What's going on ladies and gentlemen my name is Alexander Ayling and in today's video I'm gonna be sitting down with you and comparing the biggest differences between the United States of America and New Zealand. Now I'm a dual citizen of both countries I'm currently living in New Zealand I've
lived most of my life in the United States and these are going to be some of the biggest differences between the two countries. I also want to say a huge thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video let's get into it. Also just a reminder make sure you stick around until the end because I'm going to be starting this video off with bigger general differences and then i'm going to be bringing it towards the more specific niche differences so stay tuned. If you're new to my channel welcome if you're returning welcome back so check it out in January of 2021 I moved with my wife here to New Zealand we brought our dog it's been an incredible move it's been a crazy one and along the way, we've noticed a lot of differences between these two countries but before we get into these differences that I've noticed I think it's really important to share some
general information first off the United States of America is much much bigger than New Zealand
the United States currently has a population of around 333 million people while New Zealand has just 5 million people so while there are a lot of cultural differences that I've observed many of the differences really boil down to those two factors, size of geography and size of population New Zealand is around the size of the state of Oregon which is about 2.5 percent of the whole landmass of the United States of America so New Zealand is about 2.5 percent the size of the United States of America that being said New Zealand is an incredibly diverse country it's made up of two main islands the north and the south island with stuart island down way south
and a couple of other outlying islands that makeup New Zealand's territorial boundaries.
While this video is about the differences between the countries it's also worth mentioning some of the similarities. Both countries were founded by the British back in the day as colonies of the British Empire, both countries speak English as the main language although there are differences in accents
as well as word choices and we'll get into some of those later so while I could make an entire video
about the similarities between the two countries this video is about the differences so let's get started.
Number one, New Zealand and the The United States of America are on opposite sides
of the Pacific Ocean in different hemispheres the United States of America is located in the northern hemisphere while New Zealand is located in the southern hemisphere. New Zealand straddles
the 38th parallel of latitude and generally has a nice climate. The North Island on average has a somewhat drier sunnier climate while the South Island has a somewhat cooler wetter climate.
In California which straddles the 38th parallel of latitude in the northern hemisphere, it's opposite southern California has the drier warmer climate while Northern California has the
wetter cooler climate because the two countries are located in different hemispheres they have different seasons at different times of year for example, in Christmas in New Zealand, it's the middle of summer they don't have snow on the ground and a white Christmas instead they celebrate Christmas on the beach and right now it's the middle of august but yesterday
it snowed so we're in the heart of winter.
Helicopters they still fly on both sides of the hemisphere . Number two, New Zealand is simultaneously in the future and in the past. Let me explain. New Zealand's time zone straddles the international date line so if you're living in New Zealand you're technically living in the future in fact it's one of the first places for the
sunrise each new day anywhere in the world so if you're living in New Zealand you're technically
living in the future compared to the United States New Zealand is almost a day ahead of the United States but it works out like it's almost a couple of hours behind so while we're technically living
in the future down here depending on where you live it might feel like you're living in the past
many of new zealand's small rural towns do kind of feel like time-traveling 20 30 40 years into
the past the next major difference is a big one here in new zealand people don't order online and
ship things to their house as often as they do in the united states living in los angeles especially
during the pandemic it became totally normalized to just shop everything you need online and for
In many cases those products would arrive on the same day but they would be boxed up in cardboard
with plastic and it just created a lot of waste sure you can order online and you can get things
shipped to your house it's probably not going to be on the same day especially if you're not living
in the major cities like Auckland Wellington or Christchurch but you can do that but people
just don't do it as often and obviously if you're living in a city a lot of these services
are available but for most of the country living rurally it's not as common and to be honest, I kind
of enjoy the fact that it's not like that here I think that the culture of convenience in the
United States has gotten completely out of hand we just expect things to arrive at your front door and you don't even have to change out of your pajamas if you don't want to now while that's
great from time to time it becomes normalized and the new normal does not really help with the
problem of waste creation trash etc one of the main differences that i've noticed living here is
that my household creates much less trash which brings me to my next point new zealand is cleaner
than the united states and i think that can be boiled down to a couple of different reasons
first and foremost like we said new zealand is 2.5 the size of the united states so there are
much less people here creating much less trash but i also think that there is a culturally
ingrained sense of duty and obligation to clean up after yourself there are little signs
across the country that say like be a tidy kiwi and that means clean up after yourself don't
litter i think that litter bugs here are really looked down upon and there's a lot
of social pressure to not litter and to clean up after yourself but also i think it goes
further than that as a family of two with a dog in the united states when when everything was
just arriving via you know ordering online shipped to your house big box full of plastic
full of styrofoam so much more waste was created living like that but living here we create
literally two small trash bags full of trash which go into a larger bag which you have to
pay costs about five bucks for a roll of like 10 bags and those are the only bags that
the trash collector will accept so there's a kind of pay to play element to it which
encourages you to create less waste and the recycling bin here is so small it's smaller than
