What does it mean to be a New Zealander?

[pyrocam]

30 years ago being a New Zealander might of meant gumboots, no. 8 wire, good ol' kiwi ingenuity, and climbing mountains, building boats, splitting atoms etc.

At the last census 56% of all newborn children had some form of non-European ancestry in them, as opposed to 25%* 30 years ago

Do you think this has changed what a New Zealander is? We are such a diverse country now, quite frankly I cant define it myself. Not to mention 86%* of us live in a urban environment, no.8 wire and garage inventions are less a part of our culture than it was in the past.

What do you think?

It's relevant to put in your age if you care to, the older generation of NZ lived in a predominately bi-cultural country and the youth live in a multicultural environment. Both opinions are valuable.

*+-3%, I'm quoting the numbers from a discussion last night from memory

[Krayy]

Oh where to start....

Firstly the #8 wire mentality came from the implementors being too far from what we would call civilization to depend on anything other than their own ingenuity. Nowadays, they jump into their 4x4 and head down to the local Mitre 10 and pick up a tool or item that is so badly constructed that it will do the appropriate job 3 times, then you'll need a new one.

I was born in a small town where we knew probably half the population and people would stop on the street for a chat. Lately the town in question (Wairoa) is more associated with gang shootings, stabbings and the locals running the gangs off every now and then. The last time we visited, I knew 5 people and the main street was almost dead with some young yobbos pissing against the lighthouse. How times change.

30 years ago, Glenfield was a sleepy suburb where all the kids walked or rode around at night unaccompanied and the only trouble you would get is when you tried to jump your BMX off the skateboard ramp in the dark. Ouch. But we did have a teacher who was suspected of inappropriate behavior with a girl student, so that hasn't changed (eh, Mr B?).

Oh, and Glenfield mall only had 5 shops in it and was easy to get around in. Not like now, I got crushed and lost at the same time when I went there last.

[Pwalo]

It means we live in a small country at the bottom of the world.

We have to go a long way to see any other human being so I guess we can be a bit insular, and do an awful lot of navel gazing.

I suspect being a New Zealander will mean something different to all 4 million of us. Does this question also apply to our immigrant population, or just us inbred locals?

[pyrocam]

I suspect being a New Zealander will mean something different to all 4 million of us. Does this question also apply to our immigrant population, or just us inbred locals?
Anyone, weather you consider yourself a New Zealander, if you have lived here 80 years and consider yourself scottish through and through, or even if you dont live here, sometimes external perspectives can be enlightening.

another question is, if you are an immigrant, when do you define yourself as a New Zealander, after 2 years? after you love our watties sauce, if your a weetbix kid?

thanks for the positive responses so far guys

[Animal]

To me, as an import from South Africa, being a New Zealander is an immense honour and privilege. Getting into NZ was difficult and expensive, and a bureaucratic minefield, but I was determined to make NZ my home. I came in on the back of my skills and qualifications, not as a refugee or some sort of charity case, and have adapted well to NZ's culture and conventions (when in Rome... ). I'm currently working across the ditch, and I cannot wait to get back to NZ. During periods of homesickness, it's not South Africa I'm longing for. To all you Kiwis who never seem to stop bitching about your country, shut the fuck up. You have no idea how lucky you really are. You have a fantastic country, learn to appreciate it.

[MSTRS]

To me, as an import from South Africa, being a New Zealander is an immense honour and privilege. Getting into NZ was difficult and expensive, and a bureaucratic minefield, but I was determined to make NZ my home. I came in on the back of my skills and qualifications, not as a refugee or some sort of charity case, and have adapted well to NZ's culture and conventions (when in Rome... ). I'm currently working across the ditch, and I cannot wait to get back to NZ. During periods of homesickness, it's not South Africa I'm longing for. To all you Kiwis who never seem to stop bitching about your country, shut the fuck up. You have no idea how lucky you really are. You have a fantastic country, learn to appreciate it.

This is the bit that I applaud in every Zimbo or Safa I've met. As for the 'other' immigrants...too fkn many of them refuse to assimilate and that, more than anything, has screwed up the society we once had.

[James Deuce]

It means having to listen to ignoramuses who've never traveled expound at length on how terrible and racist NZ Society is, how the population is too small to support a modern economy, and how all change is bad. If you're a man you have absolutely no human rights whatsoever, you are not qualified to comment on any issue related to raising children, and you must do all the housework and cooking because going to work for 12-14 hours a day is a piece of piss.

Apart from that it's all good.

[Usarka]

To all you Kiwis who never seem to stop bitching about your country, shut the fuck up. You have no idea how lucky you really are. You have a fantastic country, learn to appreciate it.

Another arrogant safa let into the country...... :innocent:

I'm sure there are people from worse off places who could say safaland is a wondertful place. So why did you leave? Because you saw there could be something better.....

