Nerine

What you say is true, our kids have an interest in the fauna but I wouldn't say it was the focus of their lives. Finding a whitetail, large preying mantis or weta can still stop them in their tracks but once they've seen one cabbage tree or tree fern they've seen them all. The only kiwis have been in zoos.

Of all the things they have loved about NZ I think the things that they will remember most when we leave are -
The friends they've made
The pets they will have to leave behind
Holidays we've taken whilst here

As an older teen I remember wanting to change the world and feeling that anything was possible, I doubt that NZ is the right place to have such dreams.

I never want them to accept the limitations here, they need to want to solve those problems.

NZ has a high rates for teenage suicides, pregnancy and drug abuse. It's not hard to see why.

The Weezer

I believe there are many tree ferns in Australia, too. And some truly remarkable trees, like the Illiwarra flame tree. Australia has quite a lot to offer young naturalists. I spotted an Illiwarra on a very industrial steet in Otahuhu the other day! Looked it up, it is native to Australia.

I wonder where a young teenager, becoming interested in world events,
current trends, literature, philosphy, art, etc... How are these interests
in NZ satisified? You cannot easily get a copy of a good newspaper, if at all, and by this I mean something to the standard of the London Times, Times Literary Supplement, New York Times... You'd have to
be glued to the computer! The libraries are usually very small, and there
are not many bookstores, comparatively. And books are very, very
expensive! And I won't even bring up the museums...

I remember my first week in NZ, when I was just visiting, and after a
few days desperate for a good read, finding out after spending hours
scouring downtown Auckland looking for a New York Times, that it is not
available anywhere, or at least no one I asked Knew where to get one.
And I tried all the large hotels. I do believe foreign papers are available,
but they are very outdated and prohibitively expensive.

Apple12

It is a shame that you have been living where you do and haven't lived somewhere that more suited your interest.
Of course there is a different focus, you are living in a small country of 4 million people in the bottom of the south pacific. If you want the cosmopolitan life that you speak of, why are you living in NZ and not New York or London. If the world was the same all over, then there would be no point in emigrating.
It is not NZ's fault that you do not find these things, I suspect that you haven't had a good look to see what NZ can offer as an alternative. It sounds like you would have had a very different experience of NZ if you had have lived in ChCh for example. The libraries here are just fantastic, magazines and papers from all over the world, brand new branch libraries. A good library is the first thing I search out when I live somewhere new, and I have been very imnpressed with what is on offer here. And then there is the hiking available in the mountains which you said was something else you were missing.
Horses for courses, and after reading your posts for a wee while, I have to wonder why you haven't moved on to find somwhere more to your taste.

PS Nerine, just in reply to your comment about students wanting to experience life overseas... this is a normal kiwi life experience, so normal that it has had its own expression for generations "OE" overseas experience. Many kiwi kids decide to live overseas for a while, often as part of a working holiday visa to the UK or EU or Canada. This is nothing sinister, just a recognition that NZ is a small island in the South Pacific, that there is a big wide world out there. What is interesting is to ask around your workplace to see how many of your workmates have done an OE, and why they returned to NZ. Just a normal kiwi thing to do, and a good proportion return home to NZ when it is time to settle down and have a family.

Apple12

Now I know you are living in a different country to me. Good grief, take some leave, get on a plane, hire a car and explore the world in my back yard. A quick trip over Arthurs Pass to the West Coast should dispel this myth fairly quickly.

Nerine

It is difficult for them to get an true perspective on world events. We don't have a daily newspaper delivered because the only halfway acceptable one (NZ Herald) has a few pages devoted to World News but a whole wodge of them dedicated to New Zealand events. I find it hard to accept that a small country like NZ has more newsworthy events than the rest of the world combined.

It is interesting to note that NZ free-to-air TV proposes having a news channel but non NZ news will be from the Pacific Isles rather than worldwide. To me this still says that NZ still has not rid itself of the closed-off mind set of the Muldoon era.

Apple12

Nerine, you are so missing the point. I can only assume that this is the first country you have ever lived in outside of your birthplace.
If you are living in Australia, what do you think most of the news is about? Yes Australia. If you are living in Tonga, most of the news will be about what is happening in Tonga.
Where is NZ close to, and where do a large number of its immigrants come from? Yes, the Pacific Islands.
If you were to live in the USA, do you think that events in the UK get covered much?
To really stretch the point, if you were living in the Orkney Isles, do you think what happens in London is always considered very important?
You are living in a small country at the bottom of the South Pacific, and I am not sure that moving to Brisbane will mean that you are in the centre of the world stage.

