulda today, a
(04:41):
cooler in New Zealand is called a chili bin.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I kind of like that.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I like that. So where do you want to start today?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
All right, well, how about we start with the country's name. Like,
this is something that's always confused me, because if the
country is New Zealand, that kind of implies that there
is an old Zealand out there, right, so maybe just
or just Zealand.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I guess I was curious about this.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I guess I hadn't really thought about that, Like, is
there a Zealand in Europe or somewhere.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
There actually is?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
The original Zealand is all the way over in the
far west of the Netherlands. And just like with the
names of early American cities and states. It goes back
to the era of European exploration, and in New Zealand's case,
it goes back to a Dutch explorer named Abel Tasman,
the namesake of Tasmania. So in sixteen forty two, Tasman
(05:31):
was off exploring the southern Pacific Ocean. This was on
behalf of the Dutch East India Company, and it was
on that voyage that he stumbled upon the territories that
we now know as Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand. So
when Tasman got home, he told his fellow navigators what
he'd found, and pretty soon the islands were added to
the charts of their day. So as for the name,
(05:52):
Dutch map makers were already calling Australia New Holland at
the time, so they just decided to keep this convention
going and name Tasman's territory New Zealand, after a coastal
province in the southwest region of the Netherlands. So British
colonists later settled on the island about one hundred years later,
but by then the Dutch name was so established that
they just decided to keep it and just anglicize the
(06:15):
spelling of it.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Do we know why the Dutch named it Zealand in
the first place, Like, was there something about New Zealand
that reminded them of this old Zealand?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, I guess it was the geography.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I mean, apparently the province and the Netherlands is made
up of a bunch of little islands and peninsulas with
rivers crossing through them. And because of that that yet
it really is I've actually never been Have you ever
been there before?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
The New Zealand? Oh I haven't.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I haven't either, And so because of that, the Dutch
called the region Zealand, which translates as Sealand. So it's
maybe not the most creative name in the world, but
certainly a fitting one for the area.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Well, since you brought up geography and Matt Makers, I
think it's time we addressed the fact that a lot
of modern maps don't include New Zealand and the country
is just straight up missing, with nothing more than ocean
where it's cluster of six hundred plus US island should be.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Actually, I had heard about this. I mean, this is
a pretty widespread era though, right it is.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, there's actually an entire maps without New Zealand subreddit,
where users have cataloged hundreds of examples of places that
use bad maps, including video games, magazines, textbooks, hotels, restaurants, ikea.
Even for instance, did you know that giant rotating globe
that sits in front of Universal Studios that is missing
(07:25):
New ze Also the map on the risk board missing
New Zealand. There are even some international airports that have
maps without New Zealand hung in their terminals, even though
they offer flights straight to New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Wow, I mean the country that, according to their maps
doesn't exist. It gets to a point where people just
feel like they should just keep going with it just
to be jerks about it.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, and I'm sure it's some sort of existential problem
for New Zealanders, but it's pretty funny how far this goes.
So Like, there's a World map in front of the
United Nations office in Geneva, and apparently New Zealand isn't
on that, despite the country being a found member. And
if all that wasn't bad enough, New Zealand actually uses
these maps themselves. Gabe pointed me to this, but it's
(08:07):
on their four h four error page for its official
government website and it shows a world map that doesn't
include its own country, which is intentional.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Actually, I just pulled this up and it's pretty funny.
It has this four or four map and says something
is missing, and you know, it's cute that they've got
this sense of humor about it. But why does this
phenomenon of cutting New Zealand off maps keep happening?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I mean, there are definitely smaller places in the world.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, I mean it's mostly because of that Mercator projection,
which is the one that most world maps are based on,
and as you might expect, it has a serious old
World bias. This map places Europe in the dead center
often while poor New Zealand is shoved way down in
the bottom right hand corner. And the result is it's
kind of an awkward placement and it's easy to crop,
(08:50):
and if a designer isn't careful, they might try to
turn some of the Pacific Ocean from the image and
wind up blopping off an entire country in the process.
But you know, judging by the number of places that
these have turned up, it's apparently something that happens all
the time. But New Zealand just kind of take it
in stride. Actually, there's this Kiwi comedian ree Starby, and
this is how he puts it, quote, we are quite
(09:10):
a fiddly looking shaped country, a bit like a half
eaten lamb chop. Perhaps people are just leaving us off,
thinking we're a mistake.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
That's such a great line.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah, it's funny what you said about European bias, because
I guess you could use a projection of a Mercader
map that places New Zealand at the center and it
wouldn't be any more inaccurate.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
That's true, and in fact, many maps in New Zealand
classrooms actually do that. They place Middle Earth in the
actual middle of the Earth.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I mean, it's hard to argue with the logic on
that one. But well, here's another thing I read this
week and wanted to talk about. So this was in
twenty sixteen, New Zealand spent over seventeen million US dollars
on a contest to redesign its national flag, and then
the country voted to just keep the flag they already had.
I guess it turned out to be not such a
(09:56):
bad flag, So that seventeen million dollars it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I know, it kind of makes me want to see
the other designs, Like, do you know how bad they were?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So well?
Speaker 3 (10:05):
I mean, the contest was open to the public and
over ten thousand people submitted designs, many of which were
actually pretty elegant and well designed. I mean, there's some
really pretty ones on there, but yeah, there were also
some really horrible ones. One of my favorites is this
blue and red one here. It's got this very cruelly
drawn sheep on the blue half because New Zealand has
(10:27):
a lot of those, obviously, and then on the red
half there's an equally crudely drawn ice cream cone.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So just you know two things they like to think about.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I mean, I bet I can guess what flavor that is.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Oh, I know you can. It's rum raisin. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's hokey pokey, of course. And the artist even included
little flex of the candy in there, drawing to make
that as clear as possible.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Can you imagine this about the cand the new flag, Like,
and they cleaned up the design, it'd be the most
beloved flag in the world.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I think you know it does.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I mean, it feels like because they're able to sort
of laugh at their situation, they might have gone on
with something like that, but it was actually another one
that has a black flag with a silver fern, which
is one of the country's national symbols, which is elegant enough,
but the real highlight is it's got this Kiwi bird
on the other side and it's blasting this green laser
beam from its eyes. So it's probably not the most
(11:18):
scientifically accurate flag in the world, but you know, it's
pretty interesting.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
It might be the most badass, though, I might. I
can see why New Zealand kind of decide to stick
with their old flag. Why was there like such a
push to change it in the first place.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Well, I don't know how familiar you are with the
real New Zealand flag very.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I said a lot of carbon San Diego as a kid.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That's right, well as a refresher for anybody who's listening.
