An illustration by MK Templer of a bus exchange/station.
Illustrations by MK Templer.

The Sunday EssayMay 28, 2023

The Sunday Essay: The original Christchurch bus exchange

An illustration by MK Templer of a bus exchange/station.
Illustrations by MK Templer.

Teenage memories so often populate one place. For Sharon Lam, it was the original bus exchange on the corner of Colombo and Lichfield Street.

The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.

Original illustrations by MK Templer.

Once upon a time, before earthquakes and racism became Christchurch’s more prominent correlations, there was a Christchurch that was simply the place I lived and nothing else. The worst thing to have happened to the city in its recent history was not a terrorist attack or a natural disaster but Bunnings sausage sizzle prices going up from $1 to $1.50. These were the days of MSN and Nokia phones, Urban Angel and hot pink Supre tote bags – the years 2007 to 2011 – the perfect time for the city’s life and my own life to overlap.

I had a very wholesome time as a teenager in Christchurch. My equally wholesome friends and I eventually graduated from going to Riccarton Mall to going into town, where we scoped out new things to do. This mainly meant finding new places to sit without paying, or paying very little. We would have picnics in Hagley Park, film stupid videos in the Canterbury museum and people watch in Cathedral Square. We had no problem passing time, boredom was something that didn’t exist yet. When it was hot enough, we would head out further to the beach at Sumner. Staring out to the sea, we’d eat ice cream and talk as the sun slid across the sky, our hopes for the future and opinions of Matt’s new haircut having equal weight. 

There was a place common to all of these outings, bookends to each lazy weekend. It’s the place that I still think of first when someone mentions Christchurch. A place that unlike Hagley Park, Sumner beach, or the Canterbury museum, is no longer around. It’s the original bus exchange on the corner of Colombo and Lichfield Street.

Since we couldn’t drive, my friends and I would always take the bus to get to and from town. Meeting up with everyone else before heading into the city on foot, or to pile on to a new bus out to the beach, was an essential part of the journey, a mini-outing in itself. Apply this to every group of teenagers getting across the city, and you can begin to imagine the life that teemed in the original bus exchange. It was the unplanned heart of the city, a place that was always popping, day and night.

Design-wise, there was nothing special about it. The bus exchange wasn’t really a standalone affair, more of a sandwiched form between and inside some other nondescript buildings. It was two-storied, with a food court on the top, a main waiting area on the ground floor, and a smaller waiting room by the Colombo Street bus stops. This on-street waiting space was the most creatively ambitious aspect of the exchange. It had become quite dark and dingy, but it was obvious that it was once someone’s hopeful attempt at modernity. Their vision: curved walls of softly lit semi-opaque white panels, and rainbow-coloured plastic blobs for furniture. With a good scrub and more light, the room could have been the backdrop to any 2000s music video. 

Of the less exciting main waiting area, I remember non-descript blue carpet and rows of laminated MDF chairs shaped like this:

Along these rows sat old women with Ballantynes bags, young people in hoodies, young people in public school uniforms, young people in private school uniforms, unhoused people, lone dads in fleece, skateboarders, fast food employees, your hairdresser, your maths teacher, your mum’s friend from church. Everyone. People also sat on the floor – there was a rather permanent circle of Unlimited (an independent high school) kids who were usually found on the second floor. We never spoke to them, but would walk past with curiosity. In their perpetual mufti, they represented a whole different way of living. 

Ambience at the bus exchange was largely provided by teenagers playing music from their cell phones – Sean Kingston, My Chemical Romance, and Crazy Frog by way of a Youtube to MP3 converter. TV screens with bright blue backgrounds and bright yellow text were dotted across the two floors, fortuitously telling of the comings and goings of all the buses in the area. They were important messengers – revealing who would have to wait for their bus the longest and on their own. Smells from the adjoining food court would enter into the space, accented by people who had brought their KFC snack boxes downstairs to eat in the open. People would be talking to their friends, or on the phone, singing along to aforementioned cell phone music, or be the occasional yeller. It was a cobbling together of mild sensory attacks. It sounds absolutely disgusting now but to a wide-eyed, Cool Charm-scented teenager, it was the centre of the world. 

