The New Zealand Experience – ARD PBS

ARD’s Sandra Ratzo wants to know why New Zealanders are generally happier than New Zealanders – and she comes to the following conclusion: It’s learned in time, not coerced. And pay more attention to people.

Why are people in New Zealand more balanced, satisfied and happy than they are in this country? ARD correspondent Sandra Razzo (NDR) posits that this is the basis for her travel impressions of Down Under. It is her certainly justified personal impression, and in Weltspiegel Doku: The New Zealand Experience – What Makes Us Humans Happy she wanted to know why this is so and whether we Germans (very capable and angry) could learn something from it.

It is impressions and spontaneous interviews that she collected together in her travel report. She is happy to identify herself as a stressed-out reporter and mother of three. You listen intently as the locals talk about work-life balance: Does the workday always have to be busy? Locals are content with fewer daily hours and get together at the grill from five and then go to bed (watch out!). Living healthier, perhaps this is the motto under which everything can fall.

It starts as early as kindergarten: we learn carefully, in an informal and somehow playful group work with gentle teaching methods. Babies grow up to be more relaxed later on, with less stress. Getting out into nature is the motto – climbing, swimming and skiing. Outdoor education is a regular subject in ninth grade, not just sporadically as a corporate identity for adults like us. Jumping into the cold water helps reinvent yourself.

Focus on what we have

Do New Zealanders live in a bubble? Perhaps even in a pseudo-idyllic poem, asks the ARD correspondent? She likes to contribute a lot herself. Summer break messaging style: Get personal, give your personal impressions – and do it just like the ‘New Zealanders’ without the pressure. Maori meeting is sometimes glorified as a model. Touching noses and foreheads is common, as is the wild seal dance, which we are particularly familiar with from rugby. And then the Prime Minister comes and has some nice words with us. Ah, New Zealand, the land of dreams!

So what do we learn? – More calm please – and not so much stress all the time. Maybe four days a week would suffice for the same salary. Above all, more satisfaction. Focus on what we have, not what we lack. And care a lot about others. So it becomes more of a lesson for what we lack than an adoration of the dream hideaway below. That’s fine, that’s right. The subtitle “What Makes Us Humans Happy” ultimately gives the movie a lot more justice than “The New Zealand Experience”, which sounds way too loud. The film can also be viewed at the ARD media library.

Weltspiegel Documentary: The New Zealand Experience – Monday 28.08. Homeland: 10:50 pm