[BIHB@0610]

To me, being a New Zealander means to being one of a very priviledged few. This country of ours is the most beautiful in the world. The people are friendly, the community rallies around when real tragedy strikes. The foresight of previous governments means we are blessed with nuclear free status, relatively effective environmental legislation, open participatory democracy (love it or hate it) and a promising future. Sure, life is more complicated, people have less time, and young people have a few more problems - but that's the same everywhere in the western world.

More than anything, I think being a New Zealander today means being more aware of our place on the international stage - think global, act local. We are part of a wider community - and that community is integrating with ours (via immigration). One of the government's policy platforms is "National Identity" - really, really important to protect that while at the same time providing for the changes in society that result from immigration. I'm so glad that's not my job! Bet it pays well though .......

[James Deuce]

To me, being a New Zealander means to being one of a very priviledged few. This country of ours is the most beautiful in the world. The people are friendly, the community rallies around when real tragedy strikes. The foresight of previous governments means we are blessed with nuclear free status, relatively effective environmental legislation, open participatory democracy (love it or hate it) and a promising future. Sure, life is more complicated, people have less time, and young people have a few more problems - but that's the same everywhere in the western world.

More than anything, I think being a New Zealander today means being more aware of our place on the international stage - think global, act local. We are part of a wider community - and that community is integrating with ours (via immigration). One of the government's policy platforms is "National Identity" - really, really important to protect that while at the same time providing for the changes in society that result from immigration. I'm so glad that's not my job! Bet it pays well though .......
Fuck! They programmed you well, didn't they?

[Steam]

The question of "What it means to be a kiwi" is irrellevant.
We work at jobs, we care for our loved ones, we eat, sleep, and go to work again.
This so-called "kiwi way" is nothing more than a hobby that a lot of us do. Reinforced by patriotic or 'kiwi' advertising (think Trumpet ads, or the old Barry Crump toyota ads) designed to appeal to those hobbyists and remind the rest of us what we are 'supposed to be'.
There is nothing in our supposedly 'unique national identity' that isn't shared by a bunch of other cultures around the world.
NZ is a nice place, sure, but there's nothing special about it. We're just one more Australian state.

[BIHB@0610]

Fuck! They programmed you well, didn't they?

Um - yep :laugh:

[Pwalo]

To me, being a New Zealander means to being one of a very priviledged few. This country of ours is the most beautiful in the world. The people are friendly, the community rallies around when real tragedy strikes. The foresight of previous governments means we are blessed with nuclear free status, relatively effective environmental legislation, open participatory democracy (love it or hate it) and a promising future. Sure, life is more complicated, people have less time, and young people have a few more problems - but that's the same everywhere in the western world.

More than anything, I think being a New Zealander today means being more aware of our place on the international stage - think global, act local. We are part of a wider community - and that community is integrating with ours (via immigration). One of the government's policy platforms is "National Identity" - really, really important to protect that while at the same time providing for the changes in society that result from immigration. I'm so glad that's not my job! Bet it pays well though .......

That's sounds like a party political broadcast. Are you sure you don't work for a Social Policy Agency?

Enzed's not a bad place, but I hope we don't remain the PC social engineering laboratory we seem to be at times.

At the end of the day being a New Zealander means I live in NZ. I love it, it's my home, but that's all it is.

[sidecar bob]

[QUOTE=Pwalo;1428037]That's sounds like a party political broadcast. Are you sure you don't work for a Social Policy Agency?



It sounds to me, more like someone that is happy with their lot & smart enough to realise the good going on around them, rather than constantly blagging on about how crap their life is.

[Pwalo]

[QUOTE=Pwalo;1428037]That's sounds like a party political broadcast. Are you sure you don't work for a Social Policy Agency?



It sounds to me, more like someone that is happy with their lot & smart enough to realise the good going on around them, rather than constantly blagging on about how crap their life is.

Read my post. I love living in New Zealand. Have you had a bad day?

[H00dz]

To me being a New Zealander means that I can stand with my head high, and thank GOD Almighty that he didn't make me an.........AUSTRALIAN !!!!:headbang:

[ElCoyote]

Currently this means being dictated to by a bunch of ugly socialist dykes, who despite their proclivity, seem to breed with each coming year. Should they have ridden a bike, their feminazzi mate excluded, then I may reverse my plans to relocate overseas.:finger: to Uncle Comrade Helen

[Animal]

Another arrogant safa let into the country...... :innocent:

I'm sure there are people from worse off places who could say safaland is a wondertful place. So why did you leave? Because you saw there could be something better.....

Arrogant? Yeah, whatever. I'd argue the point but I can't be bothered.