A SELECTION OF MEMORIES

1. A group of about 20 of us head out to Sumner, a trip for the international exchange students from Argentina, Germany, Thailand and Japan. It’s an endless day, the water is warm, no bad thoughts exist in our company, the sun is a giant golden disc, etc. As night falls we return to the exchange. Unwilling to go home we linger on the floor, talking, laughing and singing along to a guitar strum by one of the Argentines until the last buses of the night.

2. We strike up a conversation with a group of unknown boys in the row in front of us. We have all just watched a set of Smokefree Rockquest heats. They turn around in their seats, cute and talkative. We “discuss music” and feel like we’re on the brink of a new world. There are only a few months of high school left. On Monday, the boys at our own school appear even more boring than usual.

3. Two of us take the bus into town at lunch, our free period giving us two hours off. The exchange is calmer than on the weekend and we feel like we’re bunking. We find a small cafe down a brick alley that we’ve never come across before and share cake and cappuccinos, like adults, we supposed. It’s just us, town is quiet, things feel like they’re just around the corner, and we’re right.

In 2011, I moved to Dunedin for university and went from obliviously annoying high school student to obliviously annoying first year. The February 22 earthquake hit a few hours before the toga party. The projector screen in the dining hall was pulled down to play the news on loop, and we watched the helicopter shots of the cathedral rubble as we ate yoghurt. The kitchen staff told us it would line our stomachs against alcohol. Christchurch already felt a world away.

The original bus exchange was eventually demolished. The new one opened in 2015, located on the other side of Lichfield Street. With its huge fuckoff roof, huge windows and composite wood panels, the new bus exchange was – for better or for worse – an instant poster child for contemporary New Zealand architecture. What was definite was that it was completely different from its predecessor.

The first time I visited the new bus exchange in person, sometime in 2016, I was struck by how empty it was. The new layout saw people peel off into little nodes to wait for their bus, whereas the old layout had everyone sitting together in a big chunk in the middle, and the buses would arrive around the big communal chunk. The result was that the few people that were there when I visited were all seated apart from each other in a space too vast for connection.

The floor inside was concrete – like its exterior, on trend. It also added a cold echo to an already cold automated voice-over, which on my visit was the main source of noise. I kept thinking of the old occupants and activities that were missing, and not liking the new building at all. But it was 2016 now, no one was playing music on their cell phones in the Christchurch bus exchange because no one was doing that anywhere. The old women with Ballantynes bags were either dead or in Merivale, the dads in fleece relocated to offices in Addington. And besides, there wasn’t the same draw to the city yet. Shops and businesses hadn’t recovered and reopened at this point – there weren’t enough places to attract the same number of people. 

I paid a fare almost double what I paid before the quake to get the bus back to my parents’ house and it felt true that things had changed. I’d already grown distant from the friends I used to meet up with every weekend. We had nothing in common any more and Matt’s haircut was no longer enough to sustain us. Earthquake or no earthquake, the Christchurch I like to remember the most was never meant to last beyond high school. It is a Christchurch completely coloured by nostalgia, unattainable not just because the physical markers are gone but because it can only exist in the past. Maybe there are teenagers today who are fusing their own memories with the new bus exchange. They’ll return years later to the clean, smooth, building, and wonder if the seats had always looked like that, if it had always been this dim, and how they as a person had once enjoyed this place.

This essay is set to appear in the forthcoming collection, Ōtautahi Explorations (Freerange Press).

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SocietyMay 21, 2023

The Sunday Essay: Learning to embrace the silver vixen

Sunday-Essay-Adele-Jackson-Silver-Vixen-Feature-Image.jpg

I always thought I’d approach ageing with grace and style. Then it actually started happening.

The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.

Original illustrations by Adele Jackson.


It all starts with a solitary white pube and a string of expletives thrown to the wind. 

I’m in my mid twenties and have never stopped to consider that my hair would be anything but mousy brown. I pray to the universe that this albino short and curly is an anomaly, a momentary brain fart by the pigmentation in my follicles. But a couple more appear down below and after the arrival of the first grey on my head (proving that in my case the carpet does match the curtains), I realise it’s actually a sinister warning of things to come.

