sky

The OE is a joke isn't it, most kiwis go to London ... if they travel at all and they think that is what the whole country is like! London might as well be a different country to the rest of the UK it's so different.

southerner

Sky - thats b**locks!

Most kiwis I know are away for more than the standard 2 years when they do their OE, and most of those based in London put the locals to shame by how much they got out and saw the country, and the rest of Europe.

I will admit that there are a minority of kiwis who think their OE is solely the Church, Pamplona, Oktoberfest, Dublin and Paris for the rugby, Santorini and an African safari on the way home. Bit like a gap year, really. The poor b**gers haven't really enjoyed the pleasures of integrating into a new country (with all the attendant rewards and challenges )

turkeytickler

Quite right...

I met my wife in london whilst she was on her OE.... luckily since i was a provincial type of person we ended up living in Norwich and she got to see what the UK and Europe was actually like....most of her friends just did the london thing - although some took a coach tour to europe with a bunch of other aussies and kiwis and basically got to tick some boxes in terms of sites to have visited without ever really getting a feel for the culture of the place...

A few others got out of london. It is interesting to note that none of those that did so have returned yet - some are using ancestry rights to stay, others working illegally under the table..... none want to go back.... they found the real UK and made their own comparison.

There seems to be a few myths amongst the Kiwi OE crowd that through group ignorance remain unjustifiably intact;
- british beer is "warm and flat".... whilst this is true in some cases, it is no bad thing and given that the staple beer of NZ seems to be 4% dishwater with added sugar I hardly think they are in a position of authority to judge.
- fish and chips in the UK are rubbish - if like 90% of the OE crowd you order them from a chippie in Leicester square you might very well come to that conclusion. I have tried fish and chips in Paihia, Akaroa, Christchurch and Hokitika and on every occasion have wondered what all the fuss was about. Compare that to haddock in Scotland, Cod in Aldburgh or even the Cod at the "Golden Chips" in Norwich and they are in another league. Sorry - as long as you know where to go, in the UK the fish is fresher, the batter lighter and crispier and the chips tastier.
- british weather is somehow crap compared to nz. Now dont get me wrong, the weather in the UK is pretty crap but I am yet to see how the weather is any better in NZ - it is certainly different. NZ certainly gets more sunshine that the UK, but the air is a lot colder in NZ. The wind is incessant. I still have to heat my house in the mornings and its late spring/early summer for heavens sake. I have had 3 summers in NZ (nrth and sth) in previous visits and i have never been able to sit outside in the evening... without one of those gas burners (which incidentally pump out more emissions than an HGV - not good for 100% NZ hey?).

Whats my point... in the 4 years my wife and i were together in the UK I have had to put up with so much ignorant cadjoling about things like the above from kiwis - ie them being negative about the UK.

Now I am in a position to judge for myself, and given then we came here to stay i had a very good incentive to be open minded and for them to be right, i can categorically say they were talking out of their arses.....

If you want to see some real negativity - born mainly through ignorance and a dogma that is is metaphorically beaten in to every kiwi as they grow up that NZ is some kind of paradise - go spend some hours with the Kiwi expat crowd. The brits will seem tame by comparison i promise.

sky

I'd hardly say it was b*ll*cks, Im telling folk what I have come across here and what I've heard from kiwi's very own mouths too.

turkeytickler

odd that they nearly all congregate around Earls Court, Hammersmith and Shepards Bush though....

odd that they all drink and the various "walkabouts"....

very integrated.

sky

Yea they form these little kiwi expat gettos in the UK and huddle together

NZ Climber

That whole post was bang on the money, hence the karma telling you that it was bang on the money

And in reply to Southerner:

I lived in and travelled all over the UK for 28 years and with an extreme few notable exceptions, i've never encountered Aussies or Kiwis outside of London. Even doing touristy things. And you know what, the ones I did encounter were wandering around babbling about how beautiful the place was and how fantastic the history was. The ones in London were whining about the beer and the traffic and the fact that London is smelly and dirty and loud and full of way too many people who are all rude. Well of course it is, it's home to more people than live in the entirity of NZ, what did they expect? And as for the rudeness thing, they're absolutely right, people in London don't give you the time of day, it's sad but it's true. There are too many weirdos in London who'll kick your head in just for looking at you funny so it's a Londoners defence mechanism - don't meet anyone's eyes and don't say anything to anyone and you can't offend anyone.

scottish

and eat Vogel Bread....

southerner

like I said that's a minority.

