 Hey, welcome back to my YouTube channel. Today we're going to talk about eight things that New Zealanders or Kiwis don't do. This kind of came about when I was talking with one of my clients and they're asking for some things like they should be aware of that maybe things that they shouldn't do in a situation or would be odd. And so it got me thinking. And I think I could probably come up with a lot more but just to keep this video short, there's eight things that New Zealanders generally don't do. So here we go. Okay, the first thing that New Zealanders do not do is they don't put the price on the real estate. It's true. When you go to buy a house, it's like what's the price? Nobody can tell you. It's you can get like, you know, the rates, but there's different values that you can look at but they're not naming the price. So you like have to go to like an auction or put in a bid or I don't even know. I haven't bought a house. I can't tell you the whole process. But it freaks me out because they can't even tell me how much they want for the house. So I like I don't even know where to start because my tendency is going to be to go low. But yeah, they don't put the price on the houses. Number two. Number two thing that New Zealanders do not do is you will not see goods and services priced at $8.99 or $2.95 or whatever like that trying to give you give you the sense that it's less than $9 at $8.99. They will not do that. Everything will be like a solid number in an exact price. And they don't like that. They don't like that fooling marketing thing because even when I've worked with other New Zealanders or we're working on a project and I'm like, let's price it at $7.99. They look at me like, yeah, we're not doing that. We're going to call it $800. So we're not going to say $8.99. So yeah, you're not going to be, shall we say, a little bit manipulated by making the price look a little bit less or I don't know what it does. It's it's a psychological marketing tactic that they don't use in New Zealand. Number three. They do not show up to your house empty-handed. Now, even if you invite someone over and you say, hey, you don't need to bring anything, I got us covered, you know, even if it's like a really close friend, they will always bring something. It's the cultural thing you don't show up with out giving something like a bottle of wine or I don't know, a little some bread or like some contribution. They don't really do that here and they can be very uncomfortable with that. So don't bother telling them that they don't need to bring anything because they are number four. What New Zealanders don't do is they don't have advertising everywhere. There's not a lot of billboards. There's not a lot of like vying for your attention like you're going to get in the US. But they are, yeah, and they don't like the salesy thing. They don't like, you know, all up in your face trying to force something down your throat. They don't do that. Their marketing tactics are quite limited. In fact, quite old. I have a marketing company. So I know, because like even like direct mail still works here. You even go to like a school or any like any building and they'll have like like little little piece of paper posted up with like advertisements and like, you know, pull the number off like that actually still works in New Zealand. In fact, many of the business owners that I know, they don't even do advertising because New Zealanders are so much into who you know and word of mouth. And yeah, so if you get started with a couple clients, you're probably good to go because the word will spread and that counts more than anything else. Okay, if you're an American coming to New Zealand, just be aware that when you go to a restaurant, there's no free bread. There's no free crackers. There's no free refills on your soda or your fizzy drink if you're in New Zealand. And they don't necessarily always bring water to the table. So sometimes they do and some restaurants they do, but at like cafes or other places they normally have a place where you can get your own water. It's a do it yourself, get your water, which doesn't exist in the US. You don't ever get your own water, but I love that. Like you just go you can sometimes they already have prefilled jugs and you just grab that and some glasses for your table or you just, you know, get the water yourself literally. And it's free and included and it doesn't matter, but like and some restaurants have it that way too. So if you're wondering if anybody's going to bring you water, they're probably not. And so just look around for the cups and the jugs and go get your own. One of the most frustrating things about living overseas is the difficulty around voting. We have to pay taxes and so we should be able to vote no matter where we live in the world. In 1986, Congress came out with the absentee voting act, which we can all vote, but if you've had that experience, it can be very difficult because you have to have your absentee valid postmarked on a certain day and you know, it can cause all sorts of problems. So there's 3 million voters overseas and only about 7% actually end up being able to vote because it is quite complicated. So when I try to vote in the 2020 election, I put in my absentee valid on the right date and somehow it got returned to me because I did something wrong and it's assault and so my vote didn't count and that's very frustrating. And so I just wanted to make you guys aware of mobile voting is on the rise and they're really testing that the military has been using it and it's really cool. And so I just want to bring this to your attention and