The big ‘OE’

Abstract

‘OE’ stands for ‘overseas experience,’ a cultural institution in New Zealand. This rite of passage for young adults is an extended journey overseas. While little examined in academia, OE is clearly understood in everyday life, and well documented in fiction and in literary biographies. The journey is a quest or pilgrimage from one of the world’s most remote countries, to the places familiar in national and family histories, popular media, and in tales from previous OE travellers. This article identifies these young travellers as ‘secular pilgrims’, as they re-enact familiar rituals of departure, arrival and return. Parallels are drawn with the work of Coleman and Elsner on religious pilgrimages. The New Zealanders are undertaking a rite of passage, a ritual, a journey with metaphorical resonances, and while doing so they are collecting narratives of adventure and returning with tokens of place. Their low budgets test the acclaimed national characteristics of independence and initiative. National difference is reflected upon: from a distance myths of place - home - intensify. The return home provides an audience for travel narratives. A rite of passage has been achieved.