It's basically a blue flag with a Union Jack symbol
in the top left hand corner and four red stars
on the body representing the Southern Cross constellation. So the
original design is one hundred years old or so, and
for a long time now people have debated whether it
was appropriate to have a British symbol on the New
(12:00):
Zealand flag, you know, since it's a sovereign country but
technically still part of the British Commonwealth.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So, I mean, the other thing that's always struck me
as odd is like how close the flag actually looks
to Australia's flag.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, that was one of the other main contentions, that
the flag is too derivative and not really representative of
New Zealand. But despite all these complaints, when the issue
was finally put to a national vote, fifty six percent
of New Zealanders voted to keep the original flag versus
forty three percent who voted for the new fern design.
And the reason for that upset is pretty interesting. According
(12:33):
to interviews conducted by The Guardian, many New Zealanders voted
against the new flags simply because they'd grown disillusioned with
how costly the campaign was.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Seventeen million dollars is a lot of.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Money, yeah, and you know they didn't want the country
to spend more money on top of that to produce
tens of thousands of new flags to replace all the
old ones. So anyway, well, now that we've gotten the
lay of the land, let's zoom in a little bit closer.
And talk about the finer details that make New Zealand
such a special place. But before we get to that,
let's take a quick break. You're listening to part time
(13:18):
Genius and we're talking about some of New Zealand's strangest
claims to fame. All right, Mago, the wheel is yours.
So where do you want to go first?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So I really like that fact about where the new
in New Zealand's name comes from. But there's actually a
hill on the North Island of New Zealand with an
even better story behind its name. It's this thousand foot hill.
It's named after Tamata, who's a legendary explorer from New
Zealand's Maori culture, part of their mythical culture there and
Tamata is said to have been one of the first
ever to step foot on New Zealand, long long before
(13:47):
any European columnists came along. And the summit of the
hill is where he supposedly played the nose flute for.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
His beloved The nose flute. Is that what I think
it is?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a flute
you play by exhaling through your nose.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Wow, this you know, I know how we like to
give tips to our listeners, So I feel good about
this one. Like, if you ever need to charm someone
with a private nose flute concert, then Tamataya Hill is
that's the place to go.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It seems like here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
It's not actually called Tamatya Hill. The Maori people wanted
to really celebrate Tamataya's exploits and not sound short, so
they named the hill using an entire sense and roughly translated,
it's an eighty five character name. It means the summit
where Tamataya, the man with the big knees, the slider
climber of mountains, the land swallower who traveled about played
(14:35):
his nose flute to his loved one.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
And the name means all of that, Like wouldn't you
love to be known as the man with the big knees?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Like that?
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I feel like that's great. But it's such such a
great title. I do feel like you bury the lead here?
What is this eighty five character name? How do you
say it?
Speaker 1 (14:52):
So I'm gonna apologize a little because my uh my
Maori is a little rusty, but this is how it
goes Tamatawaka Tonga Honga kara tom. I am butchering this right,
it goes.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I think.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It's so long, seman nogaru Akau, it goes.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
You should really stop.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And I'm really not trying to be disrespectful.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, but it.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Is amazing and it makes for a very very long
street sign. It's actually the longest place name in the
world according to Guinness. The wildest part, though, is that
there's actually an unofficial version of the name that adds
an extra twenty character. It's worth of details.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
So according to Atlas Obscure, the extended version translates as
the Hill of the Nose flute playing by Tamatao, who
was blown hither from Afar, had a split penis, raised
his knees climbing mountains, fell on the earth, and encircled
the land to his beloved and so good before you ask,
that one part is a reference to basically what's in
my version of a circumcision?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Oh got it? Yeah, I was kind of curious.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Well, for any geography nerds who find themselves in New Zealand,
another cantonss landmark on your list should be the slightly
more plainly named Baldwin Street. So it's located in the
city of Dunedin, and Baldwin Street is one of the
steepest streets in the world. It only runs about three
hundred and fifty meters, which is less than a fourth
of a mile, but for every three horizontal meters there
(16:27):
is a rise of one meter, So the result is
that it takes ten minutes or more to basically climb
up this relatively short street.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
What I want to know is why wouldn't anyone put
a street though to begin with? It seems like if
the land is that steep, it'd be easier to just
kind of plan around it.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Right, Yeah, I mean that's true, and I'm sure that's
exactly what the city planner would have done had he
actually looked at the land he was planning for. Instead
that the city was planned by these London based designers
who never bothered to see the topography in person. They
just laid out a grid system on top of a
flat map and called it a day, I guess, and
that oversight resulted in a number of these incredibly steep streets,
(17:05):
with Baldwin being the most extreme of them.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Wait, so are there houses on Baldwin Street.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
There actually are houses, and the cool thing is they
are all built into this hill at an angle. It's
worth taking a look at it. So if you walk
down or up Baldwin Street, you'll pass a row of
these severely slanted houses.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I just hould it up. This is insane. It's like
you're living in like one of those old v commercials.
Everything's built. It's amazing. It does feel like it would
be a dream for Instagrammers, but probably a huge pain
in the neck for residents. But you know what, we've
talked about a couple of special places that New Zealanders
can boast about. But why don't we talk about one
of their exceptional citizens next?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
All right, so who would it be? Let me let
me guess. Is it one of the Flight of the Concords?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
No, I mean that's a good guess. But this guy's
birth name is Ian Brackenbury Channel. But today people around
the world know him simply as the Wizard, and he
is the Wizard, mind you, not not a wizard, because
not only does he have the driver's license to prove it,
he also has the backing of New Zealand's government. Back
in nineteen ninety the country's Prime Minister made Channel the
(18:11):
world's first and still only state appointed wizard.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I have so many questions about this, but I guess
the first one is how exactly one gets appointed the
official Wizard of New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I think it starts with the wardrobe. But New Zealand's
Wizard has a pretty impressive resiment. He was born in
London in nineteen thirty two and later served as a
navigator in the Royal Air Force. In nineteen sixty three,
he earned a double BA in psychology and sociology and
began teaching in the Middle East in Australia, and given
his dual fields of study as a teacher, Channel was
(18:44):
especially interested in experimental teaching and social reform techniques. But
as for his wizarding career, that started to take off
in the mid seventies, and that's when Channel began appearing
throughout New Zealand as a public speaker. He would dress
in a long black robe and a wizard's hat, and
of course he carried his staff. And then he'd go
to Cathedral Square in christ Church and he'd climb up
(19:06):
on a ladder and share his views on all sorts
of topics with passes by, no matter how taboo the subject.
