Somewhere Else

Chapter 23: Learning Makes Perfect

Priscilla starts off kiwi film night by giving us a crash course in New Zealand slang.

"So," she says, sounding for all purposes like a teacher – I briefly wonder if I sound just as authoritative with Juhani – as she ticks a mental list of items off her fingers. "The films won't contain that much slang, but you might hear things like reckon or Macca's – that's Macdonald's. And when we talk about chips, we mean both fries and potato chips. If we want to differentiate between them, we'll call them hot chips and chippies."

"So," says Frederik slowly, like he's imprinting the words into his mind, "hot chips are the fries?"

"Exactly."

"Hot chips," I repeat, fighting the natural grin curling my lips. What a name.

Ludo has an eyebrow raised. "That just sounds... wrong."

Priscilla glares at him. "Well, that's how we speak. You guys must have regional dialects in Italy too, don't you? It's the same thing."

Ludo goes quiet, giving this comparison some serious thought.

"Chippies sound cute," Zuzi says. "Like some sort of squirrel."

Priscilla is shaking her head at all of us as we try to wrap our heads around the alienness of New Zealand English.

"Don't the Australians use reckon, too?" I ask. I've heard people using that word. "And mate, meaning 'friend' – but the British use that too."

"Yeah," Priscilla says. "We use mate too. But our slang is more similar to Aussie than to the British – maybe because we're so far away from Europe."

"Funny how Australian slang is so close to New Zealand slang," Zuzi comments.

"That's not surprising, really," says Priscilla with a shrug. "Our closest neighbour is Australia. Our language patterns probably rubbed off on each other."

"Neighbours? But you're separated by the sea!" I exclaim disbelievingly.

Priscilla laughs and gives a small shake of her head, as if thinking to herself, Europeans. "Yeah, but the whole of New Zealand is made up of a series of islands. Even within the country, we're separated by the sea. Australia is the only country even remotely close by. We're not an entire piece of land like you guys are here."

"We're not exactly one piece of land," I counter, but weakly. We all know what she means, and she's right.

Zuzi is shaking her head as well, albeit for a different reason. "But your countries are so far away from each other. How long does it take to get from New Zealand to Australia?"

That takes Priscilla more than a moment's thought. She taps at her chin, "I think... Maybe four hours when you fly from Wellington to Melbourne. I flew that route when coming to Europe. Wellington to Melbourne, then to Singapore, and then twelve hours straight to Helsinki." She gives a sigh, as if relieving that long journey all over again.

"That's a long flight," Frederik says, with the grimace of someone who has never needed to sit in an aircraft for such a long amount of time.

I've zoomed in on a specific part of her narrative. "You've been to Singapore?"

Priscilla laughs. "I wouldn't call it been to, exactly. The only part of it I've seen is the inside of the airport. I only had two hours in between my flights." At my downcast look, she asks me, "Isn't your mum from Singapore? Have you been there, then?"

I nod, even though I barely remember more than she does. At least she remembers the airport. "Yes, we lived there for a year or so when I was a baby... although I don't remember any of it, obviously. We went back a few times afterward, but it's mostly a blur." I leave out the part where I'd woven myself into a blanket of sulkiness whenever we'd had to visit. Eventually, those trips had petered out eventually in favour of family holidays to other parts of Europe – trips I much preferred.