Schwelmo's Welt

I am getting a bit nervous as my visit in Germany is coming closer and closer. Funny, when I bought my plane tickets I was getting a bit homesick. I haven’t really been back since 3 years, except for a 10 day break which was exhausting as I was telling the same stuff to different people 24/7. I was happy to sit in the plane (being on my own) flying back to “Suicide City”. It is funny. Palmerston North is trying hard to get itself a profile, trying to introduce icons and a common motto to help people identifying with this little town. What sticks for now is John Cleese “Suicide City”. He was much more successful with his naming than all the previous professional attempts. And he had a much lower budget (none) to come up with a label. The city council tried hard with i.e. “Youngheart-easy living”. That didn’t last (I think it is not used anymore, is it??), even they named their first division football club “Younghearts Manawatu”. There is probably no easy living in a suicide city anyway. But there are a lot of young people in this city what would at least support the youngheart bit. Subsequently the new advertising campaign is “Palmerston North-Student City”. That is pretty much as crab as the other campaigns before. It basically says the city is here because of the University and the people of the City are here because of Massey as well. The definition the whole city as “Student City” implies no life/city in the semester break. How do they want people to identify with this city if they base it on the students, which are not from here, only here for half of the year and as soon as they are finished go somewhere else. And by the way, the student city has an entertaining program which only exist of bad 80-popcharts disco pubs, where under 23 year old drinking alcopops until they spew up. A student city should offer something more exciting. (John Cleese was here during the semester break so he missed the “student life” and was fully exposed to the suicidal tendencies in Palmerston North.) But I think this is the problem with young, not slowly grown cities. There is no history, especially no common one between the people living here. And people usually don’t stay here for long (they mostly move away and don’t commit suicide) so there is not a big chance that this will change very soon. And the icons they choose for the city are pretty exclusive as well. I mean they exclude a lot of people. First there is that clock tower on the square (the square is a place in the center where retards driving their boyracer cars in circles and try to pick up similar retarded girls….they are mostly under 18 so they might grow out of it). While the tower itself might have an ugly fascination it is decorated with an illuminated cross. The illumination of that cross is a pure waste of energy, but more important it shouldn’t be there at all. The Square is a public place, a place for all citizens. So the dominating feature should not be something which only appeals to people with Christian beliefs. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mind crosses on top of churches but not in a public place/building. Another chosen icon are the windmills on the ranges. Unfortunately they are not in Palmy. That wasn’t very clever neither.

The newest one is a bird, the Pukeko. A bird I never saw in and around Palmy. But I never went bird watching.
Funny, on the nzbirds.com webpage they say:

“I have come to the conclusion that Pukeko are suicidal. I so often see them on the side of the road, dithering, darting backwards and forwards, looking for an opportunity to cross, only to come back later to see them squashed on the road. They seem to have no road sense at all. However, the ornithologist WRB Oliver had other ideas when he said, “The Pukeko is a bold and fearless bird. It has learned that trains and motorcars are harmless and takes no notice of them.”"

Well, why do I get nervous. The thing is, I like Palmy. I like the speed of life. I like the people here. Nobody is taken himselves too seriously (except at Uni as everybody thinks his subject, research blah blah is the most important). People are pretty down to earth. A lot of foreign cultures meet and connect here. Even this might be directly caused by the “nothing to do here”. The most positive thing you here about Palmy is : “It is pretty central so you can reach everything in 2h” (= ”I like it because it is easy to get away from it.”) But anyway, I am used to it now and everybody who lived here for a while does enjoy his or her time. I am just not sure why (people of Palmy, maybe you know why!).

I am nervous if I am not sure I can cope with the life in Europe anymore. I sure I can. But I am not sure if I want.

# posted by Schwelmo @ Thursday, March 16, 2006