BEVS

Good article BB.

Much nicer than the usual articles on this subject.

bourbon-biscuit

That'll be cos the site is the result of her masters study into the experiences of returning Kiwis; it's not about persuading folk to do stuff.

Lots of people here don't give a toss about rugby or yachting, what B celebs (or even A celebs) are doing. Plenty of people here find the media frustrating and politics banal, and ime the sorts of people who are obsessed with house prices are first time buyers and property developers the world over (defo not Kiwi specific) and plenty of people here aren't socially backwards or racists. You sound a bit narrow minded and parochial (verging on sinister with your use of 'you/your' at the end of your rant) in your damning assessment of a whole population ...

Snap Shot

I didn't really want to read it but I did anyway. Curiosity I suppose. I skim read it because it was boring. OK, some of the comments are fair enough but mostly I just wanted to throw up into the nearest bucket.

The writer of the article is just so PLEASED with themselves ! Must be an Aucklander.

Catchafire

You wanted to throw up? Really.

If you substituted "New Zealand" for "UK" would you still feel the same way?

ExKiwilass

"Tip: Don’t irritate your friends by comparing the world.

Nothing is more annoying than someone comparing everything to some other nirvana. Just because Hulu isn’t in New Zealand doesn’t mean New Zealand is a backwater. Johnny (CH/USA)"

HAHAHAHA.

And yes, NZ is a backwater. Can we all stop pretending it isn't, please.

ExKiwilass

+1.

bourbon-biscuit

I just posted the link to be useful to potential returning Kiwis- if it's not useful to you, you can always just jog on. FWIW, the site is a splinter off from her masters level study, and written with a genuine desire to help Kiwis returning, so all of you feeling smug with a few paragraphs of bias rant on an anonymous forum look kind of a bit pathetic.

Catchafire

Personally, I am getting sick and tired of of posters who for whatever reason have lived in New Zealand, did not like it and now feel that they have to insert clouds into every silver lining. I am sure your life in Canada is so amazing! That I fail to understand that you feel you have to constantly pop back to this branch with snide remarks.

Give over now.

ExKiwilass

But is a backwater. Why is that snide?

I like to pop in here occasionally to support those who are having a hard time - a lot of the time, I think their comments deserve support because they are true and I've experienced them myself, and have 23 years of history to prove it. I don't care if you think that's inserting a cloud, or whatever. It's not just about you and supporting your version of reality.

ExKiwilass

I don't feel smug, it just made me laugh because the comment so pefectly illustrated what PUrr and I were talking about on the other thread - that Kiwis can't take criticism. Oh, the irony.

I"m totally ok with being pathetic

Purrball

Parochial? You mean like the times, all over the country, I was insulted and patronised for being a Brit, until I told people I was a Kiwi? Like the time I was told that all Kiwi expats should have their passports removed after five years? Like the times I was told that New Zealand was the best country in the world from people who had never travelled? Narrow-minded? Like looking at the knitted golly-wogs in the shops, being turned away with friends from bars, and having to sit through insufferable and judgemental conversations about Maoris? There's so much more I could write about, but without revealing too much more about myself, it's difficult to express some of what I faced at times.

Parochial, narrow-minded; you keep using these words, but I do not think they mean what you think they mean. Besides, practicing a level of reading comprehension, as I was extremely careful to stress, I did say that the problem lies with me, in that my expectations of what constitutes an interesting and welcome place to live had changed. Events and the way many people behaved, events and conversations I once wouldn't have thought of as strange were, to my eyes, now tremendously off-putting.

This is what happens when you leave your home country, not for some fling of an OE of two years, or an extended stay somewhere else for five or six years... but leaving and not returning for almost 25 years, at which point the only ties that remain are those of family and friends and the places you used to go.

Furthermore, not only did I read the article, I listened to the linked Radio New Zealand interview... in which the writer and the interviewer did discuss at some length the almost universal resistance that returning expats faced, resistance to their overseas work experience and methods, resistance to their different expectations in many areas of living... and these mirror the same conversations I've had with many other Kiwi long-term expat friends I have here in the UK about the prospect of ever returning for good.

So, it's not like I've plucked my feelings about the place from thin air.



Where you read 'sinister' and 'whole population', perhaps you could read where I said 'many'... and then consider that I'm encapsulating weeks of travelling around, striking up conversations with Kiwis left right and centre, all over the country, from city to farms. And listening, boy did I listen. And I'm fairly careful in what I say and write.



That doesn't particularly bother me. What are 'anonymous forums' for, if not expressing your views? And yes, we're all biased, everyone's views are subjective — the trick is to understand why and how people have come to their positions and to pull out any elements of what they're saying for relevance.

The most important thing about that article and the interview, if you stop to really think about it, is that it's felt necessary to give warnings and advice to returning Kiwi expats and to emphasise the nature and depth of culture shock... which says to me, that if you've been away for a long period of time, you're going to find the place a bit of a struggle at times.



Sorry. I don't see any mention in the forum rules where everyone is required to be upbeat and positive about New Zealand.

What's more, this thread is specifically about returning Kiwi expats, a subject where you're going to get a range of opinions, particularly as expats have chosen, at one point or another, to leave New Zealand and not return for some considerable time. Understandably, people like this are going to view their home country with a range of perspectives, not all of them flattering, just as many British expats would, without needing much encouragement, have a go at what they dislike about the UK. And that's OK! Or it should be...

I would like to think that most people here are balanced and thick-skinned enough to not assume that criticism of any country and broad general statements of their experiences are not meant as a personal criticism towards individuals, unless offence is deliberately taken and heightened as an overly emotional and underhanded method of shutting down individuals and conversation.

In closing: let me make this clear. I've got a lot of love and affection for New Zealand. Had the biggest grin on my face when I was walking on the beach in bare feet: no glass, no dog crap, no condoms. Love many things about the country and just recently, posted that I wished I could return more often, love many of my friends over there and the things we did together, things that aren't as easy to do in the UK for instance, but as a cold-hearted proposition, as a hugely vast financial decision to return and actually live and work there, then the bad needs to be weighed with the good, especially given its isolation, where leaving the country again becomes expensive and impractical. Most of us know that if we return to New Zealand, it'll be for good and that we'll be there to see out our days...

...and who knows New Zealand — warts and all — as well as Kiwis do?

Catchafire

Yes it is ironic, because you do not seem to understand the irony is on you.

There are plenty of threads for you and others to express your opinions. As you have done in spades. But it seems odd that Kiwis who have no desire to return "home", some you have not been here for 20+ years, yet have a seem to have a "finger on the pulse" of what life is like for us poor deluded expats.

Thanks BB for the article, but I do not think this thread is going anywhere.

Thread closed.