Downtown Christchurch

Today after school Liam and I hopped on a bus (the Number 3) and went to downtown Christchurch.  This was a our first trip there.  It was incredible.  It’s a lovely city, but so much has been destroyed.  Our brief adventures – and much of the destruction – are the subject of today’s blog.

Liam waiting at the bus stop in his Ilam School uniform.

Liam, and the mortar and super-pestle.

 When we came out of the store, we were in downtown.  Just over two years ago, a earthquake destroyed most of the it.  Now people are rebuilding.  Putting up new buildings is hard and slow – and of course every construction worker in the country is fully booked.  So people found a new solution; they moved their shops out of damaged or collapses buildings and into converted box cars and shipping containers.  It’s one of the noblest things I’ve seen in some time.

Shops made of cargo containers.

Sections have been cut away, and glass put in instead.

They are actually quite attractive, aren't they?

We were hungry, so we stopped at a café (half open-air, have cargo container) so a snack.  It was bigger than I had thought!  Liam enjoyed it, and the local birds kept a close eye on it, too.

Liam and our "snack"  (We didn't finish it!)  Note the open newspaper, describing the
controversy over the rebuilding of  the Christchurch Cathedral. 

A local bird considers going for our food.

Other birds do more than consider the food of the woman one table over from us!

We found a souvenir shop, where Liam modeled some hats, and we picked up a few gifts for people.

Liam modelling a lamb hat in the souvenir shop.

Liam modeling a Kiwi hat.  Somehow he talked me into buying this one.  I became
convinced when I realized that not only is it cool, but it's a functional
winter hat!

 We walked from the souvenir shop to the Bridge of Remembrance, an arch erected to the soldiers who died fighting in the First World War.  Because of structural instabilities caused by the earthquake, nobody can approach it today.

It seems a bit odd, somehow, honoring the dead of a century ago
when those who died just two years ago have no memorial.

We made our way to the lovely Avon river, where Liam was captivated by the ducks!

Liam near the Avon.

Named for the Avon River in England, this little stream flows all through downtown Christchurch.

I assume these are mallard ducks -- or possibly some close relative.

    We reached even more closed buildings and shops -- all empty and boarded up due to the structural damage.

    We next passed what must have been an extremely cute clock shop two years ago -- it's now slated for demolition.

It looks almost okay from the front.

Not so much from the side.

Liam, demonstrating again that he notices utterly different things than I do,
was more interested in trying to climb the fence keeping people out!

    We next got as close as we could to the Cathedral -- that's it in the background, two blocks away....

We left downtown by another route, and were met by more blocks of abandoned roads, shops, and buildings.

There is still life in the city, though.  We found a shopping mall, and Liam, who had been flagging, discovered that he had more than enough energy to play on the indoor playset!

   We grabbed lunch in the food court.  Then, in a final reminder that we are far from home, another alien event occurred.  They closed at 6:00!  I couldn't understand what was happening at first, as the restaurants turned out their lights.  We are still, it seems, in a strange land.

Days 10 and 11 -- Cute Pictures

Today I offer cute pictures of Liam!  (and one of our meat pies)

Day 9 -- A violin lesson

I have fallen away from my hitherto successful project of making a new blog post every day.  To my (few) readers, I’m sorry about this.  Part of the reason is that we have become quite busy.  In addition to the going and coming we do every day, my classes back in Washington are about to end, my class here is getting busy, and our lives are full of more small events as we settle into routine.  The other reason is just that – we have settled into routine.  More and more we have “boring” days.  Both Liam and I enjoy these, but they are not so great to write about.

Today (Tuesday), however, the excitement started again.  Liam has been playing violin since September, and it seemed a shame for him to miss more than a month’s practice so soon after starting.  Not only that, but taking violin lessons abroad just sounded fun!

       On Monday night I finally connected with Christchurch’s Suzuki violin teacher, Lois McCallum, and she invited us to visit her house for a lesson on Tuesday afternoon at 2:00.    I checked with Liam’s teacher, and he had no problem with my pulling Liam out of school for this. Liam, in turn, was delighted to be leaving early!

