What about the Kiwi Twist?

I write contemporary Christian romance with a Kiwi twist. I’ve defined contemporary romance. I’ve attempted to define Christian fiction (and therefore Christian romance). But what about the Kiwi twist?

First we need to clear up a more important question: what is a kiwi?

Hint: it’s not this:

This is a kiwifruit, previously called a Chinese gooseberry. It’s not actually a gooseberry, but it got that name after Mabel Fraser brought some seeds back from China, Alexander Allison cultivated them, and people thought it had a gooseberry flavour. Hence, Chinese gooseberry (although the Chinese called it yang tao).

We renamed it ‘kiwifruit’ when we started exporting to the US in the late 1950’s because of anti-Chinese sentiment during the Cold War. Several names were suggested, but kiwifruit stuck because the furry brown fruit reminds us of our national bird, the kiwi, also small, brown and furry:

It’s also the colloquial name we call ourselves as a people. We’re Kiwis, and proud of it.

Being a Kiwi has certain responsibilities. We’re required to love rugby and cricket (and never admit if we don’t). We’re supposed to love the beach and the outdoors—not difficult. As an island nation, most of us live within an hour’s drive from the beach, whether it’s the mighty Pacific Ocean, the calmer Tasman Sea, or my own slice of paradise, the Bay of Plenty (named by Captain Cook, because it was and is a land of plenty).

I grew up in rural New Zealand, in a bicultural community where most of the families were involved in primary industry (mostly farmers and orchardists). It was a simpler time: a shared telephone line and only one television channel meant we played outside until it was time to come in for dinner. We ran barefoot, cycled in the road and didn’t wear cycle helmets. We disappeared for hours down to the creek or (later) to the beach.

We’re world leaders in dairy and kiwifruit production (although our lamb and wool production is right down. We now have only six sheep for every person, down from twenty in the 1980’s). We have an almost-free health system that’s the envy of many (and we still moan when the government raises the fee for prescription medicine to $5 per item). We don’t have the right to bear arms, but someone still goes on the rampage with a gun and murders half a dozen people once every ten years, although, we’ve never had a school shooting.

It sounds idyllic.

But New Zealand is a post-Christian society. Going to church on Sunday is a minority activity, and Sunday morning has long since been taken over by children’s sport and café brunches. Prostitution is legal, and advertised in the entertainment section of the local newspaper, right beside the movies and the Garfield cartoon. We’re world leaders in enviable statistics such as teenage pregnancy.

Yay.

Like many Kiwis, I haven’t just lived in New Zealand. I spend ten years living in London, where I worked in an office with people from all over Europe and Africa (and the occasional Australian). Some were Christians; most weren’t. All had different perspectives on life that have contributed to my own views, to a greater or lesser extent.

We’ve also travelled extensively, both as a couple and as a family. At last count, I’ve visited twenty countries (more, if you count Monaco, the Vatican, Luxembourg and Lichtenstein). And I’ve visited twenty US states . . . although I admit one was a drive-through where I didn’t get out of the car. I’ve met people on their own ground, talked to them about life, about faith. And learned.

These experiences combine to form a world view that’s wider than the tiny rural towns and non-Christian family I grew up in. It’s a world view that’s uniquely Kiwi: we are a young nation, a travelling nation, a nation of immigrants. A post-Christian nation. A nation of individuals who love sport and the outdoors. And a few strange people who love God. And books. Books which show God.

And that’s the Kiwi twist I hope to bring to my fiction. A slice of Kiwi life drizzled with a dash of humour and infused with a global Christian world view.