An etiquette guide for New Zealand

A new series about etiquette, Kiwi mums and dads, a heavy blow and eating insects

Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend with Madeleine Chapman

I love rules. In such an enduring and intense way that I am now actually trying to love them less. To me, rules provide necessary parameters within which I can live my life however I like. No matter the situation, if everyone knew the rules, we'd all be fine (was my thinking). It made me an embarrassing nark as a child and now someone who gets irrationally annoyed when people don't follow understood rules. Don't indicate when you're driving? Jail. Don't hold the door open for people walking behind you? Jail. Wear your shoes on the couch? Jail.

So it is perhaps a surprise to no one that The Spinoff is launching a brand new occasional series, The Spinoff guide to life. The Spinoff guide to life will be a series of how-tos designed to make the lives of those around you better. This guide technically won't improve your own life at all. It's a how-to series to teach everyone not to be that guy. Because sometimes there are random unwritten rules that no one told us and we only find out about them in an embarrassing way. For example, I found out it's uncouth to take your own food into a cafe when I pulled out a packet of Tim Tams to eat with my cup of coffee and my colleague gasped. 

Our whole world manages to not collapse (just) because there's an understanding that people will follow the rules. Sometimes they can be overpoliced, sure, but even places that supposedly have no rules inevitably turn out to be full of them (they're usually just different to the ones we expect). The Spinoff guide to life will seek to fill you in on all the basic etiquette you never learned as a kid, because New Zealand doesn't yet have an agreed-upon etiquette. Travel to other countries and you'll know very quickly to always take your shoes off, or to never wear a hat inside or sit on a table. Here, most non-European families would do this but it's certainly not universal. 

So we're embarking on a very slow journey to piece together an etiquette guide befitting the country we all live in today.

First up: how to shit when you're not at home. It's a thing we all do and it's a thing so many people do weirdly. Gabi Lardies has laid the ground rules for being a courteous shitter in a public space. We're starting at the literal bottom and working our way up. We'll discuss splitting the bill at restaurants, bringing gifts to someone's home, how to be a good car passenger on a road trip, when to say something after someone has experienced a loss, how long is too long to leave an email hanging, and much much much more. You may not agree with all us every time but them's the rules.

If you have an etiquette question or suggestion, let us know and we'll add it to our list. Good luck out there.

This week on Behind the Story

Staff writer Gabi Lardies has been to plenty of radical left gatherings in her time. But despite her enthusiasm for the causes, she’s found herself increasingly disillusioned with the results, or lack thereof. Last week, Gabi headed along to yet another meeting of Auckland’s radical leftists to report from the inside and see if this time would be any different.The result is a gentle yet illuminating portrait of radical groups, regardless of the lean.

Gabi joins me this week to talk about experiential reporting, writing about your own communities and finding inspiration in a cold community hall.

Taylor Roche on cruise ship gigs, TikTok fame and naming his price

From dropping out of a uni music degree to becoming the most viewed New Zealand artist on TikTok, it’s been a wild few years for musician and content creator Taylor Roche. He joined Kiwibank’s This is Kiwi podcast to talk about his journey to online stardom. Read an excerpt from the interview on The Spinoff now.

Kiingi Tuheitia’s death leaves a massive void at a critical moment

The thunderstorm that rolled across Aotearoa on Thursday night, as Kiingi Tūheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII lay in Waikato Hospital, seems fitting, writes Jamie Tahana. The timing of his death, in this of all years, seems a particularly heavy blow. It was in the past year that Tuheitia really stepped to the fore, taking on the leadership mantle as Māori expressed outrage over the perceived attack on the country’s founding document. Last week at the koroneihana in what were to be his final public words, Tūheitia said, “Growing together is crucial. We’ve come a long way as a country, and we can go even further – let’s not give up now! Te Tiriti o Waitangi is between Māori and the Crown – mana to mana. The Treaty provides a foundation for us all to work together.”

For more reading, Liam Rātana looked back at Tūheitia’s reign, which spanned nearly two decades. It was characterised by his loyal commitment to the wellbeing of Māori, his advocacy for Māori rights, his deep dedication to the preservation of Māori culture, and unity in Aotearoa.