Almost two decades later and I can still get away with calling myself a brunette from a distance, but the closer you get, the more ashen my hair appears, with that classic concentration of whitening at the temples. It’s not that I’m going grey particularly early – at 43 I’m only a little ahead of the curve – I’m just an average middle aged woman facing the changing appearance that comes with ageing and figuring out how to handle it. I had always assumed that women with grey hair just gave zero fucks, but for me it has actually been quite a journey of unprecedented vanity and ongoing self acceptance. In other words, I give many fucks.

Those early greys seem to come out of nowhere, standing to attention like single meerkats on lookout from the top of my crown. My instant reaction is to annihilate each lonely imposter with a quick twizzing of the tweezers, but this gradually evolves into more serious weeding sessions as I systematically search for the little buggers, ripping out multiple hairs at a time. I am experienced at this art of extraction, having serviced my mother’s head in the same way when I was a teenager, triumphantly lining the offending whites on the armrest of the couch for her to inspect. She put an end to this ritual when I pulled out 20 in one sitting, and I make the same call when they start arriving on my head in droves.

By not culling them in their infancy, the silver hairs grow into long spidery strands frizzing up from my scalp at strange angles. It is confronting to also find these alien threads elsewhere around the house – wedged between the teeth of a hairbrush, lurking in stark contrast on the backs of black t-shirts, or on one particularly memorable occasion, pulled disdainfully out of my daughter’s lasagne with thumb and forefinger.  When held up to the light they have a totally different quality to the dull browns I was born with – more delicate and wavy, and almost luminous in the way they reflect the light. If I didn’t hate them so much I might even call them beautiful.

I’m probably just fulfilling my genetic destiny with the melanin-weak chromosomes passed onto me by my dad, but it really feels like the stress of Covid accelerates the whitening of my hair. When I catch glimpses of a greying woman in shop windows, it takes some mental adjustment to update the image I carry around of myself in my head. I begin to obsess about hair colour and notice that while there’s a generous measure of salt and pepper on the heads of the men my age, the locks on my female cohort remain largely unseasoned. I realise how many women must dye their hair, casualties of western society’s bullshit beauty standards and our collective desire to cling to youth.

I had always planned to continue my low maintenance approach to my appearance and just accept the white slowly creeping in, but a night out with my older siblings changes that. In a group photo I’m horrified to see that despite being the baby, I’m the only one with noticeably greying hair and therefore look the oldest. This really messes with my head and on my next trip to the supermarket I find myself adding a non-permanent dye to the trolley.

The plastic gloves and chemical stench bring me back to my teenage years, but while the platinum blonde phase and blue fudge stripes felt like thrilling dabbles in self expression, this experiment has the opposite vibe – a cover up job and a direct assault on the authenticity I have always valued.  Afterwards, I’m not even that pleased with the results. The blanket coverage has stolen my natural highlights and the chocolate brown is a couple of shades too dark for my pale complexion. I may look slightly younger at a glance but it’s not necessarily an improvement. Unfortunately the dye doesn’t do what it promised on the box and instead of washing out in 28 shampoos, I find myself with ugly regrowth and caught in the pickle of having to touch it up every six weeks.  

The Instagram algorithms do their thing and my feed becomes overrun with influencers in the grey positivity movement, documenting dramatic transformations from dark to light as they grow out their roots. While I admire these stunning strangers for rewriting the narrative on beauty and ageing, I don’t connect with their perfectly made up faces, well-coiffed tresses and duck-faced selfies. Funnily enough I can’t find any accounts celebrating the gradual greying of slightly dishevelled tomboys like me. But the very presence of the hash tags #ditchthedye and #silverandfree must resonate on some level.

When we head into what would become the mother of all lockdowns, the hair dye chore is the very first thing to go. By the time normal life resumes and I am regularly back around other humans, the most painful part of growing my hair out is over. But still I keep flip flopping between wanting to stay au naturale and trying another approach.  On the one hand I strongly believe that women should be allowed to age, but on the other I’m not immune to society’s pressure and want to look vaguely attractive for as long as possible. Assuming that going grey will turn me into a minger is such a disservice to all the gorgeous wāhine out there who look amazing not in spite of the whites but because of them, and while I can honestly say that the natural look doesn’t rob them of their beauty, I can’t seem to afford myself that same kindness.