So public officials initially tried to have a banned from
the premises, but eventually they gave up and the Wizard
kind of became this weird cultural institution slash tourist attraction.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
All right.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
So to sum this up, you had a decorated British
veteran turned Australian school teacher who made his way to
New Zealand, began dressing as a wizard, lost his mind
and began scaring people in the streets.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
That I have that right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I mean everything except that lost his mind part. Like
the wizard was and is eccentric, but he still has
a firm grip on his mind. His body, though, was
donated to the National Gallery of Victoria, which officially recognizes
it as a living work of art.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Of course they did. I mean nothing about this surprises
me at this point. But so he's harassing people on
this ladder and then what.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Well from there the city of christ which kind of
fell under his spell, he got super popular. In fact,
the director of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery and christ
Church actually contacted the National Gallery of Victoria and they
arranged to have the living work of art title transferred
to christ Church. You're kidding me, No, this is all real,
and the Wizard's fame only grew from there. So in
(20:19):
nineteen eighty he was appointed to be the official arch
Wizard of Kenterbury, and then ten years after that he
was appointed Wizard of New Zealand by Prime Minister Mike Moore.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
And remind me again what a state appointed wizard actually does.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, it's a good question. So this is the official
proclamation that was declared at the time. Quote. The first
Wizard of New Zealand is entitled to wear the appropriate
regalia and required to carry out the duties of national Wizard,
namely to protect the government, to blessed new enterprises, cast
out evil spits, upset fanatics, cheer up the population, and
(20:54):
most importantly, design and promote a new and improved universe
which puts New Zealand on top of the world, both
physically and metaphysically.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So, now that the truth comes out, you forget Middle Earth.
They actually want to be on top of it. I
think is the issue here, right.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, So I'm rooting for them and for the Wizard,
and I don't think I'm alone in that either. The
Wizard retired from his active duties back in two thousand
and five, but he still speaks publicly on occasion, and
to this day he remains a beloved figure in christ Church.
In fact, there's one quick story that really shows how
big a role the Wizard is played in the community there.
This is back in nineteen ninety five when the christ
(21:29):
Church City Council hosted a whole week of activities to
celebrate his twenty first year as the local Wizard. So
festivities began with the Wizard hovering above a rugby match
in a helicopter and he was chanting a spell the
whole time, which supposedly helped the home team win the game.
But it concluded with him hatching from a giant egg
inside the city's art gallery.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
So he hashed from an egg.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, this is years before Lady Gaga did. But you know,
to complete the process, everyone in attendance had to chant
the correct hum while he was hatching.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
All right, I feel like this is the perfect place
for an ad break. We'll be back with more stories
in just a minute. Welcome back to part time genius.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
All right, Mango.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So New Zealanders have a reputation for being some of
the friendliest and really most cheerful people in the world.
I think most of the stories we've talked about today
kind of a test to that in one way or another.
But the people there do have a somber side just
like anybody else, and a growing number of Kiwis have
taken up a new pastime to help fill their more
reflective moments, and that's actually building their own coffins.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Huh, that's unusual. Why is that?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Well, it's a trend that's been going on for about
a decade now, and it started back in twenty ten
when the Kiwi Coffin Club was formed in the town
of Rotorua. I don't know if I'm bouncing that right,
but according to its mission statement, the club is meant
to provide quote an environment in which issues of death
and loss can be raised, addressed, understood and accepted through discussion, support,
(23:11):
and the activity of painting and lining your own coffins.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I mean, I guess I can see how that could
be cathartic or maybe even sobering in a way.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yeah, and I guess it's a you know, it's filling
a need since the first one in twenty ten, coffin
clubs have actually sprung up all across New Zealand, with
some of the bigger ones boasting more than two hundred
members and counting. In fact, most members view the actual
coffin building as a way to celebrate their lives and
showcase their personalities.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So are these coffins themed?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Sometimes they are? Yeah, I mean it really depends on
what the builder wants. Some people build plain wooden coffins,
others go a little bit more elaborate. So, for instance,
I saw one that had a hand painted nature scene
on the exterior and another that had a collage of
Elvis photos. And it turns out there are really no
rules for DIY coffin building. Is that line in the
(24:00):
pressure I'm sure that is, Or if it's not, they
can use it if they want. But it's a pretty
upbeat way to embrace death. And the meetings are kind
of this three part blind like it's a woodworking class,
it's a therapy group, it's a social mixer and as
one club treasurer John Russell told The Atlantic, we had
a TV crew come to film one of our meetings
(24:21):
thinking it would be formal, but they were astonished to
see that we chat about everything but death and dying.
It's a really great atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And has this expanded to other countries or is it
just kind of stayed local in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
You know, I was actually wondering the same thing. And
in that same story, The Atlantic reports that Coffin clubs
have since launched in Australia and the UK, and yes,
even here in the US. The first one opened earlier
this year in Cleveland, Ohio. So heads up to our listeners.
There is a waiting list for the club right now.
So if you're on a tight schedule, you might want
to think about just starting up your own chapter.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
That is kind of amazing. I don't want to end
the show on build your own coffin themes. So I'm
going to tell you about the time New Zealand taught
some dogs to drive a car.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Oh wow, and so successfully did this?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah. So this happened back in twenty twelve when New
Zealand's SPCA realized that not enough people were adopting their dogs.
So the organization came up with a very sane and
very sensible solution. They were going to teach a couple
of their dogs how to drive a car. And I
guess for some reason, this seemed to make them more appealing.
According to the group's Facebook page quote, our dogs may
(25:26):
be a motley bunch, but they're all smart and they're
all lovable, so please don't write them off. Adopt them.
If we can teach one to drive, we think you'll
do just fine.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Wow. So how did they do this?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
The plan for the stunt was to have the dogs
drive a modified Mini along a racetrack while sitting on
their haunches in the driver's seat, so they customized the
brake pedal and a clutch. For some reason, they didn't
teach them to go automatic. They taught them to shift gears,
but they made it long enough for the dogs to
actually reach them. So the dogs went through five weeks
of indoor training where they were encouraged to touch and
(25:58):
move replica brake pedals and gearsticks and steering wheels. And
then once the dogs had mastered the driving position and
how to steer, they moved on to these little goat courts.
