Kate Hawkesby: Let's not lose our sense of humour

A fascinating insight into what it’s like to move countries —which I think is timely given how many Kiwis are doing it right now— appeared on social media the last couple of days from an ex-pat living here.  

It was reported that a British native said they were moving back home to England from NZ, because Kiwis lack interest in other people’s lives, and we’re short on banter. That part made me laugh to be honest because I think it depends who you hang with and where you are.  

This person lives in Wellington so I can understand how people may be a lot more serious and intense in the political capital than they are other places. They’re more likely to be wokesters who easily take offence, that could be part of the problem. But this person said they’d not been able to form ‘fulfilling friendships’ in the 4 years they’ve been here, and that Kiwis take themselves too seriously.  

I think we might take ourselves more seriously now, but we didn’t use to. But again it depends who you’re surrounded by and what your experiences are. Many of us are still traumatized by years of lockdowns, harrowing weather events, economic disarray and a crippling cost of living crisis... so there’s no question humour has become a distant memory for many.  

Also, I think people do in general take themselves too seriously these days, by and large we’re not as light of foot as we used to be. The current climate – predominantly on social media especially, is to look for offence everywhere.  

But I’d argue that’s not just a Kiwi thing. The UK has its fair share of righteous and indignant wokesters not seeing the humour in anything anymore too. Just ask Ricky Gervais. He calls it out all the time. But it was reported that this person’s given up on NZ and is moving back to the UK, which had the comments section awash with arguments for and against staying versus moving back.  

What grabbed me though was the ex-pats who agreed with them. “You do lose yourself here, no sense of humour or banter..." said one in the report, “Our humour is wasted here. My belly laughs are few and far between... “ said another.  

Now having lived in both the UK and NZ, I find that bit pretty hard to swallow, because I always found the biggest thing we had in common was our senses of humour. The British banter married up beautifully with Kiwi banter and there seemed an overall understanding between the two cultures that certainly superseded any American humour. But time’s have changed and I don’t doubt now that in parts of NZ where we may take ourselves a bit too seriously, that this has diluted that commonality.  

However this ex pat’s been here four years and during that time the whole world has grappled with a pandemic and the whole world has changed because of it. I don’t doubt the UK they left behind 4 years ago is a very different one to what it is now. The grass isn’t always as green somewhere else, is probably the real lesson here. It’s hard to move countries and have it feel like home. But I would like to apologise to this ex pat for our lack of banter and humour, because the one thing we Kiwis used to be really good at, is having a laugh.  

We’ve lost a lot of things as a country these past few years, but let’s not ever lose our sense of humour. 

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