        We drove through town, following some bizarrely winding roads (the roads here are a bit like Boston’s – they turn often, and change names a lot!), until we found her house.  Liam had a great lesson!  His school here is very unlike his school at home, but the Suzuki teacher and methods here are quite a bit like what he is used to.  This was a very nice discovery, and he already likes his new teacher (though he misses Miss Barb).  The only differences seem to be in the names for things, and we have strict instructions from Miss Barb to learn the new names.  We’re working on this, now!

On language

     It will come as no surprise to any readers of this blog that people in New Zealand speak differently that people in America.  There are two primary parts to this difference: the accent, and the vocabulary. 

               The accent

               Overall, the New Zealand accent hasn’t been very difficult for either Liam or me to understand.  It’s not so different that our American accents, and it helps that Liam’s Oupa – Allyson’s dad – speaks with a South African accent, which is rather similar to the New Zealand one.  Liam has therefore had a lot of practice listening to other accents, and usually follows what’s going on.

              There is an exception to this, however – I often find it difficult to understand the Kiwi (New Zealand) accent when I’m in a loud and crowded place.  Of course, even at home it can be hard to understand people in a setting like this.  Usually we hear only some subset of the sounds the person speaks, and we have to reconstruct the accent from these.  I imagine my mind using some sort of phoneme-based error-correcting code to do this, and it usually does it well.  Here, however, the phonemes are all off.  Converting from partially-heard New Zealand speech to something I can understand has occasionally been beyond me.

               The vocabulary

               The differences in vocabulary, of course, bring a new type of fun to our time here!  Liam knew in advance that some words were different (“petrol” instead of “gas”, say).  We started finding more, though, even on the airplane.  After using the airplane bathroom, Liam stepped out and asked me where the soap was.  The flight attendant, who was standing right next to us, told him “it’s right next to the basin!”, after which Liam just stared blankly at her.  =)

               Happily, Liam seems to revel in these new words.  When we went out to eat, I told him that in New Zealand, “chips” means “french fries”.   A few seconds later he looked at me at said “the chips in New Zealand are really good!”.  He enjoys using his new words.  I suspect for this reason he’ll be good at learning new languages in the future, too.

               How then, to speak?

               So the vocabulary and accent are different here than what I’m used to. For me, the biggest question has become: which of these (if either) should I affect myself?

               Should I use NZ words when speaking to someone in NZ?  I think so.  It doesn’t even feel very strange.  I always adjust my vocabulary based on whom I’m speaking to.  I use different words with Liam, Emery, and Allyson.  I use different vocabulary with my honors math students than I do with my pre-calculus students.  I even use a different style of speaking with my mother than with my father.  Most of us do this, I think, and it makes sense.  A shared history with someone implies a shared lexicographic pool from which to draw, and it would be silly not to use this.  So I have started saying “boot” instead of “trunk”, “rather” instead “pretty” (as an adverb, etc.)

               What about the accent, then?  Should I say “class”, or “clahss?”  (forgive me for trying to sound these out without a good phonetic alphabet – I suspect you get the idea).  If I say “clahss”, people might think I’m mocking them, or pretending to be something I’m not.  On the other hand, this is how the word is pronounced here.  If I am in France, I try to say things the way the French do.  I fail at this (my French is terrible), but I try.  Oughtn’t I try here?

               I’ve started using the accent in bits, together with my attempt to use local vocabulary and grammatical patterns.  This all seemed quite fine to me until last night when talking with our neighbor.  He knew that I was from the U.S., but then asked me how long I’d been there.  Uncertain how to answer the question (does he want to know how old I am?), I said “err… forever.”  “Oh,” he responded, “with your accent I thought you grew up somewhere else.”

               This made me feel a bit like a fraud.  I have no desire to pretend to be from New Zealand, but it still seems simply polite to try my best to be easy to understand.  What should I do?