And after a few weeks of that, the pups were
ready to hit the road. So in December, one warm
December day in New Zealand, they these two dogs took
to the racetrack and the first dog to make history
(26:21):
was one named Porter. He was a ten month old
Beardy Cross and he drove this mini straight and then
and then around a turn. And then Monty followed him.
He was an eighteen month old Schnauzer Cross and he
completed the same course. And to their credit, both dogs
were wearing seabelts.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I'm curious, though, did this stunt work, like, did the
dogs find homes?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah? So, as you might imagine that SPCA and Auckland
was swamped with calls from people who wanted to adopt
these two amazing dogs. In the end, they actually decided
to give the pups to the trainer who'd spent these
two months training them to drive the cars. But Porter
and Monty stunt was broadcast live online and it helped
drive up adoption rates kind of around the world. And
(27:03):
in fact, the campaign was so popular in New Zealand
that a year later at SPCA launched a follow up
where every dog adopted was given its own car to
drive home in. But this time it was kind of
a crate. It wasn't a real car, and this box
opened up into sort of a cozy dog bed.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I feel like that's more my dog speed. But all right,
well you were right, Mago. That was a nice way
for us to close out the show, although we're not
quite done yet because like a map without New Zealand,
our show isn't complete without a fiddly shaped fact off.
(27:44):
All right, So, like I mentioned earlier, I've been really
digging Kiwi slang this week, and so here's another word
you can expect me to slip into our conversation soon.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Jandles.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
That's the New Zealand word for flip flops and it
was coined by a Kiwi businessman who was inspired by
the footwear he saw on a trip to Japan. So
soon after he and his son started making their own
version of the rubber slip ons in their own garage
in New Zealand, and as a way to pay homage
to the culture that inspired it all, they named their
product Jandles, which is sort of like a portmanteau of
(28:15):
the words Japanese and sandals.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So you know the kids show Power Rangers, right of course,
look at show on Power Rangers. I can explain it
to you. So you know, the show was massively popular.
It was filmed with this like existing footage in Japan
and the new characters in California and other places. But
(28:39):
but you know, the show was a massive success and
it got imported all around the world, but not to
New Zealand. The show was actually banned there for being
too violent, and this was true even after production for
the show shifted to New Zealand in the late nineties.
More than a dozen seasons of the long running show
were filmed there over the years, but kids in New
Zealand didn't get to see any of it until the
(29:00):
band was lifted in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Wow, thank goodness, I was lifted.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Well, you've probably heard all the rumors about all the
crazy laws that New Zealand supposedly has, like the one
that prohibits quote, malicious bell ringing. Unfortunately, while that was
really a law in New Zealand at one point, it
is no longer on the books. In fact, the country
has been pretty good about updating its laws and doing
away with weird, outdated stuff. But there is at least
(29:26):
one exception though. According to the New Zealand Herald, it
is still against the law to say no questions asked
when advertising a reward for missing property. So if your
dog drives off with the car one day. You can't
post a flyer asking them for their return, no questions asked.
If you do, you could actually be slammed with a
fine of up to two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Here's a nice feel good story from a few years back.
In twenty sixteen, forty thousand New Zealanders banded together and
bought the country a brand new public beach. And when
the eight hundred meter stretches In went up for sale
early that year, two brothers in law, Adam Gardner and
Dwayne Major, decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign to try
and keep the beach from falling into private ownership. So
(30:08):
during the campaign, individuals and corporations alike pitched in to
help buy the park. The New Zealand government even got
into action. They threw in two hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars US dollars to the effort, and in the
end the donors raised about one point seven million dollars,
which was enough to buy the beach from the original
owner and today the beach is run as part of
the Able Tasman National Park, where it's free and open
(30:30):
to the public.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, that's definitely a feel good story. But I actually
think I can top this story because one thing I
learned this week is that New Zealand is home to
the first of its kind, a nationwide secret Santa Gift exchange.
So this program started on Twitter back in twenty ten,
when one New Zealand user suggested that anyone interested should
connect through the site and then dig through the post
(30:53):
of their assigned person in order to sniff out clues
about the kind of gift that they might like. The
first couple gift exchanges proved so popular with the public
that in twenty thirteen, New Zealand's postal service actually signed
on as the official sponsor. So the program continued in
the years since, even adding a physical warehouse to help
(31:13):
deal with all the packages. Now thousands of kiwis take
part each year, and it's all for the sake of
making a stranger's holiday just a little bit brighter.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Oh I really like that, and I think it is
better than my beuch story. And it's also seasonal, is right,
which is great. So congratulations, I think you get the trophy.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
All right, Well, that's going to do it for today's
part time genius for myself, Mango, Gabe and Lowell. Thanks
so much for listening. We'll be back soon with another episode.
(31:54):
Part Time Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Potodcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M HM.
Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
So you're never gonna believe this, but I finally found
a new Zealand bird that's even more endearing than the Kiwi.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I actually feel weird saying this, but i know I
need to congratulate you, because I'm pretty sure this has
been a dream of yours for a while now. So
so congratulating.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, thank you. I mean Sundays, I doubted it was
even possible, But this week I read about these big
green parrots that live there called Chaos, and they are
so mischievous and so clever that I just had to
give them the top spot because I know it's a
controversial pick, but I like to keep things spicy.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Wait, you're saying this is actually controversial.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, So i'mlike Kiwi's kaas aren't universally adored. They are
kind of these one and a half foot tall mischief makers,
and they will steal laces from boots or strip the
rubber off your windshield wipers. But the wildest prank I've
heard is that kias actually dragged traffic cones into the
middle of the road and leave them there and some
researchers believe this is an intentional act, like it's a
(01:12):
crafty way to get drivers to slow down enough that
the parrots can beg for food.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Wow, I mean that is kind of a nee trick.
It also does sound a little bit dangerous. I wonder
how many of these get hit.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, I mean it's become a real problem. But the
good news is that there's this conservation team in New
Zealand that's been testing this ingenious way to keep the
kaas distracted. They've installed all these little parrot gyms by
the roadside, and so it kind of looks like a
miniature jungle gym with swings and spinning toys and little ladders.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I guess I kind of feel like everything you've said
to this point may not actually be true, but I'm
gonna go with it. So are these you call them gyms?
Are these gyms actually helping?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah? They are so far fewer birds are messing with
traffic cones and the roads are a whole lot safer.
But you know, these parrot gyms aren't the only out
of the box solution that NEWSS come up with over
the past few years. From state approved wizards to car
driving dogs. The country has plenty of eccentricities to go around,
so for today's show, I thought we could dive into
some of that.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh hot Ticketter on the other side of the
soundproof glass, just sipping his way through what he claims
is a hokey pokey milkshake. That's what That's what he says.