In fact last I heard Earl's Court, Shepherds Bush etc were too expensive for the average kiwi. If you want to believe that all kiwis in the Uk are living in ghettos, thats fine. I was just putting just different info on the table.

turkeytickler

with NZ marmite.....

turkeytickler

if they are too expensive surely that backs up the ghetto claim?

uk+kiwi

I have found the opposite to be true.

Our kiwi friends that have been over here on the OE over the past 10 years have completely put us to shame with the amount of travel they do - lots of it to Europe admittedly (that is the UK's big attraction to kiwis of course) but also around the UK to places like York, Bath, Devon & Cornwall, Lake District, Scotland etc. Our last friend to leave and return back to NZ after 5 years here, did a 2 month stint in Italy to learn Italian before returning home with her young baby this time last year.

My hubbie works in London and employs a lot of Aussies & Kiwis on their 'year in the UK' and is always amazed at how much travel they do.

Carmen.

Batty

The fish is nicer here - the batter is not. IMO. I don't really like batter anyway - prefer the crumbed fish when I can get it and I DO think that's lovely. Although it's awfully small.

We live in Auckland and haven't had the fire lighting for a few weeks now, although we probably could have done on Saturday night because it was bloody freezing out (and in ) but we couldn't be bothered. Last night we had to have all the windows open because it was so warm. The weather at the moment seems to me to be very reminiscent of Ireland - summer one day, winter the next or even the same day

My Kiwi never lived in an Expat community - other than an English one - when we lived in The Netherlands. We went to a Kiwi pub once in 4 years when we lived in London. We haven't travelled all over - for most of the time we've been together we've had one or other of our fathers dying and only travelled to see them so we couldn't afford to travel anywhere else. Only when they were both gone did we actually get to go to Spain on a sun holiday - first one in 10 years. My hubby did actually work in a pub when we first went to London and there were lots of other Kiwis there and South Africans, Australians etc, etc. Most of them tried to get around and see other parts of the UK and Europe but of course there were always the few who drank all their money and couldn't go anywhere. But I saw that in The Netherlands too, with English and Irish friends. Makes no difference what nationality you are, it's the person you are that tells the tale.

I don't disagree with a lot of things that are said on here but I hate seeing stuff being quoted as 'fact' when actually it's only a person's own experience, whether that's good or bad.

turkeytickler

In my earlier post I was really talking about about 2 issues;
1. integration into society and exposure to the real UK/Europe
2. a culture of ignorance fed UK-bashing

My personal experience is that roughly 50% of all Kiwis i have met in the UK did not integrate or travel, the other 50% did - of those 50%, 100% of them have yet to even express a wish to return to NZ.

100% of the Kiwis I met endulged in the UK bashing, of those, the same 50% that integrated or travelled have now watered it down but not stopped completely with one exception, who now lives in east london, is dating a british guy, has a prodominantly international peer group and drinks real ale and guiness in preference to bland fizzy lager or keg beer any day.

Sugo

i agree with you turkey but its not just kiwis, i used to live in London when i worked at st georeges hospital, for a country boy found it amazing how few english people there were in south west london, seeing patients was fun cos often had to have interpreters in and had to work out which countries we had arrangements with to pay for health care. I did become to wonder if any english born peeps lived in london, so many tourists and overseas students. I dont really get the 'stay with your own crowd' thing.

The only kiwis i met out of london were through work and thats kinda different cos often they are sent there by an agency.

However here in wellington, i havnt come across any major UK bashing, the peeps at work have been asking me loads about the UK as they want to spend a few years there to work and live. I think new zealanders have a greater drive to see the rest of the world than we do in the UK. The size of the country and its isolated location seem to make the people feel the need to travel which is excellent. My kiwi mates here have all been to london a few have seen more on england than i have. Im not sure if they are unusual or not. But during my time in London people really didnt mix that much, and london is such an international city now its not like the real england anyway.

i do feel though that new zealand has a chip on its shoulder. The people feel inadequete because of the size of the population and its isolation, and there is nothing worse for a kiwi to hear than 'in england we did it like this'. I can understand why people feel that way, new zealand has a very short history and they are still coming out of the shadow of imperial britain, this is not a put down for kiwis, its just my opinion. I would advise anyone coming to new zealand not to put people or processes down whilst theyre here, especially at work. We had an American guy at work who p*ssed off everyone cos he kept saying how backward NZ is compaired to the US and how wonderful US nurses were. He didnt last long in his job and rightly so, he even p*ssed me off. Any ribbing i get about being a whinging pom is more humour than people being unpleasant, and i kinda play on it a little at work its kinda fun. Ive heard australians are more in your face patriotic and are very negative to poms.
Nice to see some constructive discussion for a change backed up by personal experience