Postcards from the end of the world: Barely legal

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Have you ever heard the one about the two topless women walking around a supermarket? No? Neither had I until I saw it a couple of weeks ago. I was in my local supermarket and two women were walking around with no top on, admittedly they were body-painted and promoting an awards show but still. Should there really be half naked women walking around a supermarket on a Saturday afternoon when there are families around? It seems that stripping off in public is a common thing in New Zealand, even the national airline is doing it in their advert and for their in-flight safety video. While not everyone seems too happy with the results you’ve got to admit that it’s bold and probably not the kind of thing you’ll forget in a hurry. I applaud them for trying something different.

Over the two years that I have lived in New Zealand, I’ve noticed several other undressed customs, one of which is people walking around in bare feet. During the week I’ll see lots of people walking to work in the morning, suit on looking completely normal, and then at the weekend I’ll see the same people walking around the streets with no shoes on and going in and out of shops. You get quite a lot of people at the supermarket with bear feet, they’ll leave home, jump in their car and then buy their cereal and sausages and not bother to wear any shoes. We’re not talking about feral people, but grown men and women walking the streets clothed but no footwear be it shoes, flip flops, or whatever.

Sometimes this weekend custom bleeds over into the workweek. I often see a guy on the bus who heads into work shoeless, even in winter. He has long hair, and looks like he works in I.T. but that’s no excuse in my book.

There are other areas in which Kiwis seem to have a loose interpretation of public dress codes. I often see people at the gym who get out of the shower with a towel on, go to their locker, put a jacket on, get their bag and walk out to their car with bare feet and a towel wafting in the breeze. Worse than that a guy I know, admitted to me that he goes for a swim at his local swimming pool gets his bag, walks out with a towel around his waist, crosses the road and then walks home.  He’s Scottish but has assimilated himself so deeply with Kiwi culture that he has gone mental.

Or is it me that is mental? Have I missed the memo that walking around town in a towel is the latest trend? Is London packed with people riding the tube shoeless? When a group of us were talking about the towel-clad Scotsman walking home from the pool, I was the only person that was disturbed by his behaviour, all the Kiwis thought it was fine.

Can you imagine doing anything like that where you live?

New Zealand is still quite a wild place and sometimes seems lawless in places but in a major city like Auckland where they have roads, shops and the occasional bus I'm surprised people like to get back to nature so readily.