At least that is our friend and producer loll So.
I don't know what a hokey pokey milkshake is.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
You dip one finger in, you dip one finger out,
I guess. So anytime anyone says hokey pokey, it reminds
me of that shirt we made at Metal Floss.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I was trying to remember it that it said hokey
pokey anonymous. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah? And the tagline was a place to turn yourself around,
which I kind of loved. I actually saw someone in
that shirt this year, which which amazs me, that's awesome.
Let's keep the focus on loll here the way he
likes it. Well, what exactly is a hokey poke milkshake?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, so I've pulled it up here.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So hokey pokey is I guess what we'd call honeycomb toffee.
You know, we always call things honeycomb toffee. But it's
like this light, crunchy candy made from brown sugar and
corn syrup. And apparently everyone in New Zealand fell in
love with the flavor way back in the nineteen forties
and they have been obsessed with it ever since, especially
when it takes the form of milkshake.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So now I see why he just seems so happy
over there.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I mean, it's a great nickname. I also really like
the cup he's drinking it from. I wish listeners could
see it. It's a white cup with a red and
blue cartoon giraffe on the side, and in big red
letters it says the longest drink in town. I mean,
if you're going to tell how big your beverages, it
feels so much cooler than like a big goal.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, A long drink. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I actually I looked this up too, and the longest
drink in the world cup is actually pretty iconic. So
this design debuted in the nineteen sixties and for the
next several decades it was featured on just about every
paper milkshake cup in the country.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It became synonymous with summertime in New Zealand, and thanks
in large part to that widespread nostalgia, the longest drink
in the world is still served up at New Zealand
ice cream parlors today. Also, just because I kind of
fell in love with the lingo this week, I have
to mention that if you're inspired to bring ice cream
or cold milk to work, just like Loulda today, a
(04:41):
cooler in New Zealand is called a chili bin.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I kind of like that.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I like that. So where do you want to start today?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
All right, well, how about we start with the country's name. Like,
this is something that's always confused me, because if the
country is New Zealand, that kind of implies that there
is an old Zealand out there, right, so maybe just
or just Zealand.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I guess I was curious about this.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I guess I hadn't really thought about that, Like, is
there a Zealand in Europe or somewhere.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
There actually is?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
The original Zealand is all the way over in the
far west of the Netherlands. And just like with the
names of early American cities and states. It goes back
to the era of European exploration, and in New Zealand's case,
it goes back to a Dutch explorer named Abel Tasman,
the namesake of Tasmania. So in sixteen forty two, Tasman
(05:31):
was off exploring the southern Pacific Ocean. This was on
behalf of the Dutch East India Company, and it was
on that voyage that he stumbled upon the territories that
we now know as Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand. So
when Tasman got home, he told his fellow navigators what
he'd found, and pretty soon the islands were added to
the charts of their day. So as for the name,
(05:52):
Dutch map makers were already calling Australia New Holland at
the time, so they just decided to keep this convention
going and name Tasman's territory New Zealand, after a coastal
province in the southwest region of the Netherlands. So British
colonists later settled on the island about one hundred years later,
but by then the Dutch name was so established that
they just decided to keep it and just anglicize the
(06:15):
spelling of it.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Do we know why the Dutch named it Zealand in
the first place, Like, was there something about New Zealand
that reminded them of this old Zealand?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, I guess it was the geography.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I mean, apparently the province and the Netherlands is made
up of a bunch of little islands and peninsulas with
rivers crossing through them. And because of that that yet
it really is I've actually never been Have you ever
been there before?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
The New Zealand? Oh I haven't.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I haven't either, And so because of that, the Dutch
called the region Zealand, which translates as Sealand. So it's
maybe not the most creative name in the world, but
certainly a fitting one for the area.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Well, since you brought up geography and Matt Makers, I
think it's time we addressed the fact that a lot
of modern maps don't include New Zealand and the country
is just straight up missing, with nothing more than ocean
where it's cluster of six hundred plus US island should be.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Actually, I had heard about this. I mean, this is
a pretty widespread era though, right it is.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, there's actually an entire maps without New Zealand subreddit,
where users have cataloged hundreds of examples of places that
use bad maps, including video games, magazines, textbooks, hotels, restaurants, ikea.
Even for instance, did you know that giant rotating globe
that sits in front of Universal Studios that is missing
(07:25):
New ze Also the map on the risk board missing
New Zealand. There are even some international airports that have
maps without New Zealand hung in their terminals, even though
they offer flights straight to New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Wow, I mean the country that, according to their maps
doesn't exist. It gets to a point where people just
feel like they should just keep going with it just
to be jerks about it.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, and I'm sure it's some sort of existential problem
for New Zealanders, but it's pretty funny how far this goes.
So Like, there's a World map in front of the
United Nations office in Geneva, and apparently New Zealand isn't
on that, despite the country being a found member. And
if all that wasn't bad enough, New Zealand actually uses
these maps themselves. Gabe pointed me to this, but it's
(08:07):
on their four h four error page for its official
government website and it shows a world map that doesn't
include its own country, which is intentional.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Actually, I just pulled this up and it's pretty funny.
It has this four or four map and says something
is missing, and you know, it's cute that they've got
this sense of humor about it. But why does this
phenomenon of cutting New Zealand off maps keep happening?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I mean, there are definitely smaller places in the world.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, I mean it's mostly because of that Mercator projection,
which is the one that most world maps are based on,
and as you might expect, it has a serious old
World bias. This map places Europe in the dead center
often while poor New Zealand is shoved way down in
the bottom right hand corner. And the result is it's
kind of an awkward placement and it's easy to crop,
(08:50):
and if a designer isn't careful, they might try to
turn some of the Pacific Ocean from the image and
wind up blopping off an entire country in the process.
But you know, judging by the number of places that
these have turned up, it's apparently something that happens all
the time. But New Zealand just kind of take it
in stride. Actually, there's this Kiwi comedian ree Starby, and
this is how he puts it, quote, we are quite
(09:10):
a fiddly looking shaped country, a bit like a half
eaten lamb chop. Perhaps people are just leaving us off,
thinking we're a mistake.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
That's such a great line.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah, it's funny what you said about European bias, because
I guess you could use a projection of a Mercader
map that places New Zealand at the center and it
wouldn't be any more inaccurate.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
That's true, and in fact, many maps in New Zealand
classrooms actually do that. They place Middle Earth in the
actual middle of the Earth.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I mean, it's hard to argue with the logic on
that one. But well, here's another thing I read this
week and wanted to talk about. So this was in
twenty sixteen, New Zealand spent over seventeen million US dollars
on a contest to redesign its national flag, and then
the country voted to just keep the flag they already had.