You're not wrong. Most of sub-equatorial Africa thinks that Safaland (wtf?) is a wonderful place - until they get there and realise it's dangerous, harsh, and unforgiving. It's not a good place to be if you hold any hope of ever growing old.

Why did I leave? Because my life is valuable to me. Several of my very close family and numerous friends and colleagues had been murdered in the country's out-of-control crime. You have to have lived there and buried some of your closest kin to appreciate that in Africa, life is a valueless commodity.

I had a number of options open to me when I decided my time in South Africa was over, but I chose NZ above all of them. The country has been very good to me, and I have willingly and faithfully repaid the opportunity I was granted, in taxes, charity, and investment in the NZ economy.

I have been both an employee and an employer, and in both roles I have made a committed and positive contribution to the country's economy and reduced the unemployed by a few. The work ethic, skills and qualifications I brought with me into NZ have been put to extremely good use by past employers, and continue to do so. Even now, while establishing commercial interests in Perth, I continue to contribute to my adoptive country's economic growth.

I still consider myself to be extremely fortunate and blessed to have been accepted into NZ. I am proud to introduce myself as a Kiwi - even if I wasn't born in NZ. I am proud to have willingly immersed myself in NZ's culture and made a real and valuable contribution to the country in return for opening its doors to me. I am proud to have been able to put my skills and expertse to use in this country. I would like to believe that the people who are now employed and better off through my contribution are appreciative of my having emigrated to NZ.

So maybe this makes me another arrogant Safa. Well, whatever. Hell, I've been called far worse and also not given a shit. It just really saddens me when born New Zealanders with little or nothing to contribute to the country of their birth are so damn quick to moan about it. I wouldn't want to be part of any other country, even though my expertise could take me anywhere. Oh shit, that's probably arrogant...

[BarryG]

I'm as true blue a Kiwi as anyone, even though I've been living elsewhere since I was 13.
I don't hang on to my kiwi-ness in any overt way, but I'm always proud to inform someone who hears my accent (yes, still there despite being bastardised by South Africa, Canada and the Southern US!) that my origins and family are from New Zealand.
At the end of the day, though, my natural (Kiwi?) cynicism imparts itself and tells me that nationalism (and religion) have cursed the world for time immemorial, and the sooner we realise we're citizens of the earth and our humanness should define us, rather than where we had the sheer chance to be born, the better a place this world will be.
I know, I know - a romantic cynic.
Cheers
Barry
Sorry, doesn't exactly answer your question, I realise that............

[Grub]

To all you Kiwis who never seem to stop bitching about your country, shut the fuck up. You have no idea how lucky you really are. You have a fantastic country, learn to appreciate it.

Oh true ... so true.

Every time I leave the country I come back to a place that is not equalled anywhere I've been. Uncle Helen and Aunty Michael have done their best to stuff it up but so far they haven't succeeded.

What we do seem to have lost in the last 30yrs though is our sense of identity, our sense of pride and cheekiness that made us proud to be the battling kiwi able to transcend any boundary or barrier and come out on top.

Our individual identity is being swallowed up in globalism. Bad youth are wearing the colours of LA street gangs. Our uniqueness is being diluted as we become multi-cultural. It is now being fashionable to pull and put ourselves down. Look how the media and others drool with glee when some obscure UN nobody states that we have a race problem.

Our lack of pride and purpose is destroying the remarkable qualities that defined us as a nation and a race. What were those qualities? I don't know for sure, but a very good collection of them are epitomised in three of the four books reviewed here (http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=67180). They illustrate what the original post was asking. What we have to now ask ourselves is how we have changed - and why - and what can we do about it.

Don't put your country down, it's the best one there is ... that's why people are busting their asses to come here FFS.

[Grub]

At the end of the day being a New Zealander means I live in NZ. I love it, it's my home, but that's all it is.

How long have you spent working and living outside of the country?

[Usarka]

Grub, that's the problem some of us see the place becoming like all those "worse" places around the globe.

Do we sit back and do/say nothing because we "don't know how lucky we are". Or do we rark the place up and try to keep it a place worth living in?

id rather be on the whinging side than the side with all the apathy.

[Grub]

id rather be on the whinging side than the side with all the apathy.

Agreed! Apathy is what we have descended into because we have lost our way. That's possibly because the nay-sayers are all employed in the media. I don't now how we get out of that vicious spiral.

[Dave Lobster]

We work at jobs, we care for our loved ones, we eat, sleep, and go to work again.


A country has already gone downhill when families are referred to as young ones.
Pretty soon, if it hasn't happened already, the politicians will start answering all questions with What is really important is.. rather than what they were asked. President Blair did the same.

re: South Africa. One of my better mates left South Africa when he was forced to take on a black man as his apprentice. Once he'd been taught to read/write and how to become a surveyor, he'd replace my mate, who'd be kicked out for being white. He walked out.. and went to the UK.