Nerine

It would be quite interesting to hear from some teenagers on what they think about NZ life, do any of them post on here or look over their parent's shoulders whilst waiting to get on MSN?

What do they think?

shaozzy

you've got to remember though its not the same for kids as it is adults! they think that leaving their friends is the worst thing in the world, i'm only 19 and really wanted to go home without giving it a go but now i have realised that this place has so many advantages to it then where i previously lived!! just give them time once they get into the kiwi ways im sure there change their minds!!

Apple12

Thanks for speaking up, Shaozzy. What was it, do you think, that helped you settle in?

Maz1

Well its been a few days now since my son has mentioned going back to the UK. No doubt something will set him off again. But for now I am a happy mum. .

The Weezer

I have been to the West Coast several times. My NZ salary makes it
hard to just take off and fly on a vacation. When I said "oddly devoid
of life" I did not mean there wasn't any. I meant it comparatively.
On a typical hike in the Appalachians near my home I would probably
see or hear: chipmunks, squirrels, turtles, toads, salamanders, woodpeckers, turkey, and many other kinds of birds, including migratory ones, deer, garter snake. The chipmunks esp. are ubiquitous.
I may see/hear: grouse, porcupine, bear, rattlesnake, copperhead snake.

The NZ bush has lots of wonderful birds, and it was delightful to be followed
by a North Island robin in the Rimutaka ranges. They are as unskittish
as the fantail. I was being comparative. The bush here is not full of
large animals, unless you happen to run into a wild boar, goat, stag, possum, etc., all of which are doing irreparable damage to the forests.

On a side note, I spent several weeks hiking in far southern Patagonia,
which is everything NZ claims to be but simply isn't. It is wilder, vaster,
much further south, cleaner, less populated, more remote. The archipelagos where the craggy, high southern Andes meet the sea are something to see. It is the uttermost place on earth, the true back of beyond. In its southern beech stands, and in the open volcanic steppes I saw *lots* of guanaco, rhea, a large rodent called the mara, and the footprints of a puma. There are
penguin colonies not far from where I stayed near the Torres del Paine park.
If you don't content yourself with a NZ salary, you may save enough money
to take you and your children on such trips.

I think a subscription to National Geographic should be mandatory for
all NZers, to disabuse them of their Guiness Book of World records mentality.

The Weezer

Thank you. You very succintly underscored my point. There are
compromises to be made living here. I was simply outlining what I
saw as serious deficiencies. For some, the compromise is not
worth a permanent move. Fortunately, I an not a permanent migrant,
and visit home for extended periods whenever possible, so I have been
acutely aware of the differences when I travel.

I just looked it up, since I will be travelling to Christchurch in May.
None of the libraries in the area subscribe to the The Times, The New
York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. If you want to read these, you
will have to be glued to the computer screen. I know there are some
international magazines, but the selection is very limited, comparatively.

The Weezer

I will give most NZers credit, when they admit that their national newspaper
is substandard by any criteria you care to examine (except sports coverage)

Here's a superlative that might be true:
New Zealand had the crappiest newspapers in the developed world!

Apple12

Ahh, but I live in a place where it is possible for me to see the best of NZ wildlife and bush and mountains, so I don't need to save my pennies like you do as I can be out there for a weekend, and still have a good job in a city.
Patagonia sounds just amazing, I have had a fantastic holiday in South Africa in Kruger National Park, the wildlife is just amazing. As is the wildlife in the Canadian Rockies (but I am quite happy not to have to deal with bears and rutting elk on a daily basis!). And I loved watching the puffins and nesting seabirds in the Western Isles of Scotland. I love watching wildlife, it is one of my passions, but very rarely can I hold down a fulltime career job in a city, and still have access to the outdoor world like I do living here in Christchurch.

Living here in ChCh I get a pretty good compromise, and that makes me happy =)

The Weezer

I agree that you are better situated for those sorts of things. If I had to
live in NZ for a long time, I would definitely live somewhere in Canterbury
or Otago.


Very good point. We all have different experiences. I never felt I had
to compromise much where I used to live. And admittedly, I am a native
Spanish speaker, and easily blended with the natives in Chile, and could
very likely if I wished, have a go at life there. I seriously thought about it
too! Since a lot of the Brits on this forum sound like they just left a world
scarily reminiscent of Orwell's Wigan Pier, I can see the pull of something
like the South Island of NZ as a tonic (at least temporarily, and only if
they can find a high paying job!)

I find the NZ bush wonderfully exotic and unique, but I prefer my Northeast woods, with its abundant wildlife.
I see too much of NZs countryside, bush, and mountains, to be
reminders of destruction of environment, rather than the preservation of it.