I guess it turned out to be not such a
(09:56):
bad flag, So that seventeen million dollars it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I know, it kind of makes me want to see
the other designs, Like, do you know how bad they were?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So well?
Speaker 3 (10:05):
I mean, the contest was open to the public and
over ten thousand people submitted designs, many of which were
actually pretty elegant and well designed. I mean, there's some
really pretty ones on there, but yeah, there were also
some really horrible ones. One of my favorites is this
blue and red one here. It's got this very cruelly
drawn sheep on the blue half because New Zealand has
(10:27):
a lot of those, obviously, and then on the red
half there's an equally crudely drawn ice cream cone.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So just you know two things they like to think about.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I mean, I bet I can guess what flavor that is.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Oh, I know you can. It's rum raisin. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's hokey pokey, of course. And the artist even included
little flex of the candy in there, drawing to make
that as clear as possible.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Can you imagine this about the cand the new flag, Like,
and they cleaned up the design, it'd be the most
beloved flag in the world.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I think you know it does.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I mean, it feels like because they're able to sort
of laugh at their situation, they might have gone on
with something like that, but it was actually another one
that has a black flag with a silver fern, which
is one of the country's national symbols, which is elegant enough,
but the real highlight is it's got this Kiwi bird
on the other side and it's blasting this green laser
beam from its eyes. So it's probably not the most
(11:18):
scientifically accurate flag in the world, but you know, it's
pretty interesting.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
It might be the most badass, though, I might. I
can see why New Zealand kind of decide to stick
with their old flag. Why was there like such a
push to change it in the first place.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Well, I don't know how familiar you are with the
real New Zealand flag very.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I said a lot of carbon San Diego as a kid.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That's right, well as a refresher for anybody who's listening.
It's basically a blue flag with a Union Jack symbol
in the top left hand corner and four red stars
on the body representing the Southern Cross constellation. So the
original design is one hundred years old or so, and
for a long time now people have debated whether it
was appropriate to have a British symbol on the New
(12:00):
Zealand flag, you know, since it's a sovereign country but
technically still part of the British Commonwealth.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So, I mean, the other thing that's always struck me
as odd is like how close the flag actually looks
to Australia's flag.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, that was one of the other main contentions, that
the flag is too derivative and not really representative of
New Zealand. But despite all these complaints, when the issue
was finally put to a national vote, fifty six percent
of New Zealanders voted to keep the original flag versus
forty three percent who voted for the new fern design.
And the reason for that upset is pretty interesting. According
(12:33):
to interviews conducted by The Guardian, many New Zealanders voted
against the new flags simply because they'd grown disillusioned with
how costly the campaign was.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Seventeen million dollars is a lot of.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Money, yeah, and you know they didn't want the country
to spend more money on top of that to produce
tens of thousands of new flags to replace all the
old ones. So anyway, well, now that we've gotten the
lay of the land, let's zoom in a little bit closer.
And talk about the finer details that make New Zealand
such a special place. But before we get to that,
let's take a quick break. You're listening to part time
(13:18):
Genius and we're talking about some of New Zealand's strangest
claims to fame. All right, Mago, the wheel is yours.
So where do you want to go first?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So I really like that fact about where the new
in New Zealand's name comes from. But there's actually a
hill on the North Island of New Zealand with an
even better story behind its name. It's this thousand foot hill.
It's named after Tamata, who's a legendary explorer from New
Zealand's Maori culture, part of their mythical culture there and
Tamata is said to have been one of the first
ever to step foot on New Zealand, long long before
(13:47):
any European columnists came along. And the summit of the
hill is where he supposedly played the nose flute for.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
His beloved The nose flute. Is that what I think
it is?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a flute
you play by exhaling through your nose.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Wow, this you know, I know how we like to
give tips to our listeners, So I feel good about
this one. Like, if you ever need to charm someone
with a private nose flute concert, then Tamataya Hill is
that's the place to go.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It seems like here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
It's not actually called Tamatya Hill. The Maori people wanted
to really celebrate Tamataya's exploits and not sound short, so
they named the hill using an entire sense and roughly translated,
it's an eighty five character name. It means the summit
where Tamataya, the man with the big knees, the slider
climber of mountains, the land swallower who traveled about played
(14:35):
his nose flute to his loved one.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
And the name means all of that, Like wouldn't you
love to be known as the man with the big knees?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Like that?
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I feel like that's great. But it's such such a
great title. I do feel like you bury the lead here?
What is this eighty five character name? How do you
say it?
Speaker 1 (14:52):
So I'm gonna apologize a little because my uh my
Maori is a little rusty, but this is how it
goes Tamatawaka Tonga Honga kara tom. I am butchering this right,
it goes.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I think.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It's so long, seman nogaru Akau, it goes.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
You should really stop.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And I'm really not trying to be disrespectful.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, but it.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Is amazing and it makes for a very very long
street sign. It's actually the longest place name in the
world according to Guinness. The wildest part, though, is that
there's actually an unofficial version of the name that adds
an extra twenty character. It's worth of details.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
So according to Atlas Obscure, the extended version translates as
the Hill of the Nose flute playing by Tamatao, who
was blown hither from Afar, had a split penis, raised
his knees climbing mountains, fell on the earth, and encircled
the land to his beloved and so good before you ask,
that one part is a reference to basically what's in
my version of a circumcision?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Oh got it? Yeah, I was kind of curious.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Well, for any geography nerds who find themselves in New Zealand,
another cantonss landmark on your list should be the slightly
more plainly named Baldwin Street. So it's located in the
city of Dunedin, and Baldwin Street is one of the
steepest streets in the world. It only runs about three
hundred and fifty meters, which is less than a fourth
of a mile, but for every three horizontal meters there
(16:27):
is a rise of one meter, So the result is
that it takes ten minutes or more to basically climb
up this relatively short street.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
What I want to know is why wouldn't anyone put
a street though to begin with? It seems like if
the land is that steep, it'd be easier to just
kind of plan around it.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Right, Yeah, I mean that's true, and I'm sure that's
exactly what the city planner would have done had he
actually looked at the land he was planning for. Instead
that the city was planned by these London based designers
who never bothered to see the topography in person. They
just laid out a grid system on top of a
flat map and called it a day, I guess, and
that oversight resulted in a number of these incredibly steep streets,
(17:05):
with Baldwin being the most extreme of them.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Wait, so are there houses on Baldwin Street.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
There actually are houses, and the cool thing is they
are all built into this hill at an angle. It's
worth taking a look at it. So if you walk
down or up Baldwin Street, you'll pass a row of
these severely slanted houses.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I just hould it up. This is insane. It's like
you're living in like one of those old v commercials.