As am immigrant, being kiwi seems to me to mean not being able to spell, believing everything taught to you at school (not including free thinking), and attending work for long hours but getting no more done than the poms that are only there for eight.

[RantyDave]

The foresight of previous governments means we are blessed with nuclear free status...
It was neither foresight nor a blessing.

Dave

[Grahameeboy]

Thankfully, I am still me...

[James Deuce]

It was neither foresight nor a blessing.

Dave
Before that "Nuclear Free" thing gets out of hand, we can't use current commercial reactors in NZ because we don't use enough energy. There's no rheostat on a 2GW nuclear reactor and NZ's energy use amounts to huge peaks and troughs. 10kW at its lowest or something insane like that. We'd have to install a HUGE light bulb over the Chathams and rely on attenuation to suck up the excess.

ANZUS? "Free Trade" with the US? Look up the Canberra Treaty of 1944 and see if you think the US have NZ's best interests at heart.

[BuFfY]

I don't quite know what it means to be a New Zealander, I know my history (my Poppa wrote a book that I got for my 21st - tradition)

What I do know is that I will always teach in New Zealand, I have no desire to go across the ditch to teach Australians, or to go teach in a school in England. I hope I can do my part and make a difference in atleast 20 children's lives a year, to make them know how lucky they are to live here.

At the moment at school we are looking at landmarks, and how they are so significant to groups of people. Amazingly most of my children have no idea what the Statue of Liberty is, other than what they have seen in the movie Madagascar!!

[Usarka]

re: South Africa. One of my better mates left South Africa when he was forced to take on a black man as his apprentice. Once he'd been taught to read/write and how to become a surveyor, he'd replace my mate, who'd be kicked out for being white. He walked out.. and went to the UK.


I feel sorry for people (like many safa's) who see their once good country way of life deteriorate. Seems to be happening in lots of places, and isn't this happening here too, but at a slower less intense pace?

just because it's a good country it doesn't mean it can't be any better, or that there aren't better places depending on your values.

An top athlete doesn't start smoking and eating pies once he's won a gold medal. he works on improving.

i think NZ is slipping backwards in a lot of areas (crime, low income for long work hours, affordability etc). Maybe that's because i'm living in Auck at the moment. but.... a quote i heard a while back from an unremembered source: "If you don't like auckland now then you won't like NZ in 20 years".

Negativism? Realism? Identifying issues to create a groundswell in order to work at fixing them? It's hard to tell peoples intent from words on the internet isn't it.... so no i wont shut the fuck up bahahahahahaaaa

[Animal]

Don't put your country down, it's the best one there is ... that's why people are busting their asses to come here FFS.

My point exactly! Well said, that man.

[terbang]

I'm a born New Zealander though I trace my forebears to Scotland. When living up there, I was asked in earnest by a pom as to how I saw myself. A Scotsman who was back home or a New Zealander living in Scotland. The easy reply came straight out, a New Zealander of course. It shocked me that I could have been mistaken for or could have passed as one of them. As I wander around a bit, I am left with the impression that, no matter what the circumstances, we still hold our country of birth in a special standing, it sort of goes right to our core.

[Animal]

Negativism? Realism? Identifying issues to create a groundswell in order to work at fixing them? It's hard to tell peoples intent from words on the internet isn't it.... so no i wont shut the fuck up bahahahahahaaaa

And there's the difference...
Your motivation is to create a groundswell to encourage change, and fixing the things that are wrong. Others simply bitch for want of something to do, but are either unwilling or too apathetic to want to fix anything... or too busy contributing to the country's decline. It's the latter mob that should STFU.

[Dave Lobster]

It's the latter mob that should STFU.

Or be kicked out.

[Ocean1]

To me it means gumboots, No8 wire, good ol' kiwi ingenuity, climbing mountains, building boats and splitting atoms.


But I'm fookin old.


Apparently.

[Usarka]

And there's the difference...
Your motivation is to create a groundswell to encourage change, and fixing the things that are wrong. Others simply bitch for want of something to do, but are either unwilling or too apathetic to want to fix anything... or too busy contributing to the country's decline. It's the latter mob that should STFU.

I will buy you a beer.

[Animal]

I will buy you a beer.

When I get back home, I'll take you up on that offer - and repay the compliment.

Animal (formerly CADanimal)

[skidMark]

I must be a true nzer...i have a figure 8 of number 8 wire in my elbow see!

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=12062&d=1120127770

when i got home the hospital and showed the old man that x-ray....

"i could've done that in the garage with welding wire"

[Skyryder]

We all hit the jackpot by being born in NZ or getting to live here. It's just that the jackpot is not as big now for the new born as it was when I was born.

Skyryder