New Zealand Culture Quiz — 7 Free Questions

Question 1

Which annual Wellington stage show, begun near Nelson in 1987, features garments and sculptures worn by performers under theatrical lighting?

Question 2

Which director, who began with low-budget splatter comedies made near Wellington, filmed The Lord of the Rings trilogy entirely in New Zealand?

Question 3

Which middle-distance runner, coached by Arthur Lydiard in Auckland, won three Olympic gold medals across the 1960 and 1964 Games?

Question 4

Which New Zealand mountaineer and beekeeper, together with Tenzing Norgay, made the first confirmed ascent of Mount Everest in 1953?

Question 5

Which Maori concept refers to a person's or group's standing, authority and prestige, which can be enhanced or diminished by their actions and those of others?

Question 6

Which novelist's three-part autobiography, beginning with To the Is-Land, was filmed by Jane Campion as An Angel at My Table?

Question 7

For which film, set among settlers on a wild New Zealand coast, did Jane Campion become the first woman to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes?

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About New Zealand Culture

How well do you know the culture of New Zealand, or Aotearoa -- the food, the slang, the holidays, the sport, the music and film, and the customs of Maori as the first people of the land? This quiz has one hundred and ten questions in five packs of twenty-two, written the way people search: why are New Zealanders called Kiwis, what is a bach, which dessert is named after a ballerina, what is the haka, who won the Booker Prize for The Luminaries, who was first up Everest.

The answer is always one of four choices of the same kind, and the question never gives it away. A short note after each answer adds the background -- a date, a place, a name, a story.

The first pack covers national identity and everyday life: the kiwi bird and the silver fern, the anthem and Waitangi Day and Anzac Day, pavlova and hokey pokey and L&P, jandals and togs and the bach, and the slang of sweet as and yeah nah. The second pack is Maori culture: the marae and the powhiri and the hongi, waka and ta moko and hangi and poi, mana and tapu, iwi and hapu and whanau, the King movement, Matariki, and the values of manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga. The third pack is the arts: Katherine Mansfield and Janet Frame, Keri Hulme and Eleanor Catton, Peter Jackson and Jane Campion and Taika Waititi, Crowded House and Lorde and Poi E, and the painters McCahon and Angus.

The fourth pack is sport and the outdoors: rugby and the All Blacks and the Ranfurly Shield, netball and cricket and league, Edmund Hillary and the America's Cup and Peter Blake, the runners Lovelock and Snell, Lisa Carrington and Valerie Adams, and the invented thrills of bungy, zorbing and the jet boat. The fifth pack covers founding stories and food: the Treaty of Waitangi, Kate Sheppard and the vote, Apirana Ngata, number 8 wire and Godzone and tall poppy syndrome, the pohutukawa and a summer Christmas, the Edmonds Cookery Book, Anzac biscuits, cheese rolls, kumara and whitebait, and Shortland Street.

About a fifth of the questions carry a photograph tied to the subject of the question, chosen so it does not reveal the answer. Every fact has been checked.