Everything's built. It's amazing. It does feel like it would
be a dream for Instagrammers, but probably a huge pain
in the neck for residents. But you know what, we've
talked about a couple of special places that New Zealanders
can boast about. But why don't we talk about one
of their exceptional citizens next?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
All right, so who would it be? Let me let
me guess. Is it one of the Flight of the Concords?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
No, I mean that's a good guess. But this guy's
birth name is Ian Brackenbury Channel. But today people around
the world know him simply as the Wizard, and he
is the Wizard, mind you, not not a wizard, because
not only does he have the driver's license to prove it,
he also has the backing of New Zealand's government. Back
in nineteen ninety the country's Prime Minister made Channel the
(18:11):
world's first and still only state appointed wizard.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I have so many questions about this, but I guess
the first one is how exactly one gets appointed the
official Wizard of New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I think it starts with the wardrobe. But New Zealand's
Wizard has a pretty impressive resiment. He was born in
London in nineteen thirty two and later served as a
navigator in the Royal Air Force. In nineteen sixty three,
he earned a double BA in psychology and sociology and
began teaching in the Middle East in Australia, and given
his dual fields of study as a teacher, Channel was
(18:44):
especially interested in experimental teaching and social reform techniques. But
as for his wizarding career, that started to take off
in the mid seventies, and that's when Channel began appearing
throughout New Zealand as a public speaker. He would dress
in a long black robe and a wizard's hat, and
of course he carried his staff. And then he'd go
to Cathedral Square in christ Church and he'd climb up
(19:06):
on a ladder and share his views on all sorts
of topics with passes by, no matter how taboo the subject.
So public officials initially tried to have a banned from
the premises, but eventually they gave up and the Wizard
kind of became this weird cultural institution slash tourist attraction.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
All right.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
So to sum this up, you had a decorated British
veteran turned Australian school teacher who made his way to
New Zealand, began dressing as a wizard, lost his mind
and began scaring people in the streets.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
That I have that right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I mean everything except that lost his mind part. Like
the wizard was and is eccentric, but he still has
a firm grip on his mind. His body, though, was
donated to the National Gallery of Victoria, which officially recognizes
it as a living work of art.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Of course they did. I mean nothing about this surprises
me at this point. But so he's harassing people on
this ladder and then what.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Well from there the city of christ which kind of
fell under his spell, he got super popular. In fact,
the director of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery and christ
Church actually contacted the National Gallery of Victoria and they
arranged to have the living work of art title transferred
to christ Church. You're kidding me, No, this is all real,
and the Wizard's fame only grew from there. So in
(20:19):
nineteen eighty he was appointed to be the official arch
Wizard of Kenterbury, and then ten years after that he
was appointed Wizard of New Zealand by Prime Minister Mike Moore.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
And remind me again what a state appointed wizard actually does.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, it's a good question. So this is the official
proclamation that was declared at the time. Quote. The first
Wizard of New Zealand is entitled to wear the appropriate
regalia and required to carry out the duties of national Wizard,
namely to protect the government, to blessed new enterprises, cast
out evil spits, upset fanatics, cheer up the population, and
(20:54):
most importantly, design and promote a new and improved universe
which puts New Zealand on top of the world, both
physically and metaphysically.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So, now that the truth comes out, you forget Middle Earth.
They actually want to be on top of it. I
think is the issue here, right.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, So I'm rooting for them and for the Wizard,
and I don't think I'm alone in that either. The
Wizard retired from his active duties back in two thousand
and five, but he still speaks publicly on occasion, and
to this day he remains a beloved figure in christ Church.
In fact, there's one quick story that really shows how
big a role the Wizard is played in the community there.
This is back in nineteen ninety five when the christ
(21:29):
Church City Council hosted a whole week of activities to
celebrate his twenty first year as the local Wizard. So
festivities began with the Wizard hovering above a rugby match
in a helicopter and he was chanting a spell the
whole time, which supposedly helped the home team win the game.
But it concluded with him hatching from a giant egg
inside the city's art gallery.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
So he hashed from an egg.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, this is years before Lady Gaga did. But you know,
to complete the process, everyone in attendance had to chant
the correct hum while he was hatching.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
All right, I feel like this is the perfect place
for an ad break. We'll be back with more stories
in just a minute. Welcome back to part time genius.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
All right, Mango.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So New Zealanders have a reputation for being some of
the friendliest and really most cheerful people in the world.
I think most of the stories we've talked about today
kind of a test to that in one way or another.
But the people there do have a somber side just
like anybody else, and a growing number of Kiwis have
taken up a new pastime to help fill their more
reflective moments, and that's actually building their own coffins.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Huh, that's unusual. Why is that?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Well, it's a trend that's been going on for about
a decade now, and it started back in twenty ten
when the Kiwi Coffin Club was formed in the town
of Rotorua. I don't know if I'm bouncing that right,
but according to its mission statement, the club is meant
to provide quote an environment in which issues of death
and loss can be raised, addressed, understood and accepted through discussion, support,
(23:11):
and the activity of painting and lining your own coffins.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I mean, I guess I can see how that could
be cathartic or maybe even sobering in a way.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yeah, and I guess it's a you know, it's filling
a need since the first one in twenty ten, coffin
clubs have actually sprung up all across New Zealand, with
some of the bigger ones boasting more than two hundred
members and counting. In fact, most members view the actual
coffin building as a way to celebrate their lives and
showcase their personalities.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So are these coffins themed?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Sometimes they are? Yeah, I mean it really depends on
what the builder wants. Some people build plain wooden coffins,
others go a little bit more elaborate. So, for instance,
I saw one that had a hand painted nature scene
on the exterior and another that had a collage of
Elvis photos. And it turns out there are really no
rules for DIY coffin building. Is that line in the
(24:00):
pressure I'm sure that is, Or if it's not, they
can use it if they want. But it's a pretty
upbeat way to embrace death. And the meetings are kind
of this three part blind like it's a woodworking class,
it's a therapy group, it's a social mixer and as
one club treasurer John Russell told The Atlantic, we had
a TV crew come to film one of our meetings
(24:21):
thinking it would be formal, but they were astonished to
see that we chat about everything but death and dying.
