Postcards from New Zealand: Day Six

Today we drove out to Manukau City, on the southern fringes of Auckland, for Polyfest. The Polynesian teens here are super styled out and remind me a little of the thuggy gay boys you see in New York's West Village weekend nights: half rapper's delight, half skater punk, with hipster flourishes here and there. My favorite look, rather popular among the young men, was the knee-length wrap-around skirt of traditional fabric with a Christian school uniform shirt, blazer, and tie, Maori fish hook hanging out of the Windsor knot, and a Sonic the Hedgehog-style haircut. The missionaries, it seems, were quite successful in leaving their mark. Aldo and I were chastised by a security guard for dancing too suggestively "in front of the children," a pack of hormone-crazed teens who had, unbeknownst to me, been watching us and giggling.