I spend some time in front of the mirror with my harsh inner critic, zeroing in on the freckles that seem to fatten with age, and the twice-broken nose and crooked teeth that never bothered me in my youth but look decidedly witchy underneath the grizzle of grey. I consider professional highlights to camouflage rather than cover, but can’t imagine being chained to regular, long and expensive appointments at the salon. I stall, and in the meantime experiment with wearing my hair down, styling it craftily in a desperate attempt to hide the worst.

When I start receiving unsolicited comments about my hair I realise I’m no longer getting away with it. The self doubt really creeps in and I seek external validation from my female friends about what they think of my emerging look. They all make supportive noises and the handful that have chosen to go the natural route encourage me to continue. But the overwhelming consensus is that while most would love to embrace the greys, they don’t have the guts to do it. 

When I ask my husband if he’ll still find me bangable with grey hair he retorts that I’m barely bangable now, the twinkle in his eye and the memory of this morning’s tangle beneath the sheets letting him get away with such cheek. Pete and I are going grey at about the same rate, but while I have been agonising over it, he has simply shrugged it off as no big deal.

I’m lamenting the inconsistency of women being labelled “old hags” while men are celebrated as “silver foxes” when my daughter points out the most remarkable thing – that I am actually becoming a “silver vixen”.  A SILVER VIXEN!!! I absolutely adore her fresh perspective, totally unencumbered by societal pressure. To me the word “vixen” has connotations of power, sass and sexuality, so this throwaway comment sticks, reframing the way I see my hair. 

Then it’s back to the mirror, but this time I try to cut out all the noise and look at myself through a lens of kindness. It’s not easy to undo the brainwashing of a lifetime, but with an objective gaze I’m able to see that the lighter tone framing my face actually softens the deepening wrinkles and even accentuates the blue of my eyes.  I try to convince myself that maybe I don’t actually look that much older; maybe I just look like me with different coloured hair.

But therein lies the trap. I’m still worried about ageing, as if that is something to be ashamed of when the alternative is far, far worse. There is no denying that I am into my fifth decade and have the stories and scars to prove it. I wouldn’t want to go back to being 18 or 32 anyway, so it seems strange to desire an aesthetic that doesn’t represent me and my journey through this life. I really need to stop apologising for who I have become. 

My self-confidence is still pretty shaky so I start putting more effort into my appearance, taking time to glam up before going out. I experiment with make-up, switch my jeans for dresses and accessorise with cute jewellery. Before a friend’s birthday, I do the unthinkable, pinning my hair back in a way that shows off the glitter in all its glory. I think I look quite beautiful, and it feels amazing to rock those white wisps with pride. I reject the notion that women going grey are giving up, hell I’m only just beginning to try! 

Emboldened, by these small attitude shifts, I think I might be ready to embrace the grey once and for all. My future life flashes before my eyes.  Can I handle bumping into an old high school crush with grey hair? They’ll be the same age as me so… I THINK SO. Can I face hip young colleagues on a new freelance gig with grey hair? Hopefully they’ll respect my “experience” so… YES. Can I still wear rainbow jumpers and bunny tees with grey hair? The fashion blog “Advanced Style” taught me that you’re never too old to express yourself through your clothes so… FUCK YEAH! 

Letting go feels like an act of rebellion, way more of a middle finger to society than the facial piercings of my teens and the tattoo of my twenties. This new bad-ass approach to ageing also comes with a sense that this is bigger than me, that I am being the change I want to see in the world.

I’m still in the early stage of the long slow reveal that is my evolving hair colour, and far from earning the aspirational title of “silver vixen”, but I’m definitely heading in the right direction. I could easily lose my nerve at any stage of the journey, but right now the only dye I plan to reach for is the appropriately named “Denim Destiny”, because I reckon that future me could really rock a blue rinse.

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