NEW COUNTRY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1942, Page 4

NEW COUNTRY

'TRAMS AND TOBACCO LACK OF CENTRAL HEATIN'’.. New Zealand tramcars and the absence of subways have attracted • a fair amount of comment from American servicemen. Roads have sometimes been criticised for narorwness and bends, and the necessity of changing their usual driving order on the righthand side to the left-hand side has also been one of the Americans’ first deep impressions. The visitors have been repaying hosuitality with gifts of cigarettes. Thousands of New Zealanders have had their first American tobacco for more than a year. Small boys have even pursued the visitors in the streets with the plea for cigarettes. To the Americans, the New Zealand brands seem to be completely tasteless. They are used to aromatic tobaccos, and after smoking one of the New Zealand brands, their general comment is that they do not know they have had a smoke.

Lack of central heating in buildings will probably be brought up by every American coaxed into saying what he thinks about New Zealand. The same remark is offered about restaurants. “I don’t understand,” said one, “why you sit down at tables and eat with the doors open. Back home they are closed, but here it seems that, when the doors are closed, the restaurant is closed.”

Nor do the Americans like the fall of temperature in the evening and at night. While many of them are accustomed to much more severe weather during the winter, they are not used to such a big nightly drop. Their opinion of New Zealand cities vary. While there are those who will call them slow, there are many others who will say that they are much more alive than plenty of places they have lived in or visited. Some will say that they have noticed “more Americanisms” than they expected.