SOCIAL SCIENCES

The best way for knowing and learn thoroughly about a country is through social sciences; due to it is a wide science which brings a huge quantity of information from many topics of human being and its social behavior.

As a brief introduction, the term “Social sciences” is only the base of a big tree, which has a lot of branches that involves the study of the human and society behavior. These branches are geography, international relations, political sciences, economics, education, inter alia. Social sciences study the human being and its behavior through time, in the past, in a determinate time or even how the human being will behave in a future time.

Every one of those branches are issues which we will raise through the essay, but due to those topics are very extensive issues, we will tackle a brief review of some of them.

Before of starting, New Zealand is a very young and multiethnic country. Owing to there is a great and growing young population; New Zealand is considered a young country –on comparison to other western countries. It is also considered as a multiethnic country; due to it has a high birth rate of Maori people; moreover, it has a relatively high immigration rate from Asia and Great Britain.

We are going to tackle the society issue from the point of view of the young and student people, and how it is built or formed to the youth.

New Zealand’s society or also known as “The Kiwi Society” –named in this way by foreigners and local people, and in honor to its national icon; the little native bird called “Kiwi”. How this is a young society, New Zealand has invested on its youth by means of scholarships, for example. Although New Zealand has a high rate of public investment –especially on public transport, the living costs are equally high for students and people in general. The living cost in New Zealand, in comparison to Chile, is higher but, cheaper than Europe or US. 

The minimum income to live (not the same than minimum salary) is around $1600 NZD [New Zealand Dollar] –approximately, $627, 297.6 CP [Chilean Pesos] –conversion according to Labolsa.com on Saturday 21, June. But in every city of New Zealand and even between North and Southern Islands, the living cost varies depending on the zone and economic activity.

New Zealand is an active member of the WTO (World Trade Organization) since 1995. The aim of this organization is to help the producers of goods, the exporters and importers to improve their activities. This helps to the economy of New Zealand to grow in a better way.

New Zealand’s economy is particularly based on exportations –it is dependent on international trade, especially with European Union and Australia. “Kiwi Economy” is mainly based on primary industries (agriculture), with a great dependence on international trade and foreign investment. New Zealand could be a great producer of different goods and in great quantity, but it prefers producing a little quantity of goods in a safe market and concentrates its economy on a massive production of exporting goods. Although New Zealand has a market economy, this depends on government as the same manner that depends of the entrepreneurs. Due to the government have many programs for helping to exporters and enterprises, which can become big exporters; with the only one goal of maintain the economy growth. Internal market from New Zealand is not a great consumer of goods and services, society from this nation prefers consuming external goods and only the necessary from internal goods, because of this, New Zealand economy is depending on exportations; nevertheless, thanks to its beautiful landscapes and a lot of touristic attractions, which was gifted, a significant percentage from economy comes from tourism. Whereby, we can say that New Zealand is definitely a country totally dependent on exportations and it is prone to be affected by economic crisis from its main buying countries, Australia and England. 

New Zealand with its multicultural society has known how to capitalize its education system. It has a clear focus on how to improve the education, a matter that is very important for this country. The 10 percent of the government budget is for education, this allows children to study for free. The studying years for children begin from 6 to 16 years old, the system is composed of eight levels of elemental education and then it is divided on high school with two more years. To maintain the good education of Maori children the Educational Review Office gives to the government periodical evaluations of all the educational buildings. In most of the schools children has their classes in English, because the educational system is based on the British system, but there are other schools specialized to Maori children and their classes are given in Maori. As an extra cultural statistic according to this matter, in Chile we have an educational counselor from the embassy of New Zealand; we have a bilateral agreement according to education with New Zealand. Thanks to this in 2008, 524 Chilean students went to New Zealand to study there.

New Zealand has barely an area of 269 km2 –that means three quarters of Japan –it doesn’t have land borders. The south island is the biggest of both islands, it has a quarter of the total Maori population, and it’s divided lengthwise by the Southern Alps. It has 18 picks and the highest pick is Mount Cook or Aoraki with 3.754 meters. We can say that the southern island is the mountainous part of New Zealand.

The Northern Island is less mountainous but is marked by volcanism, the most famous mount is Ruapehu with 2.797 meters and it is an active volcano. The biggest lagoon of New Zealand is in this island and it is called Taupo, this lagoon was created after the biggest eruption in history of the last 70.000 years.

In conclusion, New Zealand has always been a strong nation, it has known how to create a firm society; however, relating to economy it is on thin ice, because New Zealand is very dependent to other countries. Due to it has an economy based on exporting and foreign investment, if some economic crisis affect to some of the countries which buy to or invest on New Zealand, the economy of this nation will be affected and this is not some good for country. On the other hand, New Zealand is a nation, which is worried about the education and his population. It has invested on education through of many scholarships and the society on public transport, and it is a nation, which cares environment too. Furthermore, New Zealand gives many opportunities to foreign people by means of scholarships. New Zealand’s education is well-recognized on the rest of the world and many foreigners studying there. And as a last point, this is a nation, which we would go to study or living there, with a well-constituted society and its geography is similar to Chile; and despite of, it has a living cost higher than Chile and it is located to the edge of the world, it continues being a great country to live for anyone. 

CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS

For knowing a nation, we have to learn about it, not only its politic organization, economic system or history facts, but also we have to be able to understand that nation from its inside. For learning about a nation we have to be between the population, knowing and being part of their customs and traditions. Through of the customs and traditions from a nation in particular, we can learn more thoroughly their culture and language.

A customs is defined as “a traditional and widely accepted way of behaving or doing something that is specific to a particular society, place, or time” (oxforddictionaries.com, point 1.). And tradition is defined as “the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way” (oxforddictionaries.com, point1). After we have given the correct definitions about both terms, we can establish that customs are ways of behaving from a nation, which are transmitted for generations. And we must have very clear what means every one of these terms for knowing and understand how people behave; better said the culture of a nation.

How in every nation, we can see in New Zealand customs and traditions such a celebrations and holidays, marriage and family customs or social habits. We will tackle these issues; furthermore we will see the different beliefs they have adopted through the time pass by.

In matter of social behavior, the way of saluting is shaking hands no matter the genre, but if it’s a woman with a man in a formal way, the man waits for the woman to do the first movement. Maori people use a hug as a salute or the traditional hongi, which consists on getting closer nose to nose, closing their eyes and making a sound like “mm-mm”. Another salute called Kia Ora consists on wishing good blessings to the other person; nowadays this salute has being used more and more by people in general.

For the Maori people the family is very important, they still have families with a lot of members and is a tradition those generations of the same family live together in the same house. For the Maori people there is also important the communitarian place called Marae, in that place they do their ceremonies, reunions and all kind of activities.

Family is very important, not only to Maori People, but on New Zealand in general; furthermore, families are very worried about houses, or their homes. Families invest too much money to improve their houses; and thus feel good and being comfortable. Almost all New Zealand’s people is worried about purchase their own home, almost no one rents a house. The higher number of houses rented is by foreigner, who need live temporally there or people, who have not raised the enough money to buy one.

New Zealand’s families like spending their free time in their homes and do barbecues –this are very, very popular in the whole country-; moreover, people is very hospital and they often invite persons to their homes, only a little after know them.

Marriage is celebrated with a big party and a lot of food, along with music and dances. But nowadays the percentage of marriages has been decreasing; due to the percentage of couples living together in the same house has been increasing. Nonetheless, Maori consider the marriage yet; though the number of women and men who live together with no marriage is creasing, but in a minor number. 

New Zealand has a national day called “Waitangi”, celebrated every year on February 6, in this historic day people celebrate that in 1810 the British council firmed an agreement allowing New Zealand to be a British colony and the protection of Maori people under the British. Celebration begins a day before the Waitangi, this day is called Ngapuhi Te tii marae and it is a speech from the Iwi, in that speech are presented the problems that the country is facing during the year.

There are many other festivals, which New Zealand celebrates, such as the Auckland Folk Festival (celebration of music, singing and dance), New Zealand International Arts Festival (celebrated every two years and during –practically- one month) and other ones less important such as Biennial Wellington Jazz Festival, New Zealand Fringe Festival, the International Comedy Festival, Folkloric Wellington Festival, against other festivals.

Other days of celebration are the Anzac and the birthday of the queen Elizabeth II –or queen, who is in the moment-. Anzac is a day, which honors the army of New Zealand who fought in the World War I; in this day there are special rugby games and dances. The birthday of the queen is celebrated the first Monday of June, in this day there is a parade in her honor and the cavalry shoots 41 shots, all of this accompanied with music and dances. Against other days are the workday (fourth Monday of June), Christmas (twenty-five of December) and the Boxing Day (twenty-six of December).

Many of those festivals, allow to the population learn more about his country, and also enjoy a while between friends or family, under the sound of bands or folklorical groups of music and dance.

The religion is based on Christianity since the British colonizers –one of the most important legacies from England-. Anglican with 554,925 members, Roman Catholic with 508,810, Presbyterian Christians with 400,445 and Methodist with over 100,000 members is the largest sub sects among the Christians (statistical data extracted from Spainexchange.com). Christmas and Easter are the most important Christian days of this country. New Zealand is a country very believing Christian; even its national anthem is called “God Defend New Zealand”.

New Zealand’s nation is a nation, who likes enjoy and have fun, have a great quantity of different kind of festival internationally known, from one day to almost one month. Moreover, society from New Zealand is familiar society; this could be owing to the close relationship between Maori people and the New Zealand Society (as we established in a previous essay and we already know, the New Zealand’s society is a mixed society). Moreover, as other interesting point, we would like highlighting the great quantity of money, which New Zealand’s society invest on their homes, though this is comprehensible to us, for trying to create a comfortable home to live, spend a lot of money, worth it.

And as a last point, we could say that New Zealand; and as a last point, we could say that New Zealand; continues being an interesting nation, owing to its multiculturalism and its being way, one never finish to learn about it.