               If any readers have thoughts on this, I’d be happy to hear them!

Day 7 – A Japan Festival (in New Zealand)

Today was Christchurch’s annual “Canterbury Japan Festival”.  Canterbury is the province we live in, and there seems to be rather a large Japanese population here.   After a lazy morning building Legos, we drove over about 11:00, enjoying our car for one more day.

I was immediately reminded of Japan.  Namely, there were lots of people, and I was confused about what was happening most of the time!

A large, fun, and confusing festival.

  We really enjoyed ourselves, though.  We saw Japanese pictures, dolls, and clothes.  We heard Japanese music on the flute and some kind of harp.  Liam, who is captivated by “pretty dresses”, insisted we stay for the kimono fashion show.  This was quite cool, actually, because the narrator explained the different types of kimonos and when they would be used.  

 Kimonos on display.

We also had a wonderful time sampling good Japanese food.  I loved it all.  Liam was more mixed.  We first tried Inari.  Liam's reaction speaks for itself!

We tried yakitori (which he liked more), and glass noodles (even better).  However, I'm afraid the  biggest hit of all for him was chocolate on a stick!

They served some unusual food that we didn't try.  The strangest, I think, is shown below.  To understand the sign, you should know that "kranskies" are small New Zealand (and, I think, Australian) sausages usually stuffed with cheese.  In an attempt to meld two cultures, someone at the festival tried to serve the following:

We came home, played for a bit, and set off for the math department.  I had to scan in the exams of my calculus students which I graded, and we wanted to Skype home.  I do have net access in  the hotel now, but we still have a finite amount of data we can transfer, so videoconferencing is best done elsewhere!  On the way, Liam finally got to realize another one of his goals since coming here – cleaning up “rubbish”. 

Christchurch seems no less or more dirty than, say, Ellensburg – but he has become quite eager to clean up the rubbish on the ground.  I finally got him some disposable gloves, and he had a happy time walking to and from the math building, picking up paper, bottles, and cans.  This slowed us down quite a bit, of course, but it’s hard to complain when your five-year-old wants to clean up the world’s litter!

Tonight we met our next-door neighbor. He is (I kid you not) a visiting academic named Dominic who works in the sciences and who has come from abroad for a few weeks to teach one course at the University of Canterbury!  He is from Cambridge, and is teaching Chemistry, but beyond this the parallels are a bit eerie.  The world’s coincidences are wonderful.

Day 6 – Behind the wheel, and the acquisition of everything

               This weekend Clemency’s husband Jan was away, so she let us borrow one of her cars.  This dramatically expanded the number of places we could easily get.

The new liberation granted us by our weekend car freed us to go places we hadn’t yet been, including The Warehouse (think Walmart) and a new grocery store.  At both places we knew that we could buy heavy things and not have to carry them back long distances to the motel. 

Switching the side that I drove on was made easier when Clemency told me “don’t think about left and right – just remember that the driving is next to the middle of the road.”  This, it turns out, simplifies everything.  If one thinks in terms of “passenger-side” and “driver-side” rather than “left” and “right”, the rules of road are the same here.  Example: when you approach a cross street, the cars closest to you are approaching from the driver’s side.  Or this one: when turning toward the driver’s side, you must cross a lane of traffic.  The rules go on like this, in one-to-one correspondence with those in the U.S!  All one has to do is set up the isomorphism and drive.

Nevertheless, this was my first time driving on the left in a city.  I had done a little bit of left-hand driving a decade ago in South Africa, but only out of town where there were few cars about.  I spent a couple of days in advance practicing, mentally driving around the roads I knew in Christchurch.  On the first day I messed up a few times (in my head), but I quickly got the hang of it.

This was the best shopping day I’ve had in a long time.  My first triumph came at the Warehouse, where I got a mobile phone and a “roving modem.”  Now I can take calls from anyone, and I can access the internet in the hotel as much as we need!  This alone dramatically improves our life in Christchurch.