a cooler and it's more than enough space for a week's worth of recycling which leads me to my
next point new zealand is conservation minded new zealand is an island chain that exists in the
south pacific ocean and it's the remainder of an ancient continent called Zealandia most of
which is now underwater and that's because the type of flora and fauna that existed in Zealandia
was very unique and New Zealand has an extremely a unique ecosystem with animal species and plant
species that don't exist anywhere else on earth that's because new zealand was geographically
isolated for millions of years one of the biggest differences between the united states and new
zealand is that here in new zealand there are almost no indigenous mammal species which allowed
for new zealand to develop a huge array of very unique bird species that just don't exist anywhere
else like the national bird the kiwi many of these birds evolved to be flightless because they
didn't have the need to fly away from land-based predators but with the first humans arriving there
came pests like rats stoats and possums not the crazy looking possums from the united states but
these cute furry looking possums from australia which are actually wreaking havoc on the native
bird species so because many of these flightless birds are now threatened with extinction due
to the importation of these predatory mammals the whole country is quite conservation-minded and
they're taking huge efforts to eliminate predators and re-introduce these flightless birds to try to
revitalize and regrow these populations of unique bird species and while many people in america
share this sentiment of wanting to conserve and protect our national parks and national forests
as well as endangered species i think that here in new zealand it's just much more mainstream
and accepted whereas sometimes in the united states that sentiment has become controversial
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moving on to some of the more interesting situations that we've encountered with differences
restaurant culture it's totally different first off it's not customary to tip your waiter in
new zealand whereas in the united states waiters and waitresses work for tips and i think that
that kind of encourages them to be more proactive but it also encourages restaurant tours to kind
of rush you through a meal to get you out to get another person in so that they can um feed another
person maybe get another tip but i'll share with you a funny story that happened when my wife and
i first moved here and met up with my cousin and her husband who live in auckland we took them out
for dinner i wanted to make sure that there was no awkward moment at the end of the meal where waiter
or waitress came and hit us with the bill and then people were looking at each other like who's gonna
pay i just wanted to handle the bill and make sure that i was the person paying for it so when we
arrived and the waiter and waitress seated us i explained that we were here we had a reservation
she sat us down and i told her hey before we get started can you just take my credit card and
hold on to this so when it comes time to pay for the meal i can pay and you know my cousin
and her husband can be our guests she was dumbfounded she looked at me so confused
so confused there was this look just like i don't think she had ever encountered that
situation ever before and she actually had to go over to her manager and speak with her manager who
then came over and told me that they were actually not able to take my credit card before it was
time to pay so i was really confused this was like a nice popular restaurant in auckland and i
don't know if that's the case in every other place but it really kind of set a new understanding
about restaurant culture here in new zealand for me i did end up covering the bill but i had to
get up and pretend i was going to the bathroom right as we finished and then walk over to the
checkout and pay for the bill there and that's another difference between restaurants in the
u.s and in new zealand here in new zealand you don't have to do the whole awkward getting
the attention of the waiter or waitress like you can get up from the table walk over
to essentially where the hostess is and just pay for your bill on the computer right
there and then it's time for you to say goodbye next up a major difference driving here in new
zealand we drive on the left-hand side of the road and the drivers seat is on the right hand side
of the car which is the opposite of in the united states in the usa you drive on the right-hand
side of the road and the driver's seat is on the left-hand side of the car and when you signal
with your turn signal those are switched too so when you first come here and you're driving on
the left-hand side of the road chances are you're going to hit your windshield wipers instead of the
turn signal so it's worth trying to figure that out another thing that's super popular here on the
roads but not as prevalent in the united states are roundabouts i mean they do have stop
lights here especially in the cities but once you get out of the cities the whole
country is pretty much a series of roundabouts and i think that american drivers can kind of
get a little bit like scared of roundabouts for some reason it's pretty straightforward you know
you just make sure that nobody's coming into it and if they are you slow down you let them go
and then then it's your turn it's kind of nice too if you accidentally make the wrong turn on
the roundabout you just keep driving around you can just keep going around in circles and circles
oh yeah and eight lane freeways like in the united states um they don't really exist in most of new
zealand i mean obviously in auckland where one quarter of the entire country's population lives
they have bigger freeways there and there's still traffic there the main highway in the country
state highway one is for the most part a winding one lane road so google maps might tell you it's
going to take you two and a half hours to get somewhere it usually takes a little bit longer
because the roads are quite windy and there are actually quite a lot of crashes especially
on weekends people drive crazy because there are you know less police there are less people
on the roads so sometimes people tend to speed okay friends last major difference to call the
police in the united states you dial 9-1-1 to call the police in new zealand you dial 1-1-1 but
you can also dial 9-1-1 and it'll forward you to 1-1-1 okay friends well that's it for this episode
of cultural differences between the united states and new zealand i think it would be fun to keep
these videos coming as i notice more differences between the two countries so think of this as
the first episode in a new series all about the differences between the united states and new
zealand i'd like to say a huge thank you to all of you for spending some time with me here today
if you enjoyed this video please do me a favor hit that thumbs up make sure you're subscribed
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one until then carpe diem seize the day peace you