U.S. MODE OF LIFE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 33, 26 May 1947, Page 3

U.S. MODE OF LIFE

ARTIFICIAL CHILDREN To see children, toddlers of two and three years, with brightly polished toe and finger nails and permanently waved hair, was a startling sight to a New Zealand bride on her arrival in the United States to make her new home there.

College girls with heavy make-up in her opinion “look easily 25 years old, while their mode of dress made them look “positive sights,” as they wore faded dungarees with the legs unevenly rolled up, “sloppy joes” (sweaters) a couple of sizes too large, shabby brogues with bobby socks hanging over the top and hair “the more untidy and straggly the better,” she wrote to her family in Wellington. N.Z. Clothes Better Finished

Life in the United States was diffei ent from that in New Zealand. Fashions, she said, were much the same as in the Dominion and in her opinion the girls in New Zealand generally speaking, were better dressed.

Everywhere she went peop] e were loud in admiration of her New Zealand clothes and remarked on the finish. She had bought good frocks from “exclusive” American shops and the first time they had been washed they had torn away at the seams. Lazy Speech Describing her first meeting with another New Zealand girl living in America, the writer said it was like sweet music to hear an English voice again. Some American accents she had found fascinating but others sounded ugly and jarred the ear. The majority of Americans spoke badly. She had been astonished listening to the radio to hear repeated errors in speech, grammatical errors included, chiefly the result of laziness.

The Americans are lazy—in every way,” she said. “The average person is very lax in the matter of speech, from radio announcers and ministers down to the average every-dav people.

“There are not regular fruiterers, butchers or bakeries. One buys meat, fruit and vegetables as well as groceries, at the grocers shop. One never sees a home-made cake shop. All cakes are factory-made by the same firms as make biscuits, called ‘cookies’ here, and are sold—at what a price.”