Also at the Warehouse, Liam went shopping.  He has been saving his money for months for this trip, and it was burning a hole in his pocket.  The Warehouse has a great selection of Legos, and he wouldn’t be dissuaded by the high prices.  He spent most of the rest of his money on a Chima set – which his actually pretty cool.  Also, one of the minifigures is named Leonidas.  Liam asked me why he was named Leonidas, which gave me a welcome chance to tell him the story of the Battle of Thermopylae!  Basically it was a win all around. 

Better yet – we made it to the grocery store.  This time we had three advantages over previous visits.  1) We had a car; 2) We had been to a grocery store before, so it was less overwhelming; and 3) we weren’t really tired from working all day, walking a long distance, and taking a bus.  We got so many wonderful things!  Fruits, vegetables, olive oil, garlic, whole wheat pasta, Coca-cola, wine, muesli bars, steak, rice, and on and on.  For the first time since coming here, I can cook.  Indeed we had a three-“course” dinner of steak, rice, and vegetables when we got home.  Back in Washington this would be a simple matter, but it’s the most complex meal we’ve yet had in the hotel, and I’m so pleased.

After supper we prepared for bath.  Liam was excited to model his new Lego boat (which really floats!)  We leave you with this picture….

Day 5 – Parties and Games

               We had another difficult morning when I dropped Liam off at school today.  He is not used to being at school for six hours straight, and things are still rather unfamiliar to him, so he struggles every morning.  I left him crying, which almost broke my heart.

               I hoped today would finally be a day when I could get a lot of research and writing done, but it was not to be.  My calculus students back in Washington had a test today, and at soon as it was over I started receiving complaining emails from them.  They were so upset I decided I ought to grade their tests quickly, and I spent most of the rest of the day grading exams.  This was, of course, considerably less fun than the other work I’d planned.

               At 3:00 I picked up Liam.  It’s always fun to get him after school, when all the kids are playing on the playground and having a great time.

Playing kids at Ilam school

Liam on the bench

Liam's "hat"

The lower grades' cloakroom

  We went exploring, and ended up in a small house on the South part of campus for a math talk.  Every Friday afternoon someone in the department gives a “primer” – a 20-minute introduction to a field of math, after which the department goes out for drinks.  We thought this sounded fun, but because the home was so close to Liam’s school, we got there about 40 minutes early.

The lovely courtyard between some buildings in

the "Kirkwood Estates"

     Question: How much fun can a five-year-old have in an empty room?

     Answer: If he’s a happy kid, and has a new kind of candy bar to try – a lot!  Liam cackled and laughed his way through his first Moro bar, and then we played tag and hide-and-seek outside until the talk.

 

 

The talk was good.  Twenty minutes is about right for a math talk, and knowing that the audience was waiting to go get beer seemed to have a motivating effect on the speaker.  (For the mathematically curious, the talk concerning Bayesian Model Averaging -- a new idea to me, and quite a fascinating one!)

After the talk we went for drinks.  Liam got a small mixed drink – lemonade and apple juice!  We chatted with other math faculty from NZ, Germany, and Sweeden, and then walked by to his school for Family Fun Night

               Family Fun Night

Ilam school held a school-wide celebration, complete with balloons, a magician, a sausage sizzle, and a three-legged race.  Liam and I entered the three-legged race, acquitting ourselves well but not winning.  We ate delicious sausages from NZ, and he watched the magician-comedian.  He did well, though he was severely hampered by a poor sound system.

Family Fun Night

L

One of the great things was that we knew several people.  We saw Liam’s teacher and his principal.  We saw two people from the UC math department.  I got to meet Liam’s new friend “Humdum” (I’m guessing on the spelling) from Pakistan.  Humdum has been very nice, and has helped take care of Liam at school, as Liam gets used to so many new things.  Plus -- how cool is it that Liam now has a friend from Pakistan?

Liam and friends at Family Fun Night.

We stopped at my office on the way back to Skype Allyson (Emery was already asleep), and made it home in time to play with Liam’s new floating Lego boat in the bath.

Good night everyone!