Thoughts of a Kiwi in Minneapolis - on Civilisation

The triumph of style over substance in this country is complete - from presidents right on down. As I have observed before, every coffee store in town has 57 variations on the menu but the crap you get served is just like the crap the last person collected. A lot to do with paying $5 an hour to barista-monkeys methinks, but also something to do with America's penchant for reducing everything to the lowest common denominator, which in Starbucks case is a milky, burnt flavored bitter bucket of poop with a cherry on top.

I read recently an analysis of how the so-called ascent of US civilization and the transition of the economy away from dependency on dirty old manufacturing (let the third world do the dirty work!) to an 80% service economy has actually reduced the real average wage and standard of living.

A warning to other 'civilized' economies thinking that a 'knowledge' economy or service economy sounds sexier than making stuff - be prepared to live in a world where most of the service you receive will be from people who don't like giving it, have another job besides, are paid a less than subsistence wage to do it and would have been happier on an assembly line or on a farm. You never had to tell a Dodge bumper bar or a cow's arse to have a nice day like the franchise manual dictates.

But, we are not especially unhappy with our lot. Our trip back to NZ earlier in the year was an inverse oasis of substance over style for a start. Like walking into the Lord of the Rings for a month. Since we've been back, NZ has been regularly featured on television as the new vogue holiday destination (obviously someone decent in charge of tourism in NZ these days). We watched and re-watched the multisport Eco-Challenge race set in gorgeous Wanaka and surrounding mountains. The channel featuring it ran it twice a day, every day for a week - it was the talk of every office water fountain in town.

Apart from continuing the impression that the NZ landscape somehow genetically builds a race of superhuman athletes who can run and cycle for 5 days without sleep (well almost, bad luck Nathan F.), the program also brought us some fine ironic humour which had us rolling on the floor every viewing. One of the teams featured in the documentary was a Russian team (the first Russian team ever). The leader spoke with a thick accent and with highly entertaining Rusglish. No voice over or sub-titles

required however. Then they interviewed the evergreen Cathy Lynch. Her accent was deemed to be so incomprehensible to Americans, she received sub-titles, interspersed with every 10 words. Native speakers could easily work out that the horse was not a 'buckin' mongrel.

Ironically the great American way nearly prevented our January trip before we even left the ground - payment for the tickets was demanded (from Discount Dan the travel man) at very short notice so Lesley took the option of using the Internet payment option on our Wells Fargo bank account.

When the travel agent rang 5 days later to ask where the money was, imagine our astonishment to discover when ringing the bank that the web payment process merely generated a memo in someone's (paper) in-tray from w'hich they hand-wrote a bank cheque and posted it to the payee. Allow 7-10 days for the service thank you.

Wells Fargo was recently awarded the 'Leading Online Bank in the USA' title by industry analysts.

Our reflection on life in the Antipodes was just how easy everything was to do, and consequently how relaxed people are. The USA teaches you to grit your teeth and prepare for battle, whether its standing in line for lunch, going to the bank, answering the phone to the army of telemarketing arks who want to sell you life insurance, or driving on the Freeways amidst the stream of flag waving 80 mph Detroit behemoths (who said dinosaurs were extinct by the way?). Everything has a bit of 'grrrrrrr' in it.

We've definitely become pushier, more aggressive, and more vocal - is it possible we are actually becoming American? Not quite, but the starkness of the cultural contrast that we so critically observed when we arrived has faded a little. Life in Minnesota can suck the funny out of just about anything, and I fear we have become a little bit immune to the inanity of it all.