It's a really great atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And has this expanded to other countries or is it
just kind of stayed local in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
You know, I was actually wondering the same thing. And
in that same story, The Atlantic reports that Coffin clubs
have since launched in Australia and the UK, and yes,
even here in the US. The first one opened earlier
this year in Cleveland, Ohio. So heads up to our listeners.
There is a waiting list for the club right now.
So if you're on a tight schedule, you might want
to think about just starting up your own chapter.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
That is kind of amazing. I don't want to end
the show on build your own coffin themes. So I'm
going to tell you about the time New Zealand taught
some dogs to drive a car.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Oh wow, and so successfully did this?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah. So this happened back in twenty twelve when New
Zealand's SPCA realized that not enough people were adopting their dogs.
So the organization came up with a very sane and
very sensible solution. They were going to teach a couple
of their dogs how to drive a car. And I
guess for some reason, this seemed to make them more appealing.
According to the group's Facebook page quote, our dogs may
(25:26):
be a motley bunch, but they're all smart and they're
all lovable, so please don't write them off. Adopt them.
If we can teach one to drive, we think you'll
do just fine.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Wow. So how did they do this?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
The plan for the stunt was to have the dogs
drive a modified Mini along a racetrack while sitting on
their haunches in the driver's seat, so they customized the
brake pedal and a clutch. For some reason, they didn't
teach them to go automatic. They taught them to shift gears,
but they made it long enough for the dogs to
actually reach them. So the dogs went through five weeks
of indoor training where they were encouraged to touch and
(25:58):
move replica brake pedals and gearsticks and steering wheels. And
then once the dogs had mastered the driving position and
how to steer, they moved on to these little goat courts.
And after a few weeks of that, the pups were
ready to hit the road. So in December, one warm
December day in New Zealand, they these two dogs took
to the racetrack and the first dog to make history
(26:21):
was one named Porter. He was a ten month old
Beardy Cross and he drove this mini straight and then
and then around a turn. And then Monty followed him.
He was an eighteen month old Schnauzer Cross and he
completed the same course. And to their credit, both dogs
were wearing seabelts.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I'm curious, though, did this stunt work, like, did the
dogs find homes?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah? So, as you might imagine that SPCA and Auckland
was swamped with calls from people who wanted to adopt
these two amazing dogs. In the end, they actually decided
to give the pups to the trainer who'd spent these
two months training them to drive the cars. But Porter
and Monty stunt was broadcast live online and it helped
drive up adoption rates kind of around the world. And
(27:03):
in fact, the campaign was so popular in New Zealand
that a year later at SPCA launched a follow up
where every dog adopted was given its own car to
drive home in. But this time it was kind of
a crate. It wasn't a real car, and this box
opened up into sort of a cozy dog bed.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I feel like that's more my dog speed. But all right,
well you were right, Mago. That was a nice way
for us to close out the show, although we're not
quite done yet because like a map without New Zealand,
our show isn't complete without a fiddly shaped fact off.
(27:44):
All right, So, like I mentioned earlier, I've been really
digging Kiwi slang this week, and so here's another word
you can expect me to slip into our conversation soon.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Jandles.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
That's the New Zealand word for flip flops and it
was coined by a Kiwi businessman who was inspired by
the footwear he saw on a trip to Japan. So
soon after he and his son started making their own
version of the rubber slip ons in their own garage
in New Zealand, and as a way to pay homage
to the culture that inspired it all, they named their
product Jandles, which is sort of like a portmanteau of
(28:15):
the words Japanese and sandals.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So you know the kids show Power Rangers, right of course,
look at show on Power Rangers. I can explain it
to you. So you know, the show was massively popular.
It was filmed with this like existing footage in Japan
and the new characters in California and other places. But
(28:39):
but you know, the show was a massive success and
it got imported all around the world, but not to
New Zealand. The show was actually banned there for being
too violent, and this was true even after production for
the show shifted to New Zealand in the late nineties.
More than a dozen seasons of the long running show
were filmed there over the years, but kids in New
Zealand didn't get to see any of it until the
(29:00):
band was lifted in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Wow, thank goodness, I was lifted.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Well, you've probably heard all the rumors about all the
crazy laws that New Zealand supposedly has, like the one
that prohibits quote, malicious bell ringing. Unfortunately, while that was
really a law in New Zealand at one point, it
is no longer on the books. In fact, the country
has been pretty good about updating its laws and doing
away with weird, outdated stuff. But there is at least
(29:26):
one exception though. According to the New Zealand Herald, it
is still against the law to say no questions asked
when advertising a reward for missing property. So if your
dog drives off with the car one day. You can't
post a flyer asking them for their return, no questions asked.
If you do, you could actually be slammed with a
fine of up to two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Here's a nice feel good story from a few years back.
In twenty sixteen, forty thousand New Zealanders banded together and
bought the country a brand new public beach. And when
the eight hundred meter stretches In went up for sale
early that year, two brothers in law, Adam Gardner and
Dwayne Major, decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign to try
and keep the beach from falling into private ownership. So
(30:08):
during the campaign, individuals and corporations alike pitched in to
help buy the park. The New Zealand government even got
into action. They threw in two hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars US dollars to the effort, and in the
end the donors raised about one point seven million dollars,
which was enough to buy the beach from the original
owner and today the beach is run as part of
the Able Tasman National Park, where it's free and open
(30:30):
to the public.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, that's definitely a feel good story. But I actually
think I can top this story because one thing I
learned this week is that New Zealand is home to
the first of its kind, a nationwide secret Santa Gift exchange.
So this program started on Twitter back in twenty ten,
when one New Zealand user suggested that anyone interested should
connect through the site and then dig through the post
(30:53):
of their assigned person in order to sniff out clues
about the kind of gift that they might like. The
first couple gift exchanges proved so popular with the public
that in twenty thirteen, New Zealand's postal service actually signed
on as the official sponsor. So the program continued in
the years since, even adding a physical warehouse to help
(31:13):
deal with all the packages. Now thousands of kiwis take
part each year, and it's all for the sake of
making a stranger's holiday just a little bit brighter.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Oh I really like that, and I think it is
better than my beuch story. And it's also seasonal, is right,
which is great. So congratulations, I think you get the trophy.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
All right, Well, that's going to do it for today's
part time genius for myself, Mango, Gabe and Lowell. Thanks
so much for listening. We'll be back soon with another episode.
(31:54):
Part Time Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Potodcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M HM.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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