to give you some awareness about it because how great would it be for me to just be able to vote on my phone. Now of course, we have concerns about security and all that sort of thing, but apparently it's been tested and it's like really good and it's a really nice option. You can vote for your local, state and federal level and you could still be involved in, you know, the election processes in the US. So I have actually put a link in the description to check out their website. Now there aren't up and running officially in like every state and that sort of thing, but what's cool about it is you can click on, you know, send me updates when it gets available. And then also you can also easily click on a button and communicate with your Congress person and so that you can just like say, hey, you know, I would really like to have some mobile voting because it would be really great. So I just wanted to bring some awareness around the possibility of mobile voting and that you can put your, your two cents in that that would be really great because we pay taxes. Is 2022 technology should be advanced enough where we should be able to vote mobily. In New Zealand, they will not serve you on a paper plate. In fact, they kind of consider that lazy and rude. And so, yeah, even if you have a huge, I mean, if you have like a huge, huge, huge like hundreds of people, they will go out of their way to not have to use paper and they're very, you know, into sustainability and not having a lots of rubbish and trash and and so like to them they value that here way more than Americans. And so you don't have paper plates. And so even like, I've even, we've had like huge parties and I've brought some and they were like, yeah, we're not going to use those. And I'm like, okay. And so, yeah, so I host Thanksgiving every year and I have a group of like 70 people and I'm like, I would, you know, because some people will like borrow from local churches or for whatever. And so I do have paper plates. I get, I pay a lot more for the biodegradable recyclable material because I know that's what my guests will expect. Let's just be real. And so we do that. And it's fine because I'm telling them that when you're coming to Thanksgiving, an American holiday, this is acceptable because some big families or if you're at a big reunion in the states, you're going to use a paper plate. And so yeah, but I've definitely used that a lot less. I mean, in fact, you will find that in houses here, they don't even have paper towels. And so I haven't got that far. But yeah, so don't expect to ever be served on a paper plate in New Zealand. It would be very rare. And don't expect to be able to negotiate. Even if you buy something off of TradeMe or Facebook Marketplace, it's generally like the feel, I'm a big negotiator. Okay, even when I go to op shops or whatever, I'm a negotiator. It doesn't come off well. It's rude. Now, with that being said, as since I've lived here now for six years plus, I'm finding there are certain places that negotiation is more acceptable in different situations. And so, but as a general rule of thumb, I wouldn't just come out strong like, like you don't say that you're going to buy something secondhand show up. So you're going to buy it for $100 and show up with 50 and say, will you just take 50? That's not going to go over well. You know, like what we agreed upon is what we, you know, kind of people hold onto their word. A lot of places like we'll say, you know, this is a price and there's no negotiating. And actually it just makes things a lot easier, where like you don't always feel like you're getting totally scanned because you don't know how to maybe negotiate or you don't have the energy for it that day, especially on bigger ticket items like cars. But yeah, so in general, don't expect to negotiate very often. And last but certainly not least, you, okay, they speak English here. Okay. But the way that they pronounce things, they seem to like to add or change letters, specifically vowels, moving them around or like their pronunciation sounds like a different vowel. And so it takes a little bit to get used to. So for example, you know, like awesome will be awesome. Auckland will be Auckland, you know, and it's just, it sounds just a little bit different. And they don't like to move their mouth. They kind of tug like this and they're talking really, really fast. And it's hard to understand. So be okay with not understanding and just ask to the repeat themselves or whatever. They talk very fast and, you know, and then they'll just like completely switch letters like fish and chips is now fush and chips, chips. I don't even say it because I feel ridiculous saying it that fush and chips. See, it's, it's one of those things, or they'll just replace like an a with an e like a hand would be hind, right, or accent would be accent like that. I don't even I'm not even good at their accent. I would like to be better because it's fun to have a different accent. But yeah, so just just be aware when they say the word deck or six. Doesn't sound like that. Well, I hope you enjoyed the video this week and please come up below and let me know other things that I missed. And I think as I've even been thinking about I've come up with a lot more. So we may be doing a part two to this one, because that was kind of fun. And definitely let me know your thoughts. And if you're moving here or traveling here, reach out to me. I have a consulting service and I'm coming up with a cool training hub to help you know about all things New Zealand. Just head to my website kiwiamericans.com and I'll see you guys next week.