Free Range - The Super City

Last month I reported from the unfamiliar Land of Ill Health. This month, somewhere on the Road to Recovery, I detoured to Auckland which is now strangely unfamiliar too, though I lived there for 30 years.

I don’t mean Auckland the Super City – no one lives there. I mean the village-sized portion of the city each Aucklander really lives within. My small part of Auckland has changed so much that I spent much of my visit redrawing my mental map of it.

For a start, monolithic chunks of unfinished motorway which for years have hung suspended in space are now connected to other bits of motorway. Piloting the city is faster, but more nerve-wracking: miss a turnoff and you’re in Whangarei before you can rectify the mistake.

I did something else which was impossible until recently: I took a commuter train downtown. Young Things tapped on their Macs as we clattered past wall-high graffiti and leaky buildings shrouded in tarpaulins. Tiny apartment balconies were crammed with furniture, bicycles and washing. Traffic was clogged by road works around Eden Park Stadium, but we sped uninterrupted into the gleaming new Britomart terminal.

I visited suburbs named by British colonists, which are now neither British nor Anglo-Saxon. Dominion Road, Balmoral and Mt Albert are jammed with Halal butcheries, sari shops and noodle joints. If you are looking for “diligent right fried chicken” and “pan explosion pork” you’ll find it here. Emporia which sell everything from skin whitening creams to toilet seat covers are so chockfull of acrylic that the air is acrackle with static. Domed temples now sit in otherwise unremarkable suburban streets.

The Empire is striking back in other ways. I visited a friend who emigrated from India only a few years ago. When they arrived, her faun-like, long-lashed little sons spoke hardly any English. Now they are at home in two cultures and are studying far in advance of their chronological ages. When I asked them if they were unusually clever, they both modestly demurred. “We just work hard” they said.

I stayed with another friend in her Ponsonby apartment. There are more white faces on the street, but “Nothing over $200!” is what they call a bargain in Ponsonby these days. You can buy all the pricey eyewear, footwear, carryware and homeware you can afford, but little that’s truly essential.

I’m back in Nelson now with my revised map. It features dozens of movie theatres, festivals and galleries, as well as the Great Wall Health Centre, Afro Hair Salon and French Markets. The impulse to Supersize My City would be almost irresistible except for the notes I’ve scribbled in the margins. They warn how exhausting it can be to negotiate too many language and cultural shifts in a day.

My notes also warn that SES, the highly contagious precursor to Road Rage, has reached epidemic proportions in Auckland. Tragically affected victims of Silent Expletive Syndrome can be seen in traffic-jammed cars all over the city, rhythmically thumping their steering wheels and mouthing vile (though inaudible) obscenities through their windshields. Others just weep.