There are lots of reasons to eat insects. Will we ever overcome the ‘yuck’ factor?

Last week, a package arrived at The Spinoff for Shanti Mathias. It was about the size and shape of a drink bottle and the postage bag had been dutifully perforated by hand. Inside were 30 live locusts. They made a subtle clicking, chirping sound, with shimmery patterns on their translucent wings, and twitched their antenna as they munched and scrambled over each other. Little did they know they were mere hours away from becoming a deep fried snack that Shanti found not a transcendent culinary experience – but completely fine. In her wonderful feature, she talks to people who cultivate bugs for food, and considers if humans will ever have an appetite for this climate-friendly farmed protein. 

“As I’ve become older, my body changes and I have to figure out, ‘Do I want to continue to do this?’ One thing that keeps me going is that I feel it’s important to see women of all ages on stage.” Dance, performance, video art, animation, painting, drawing: Louise Pōtiki Bryant does it all, creating dance art that blends her various modes of expression into one spectacular whole. She tells us about her unique art practice in the new edition of Art Work. Read it here.

Don’t let the backlash to therapy culture stop you from doing therapy

If you’ve had a gutsful of therapeutic lingo – “your feelings are valid”, “thank you for holding space”, “I feel seen”, “do the work”, “honour my boundaries”  – then Madeleine Holden has good news for you: the tide is turning on therapy culture. She can’t wait to see the back of it, because (in short) therapy culture encourages people to revel in the status of victimhood; to see their mental health problems as a core part of their identity rather than challenges to overcome; and to hold the people around them (and the world generally) responsible for meeting their needs. But, if you confuse therapy culture for therapy, you will likely run a mile from both. That’s a shame, says Madeleine, and a mistake.

The stories Spinoff readers spent the most time with this week

• A single mum of three who “will skimp on everything where possible” explains how she gets by for this week’s Cost of Being

• Anna Rawhiti-Connell compares and contrasts declining birth rates and the changing New Zealand household with the political urge to pitch to “Kiwi mums and dads”

• Duncan Greive (with help from Liam Rātana) details the ten revelations in this year’s NZ on Air Where Are the Audiences survey

• Joel MacManus outlines why, in the battle between Wellington mayor Tory Whanau and transport minister Simeon Brown, both are winners

• Jamie Tahana explains why Kiingi Tūheitia’s death seems a particularly heavy blow.

Recommended reads for your weekend

• Pigeon, remuneration, bureaucracy, definitely, the list goes on. Our staff writers have listed the words that we wouldn’t want to meet down a dark alley, or encounter in a spelling bee.

• Noticing a need for moral instruction, we’ve launched a new format: The Spinoff guide to life. The first is a suitably stinky number from Gabi Lardies: How to shit when you’re not at home.

• This week’s Takeout Kids episode features Dom, who serves customers in Taupō’s Thai Delight Restaurant and The Mira Restaurant with his mum. 

• Steak sauce, beach cheese, spaghetti, and mailbox sausages are just the beginning of our national history of mysterious food dumps. Alex Casey investigates.

• As a charge against customary marine titles is being stirred by Hobson’s Pledge, Liam Rātana explains where the titles come from and what they mean.

• If you’re also wondering what having an independent foreign policy actually means, Gabi Lardies explains. 

• Poet Jenny Rockwell on how a new wave of artists offered her a way to celebrate queerness.

• When Rings of Power moved to the UK for filming, there’s no doubt holes were left in the hearts of the cast. Dominic Corry asks them what they’ve missed most about Aotearoa.

Reader feedback of the week

• On Words that look wrong when spelt right

“Focussed is yuck. Foul. Repulsive. Although both are technically acceptable it should always be focused.” Endorsed by me and Spinoff deputy editor Alice Neville.

• On The Spinoff guide to life: How to shit when you’re not at home

“Lining the bowl with toilet paper as you mention does reduce the likelihood of skiddies as well as muffling any bomb landings. An immediate interim flush to get rid of the initial bulk will limit smell.”

Thanks for reading.

— Madeleine Chapman