Integrating into a foreign society

[Marmoot]

Bollocks. We are who we chose to be.

Then how come when I speak English impecably, I talk with NZ idioms, I observe NZ culture and embrace the NZ pride, but I am still an Immigrant?
Worse still, I am still a "fuckin Asian Driver" that we so hate?

[Blakamin]

A lot of that stuff left with the global economic down turn of the 90's and the National Government shafting beneficaries through extreme welfare cuts. It's all very open to interpretation though and these are BIG questions that are really, really hard to answer! What is 'quality' if life? For some it might be a roof over your head & 3 square meals a day and enough money to pay the bills. For others it may be being able to go on an overseas trip every year, having a new car every 2yrs, being able to buy whatever they want whenever they want. It's all relative.

But I agree with you about the bottom line FS.

Quality of life is a big thing...
I'd like to:
Have a job that doesn't suck.... (not even going there!)
Be able to pay my bills and still buy toys occasionally... hmmmm
Live a dream....
Have a nice happy family...
Food on the table...
and beer in the fridge...

and not get pissed off with the way the country is getting screwed..

Worse still, I am still a "fuckin Asian Driver" that we so hate?

Try being Australian!..... everythings fine until I open my mouth, and with you, it must be the other way!
we must swap oneday!

[Marmoot]

Try being Australian!..... everythings fine until I open my mouth, and with you, it must be the other way!
we must swap oneday!

Australians should belong to non-English speaking immigrants
(they are English-writting people, though)

[merv]

Then how come when I speak English impecably, I talk with NZ idioms, I observe NZ culture and embrace the NZ pride, but I am still an Immigrant?
Worse still, I am still a "fuckin Asian Driver" that we so hate?

Come and live in Welly mate, I don't hear anyone bagging Asian drivers down here. Polynesian (and other Nationality) taxi drivers, that's another story.

[jrandom]

Then how come when I speak English impecably, I talk with NZ idioms, I observe NZ culture and embrace the NZ pride, but I am still an Immigrant?

Er, well, technically, if you were born in a particular state, you're always an 'immigrant' when you reside and/or gain citizenship in another. But WGAF?

Worse still, I am still a "fuckin Asian Driver" that we so hate?

Oh, get over yourself. When was the last time someone called you that?

[merv]

My Uni mates and I have come up with a new catch phrase to stem to catch ourselves when we want to judge or criticise others: "Well thats different from the way I do things." It's not right or wrong, just different and different isn't bad either.

p.s Kickaha - if you were to come to Wgtn I know we would welcome you with open arms and encourage you and teach you our practices and protocols. Initially we would give you time to learn them and even though you may not practice them we would, possibly, expect you to know them and acknowledge them. I think you should just get your arse up here and find out for yourself...but what would I know.

In the 70's when I was at Uni it was Whaddarya!! meaning difference was scarcely tolerated and I was some sort of weirdo because I didn't play rugby having retired from that after the 1965 season at school, taking up motorcycles in 1969. Besides as I mentioned earlier I was a North Islander in a foreign land, but it helped that we swamped the place with my old school mates with around a quarter of our 7th form going on to Canterbury (about 15 of us) and we met many other NI people too.

From the way the SI people talked we must have been nancy boys because we hadn't been to schools with open air dorms with snow outside. Not my sort of culture, I'm like Lynda, don't do discomfort unless I really really have to. Us HB dudes like it warm and calm - hate draughts - that's why I'm culturally wrong for Wellington, but now I've lived here too long. Even when I went flatting in ChCh I made sure I had a heater on a time switch in the bedroom so it wasn't cold when I got up in the morning.

Some of these immigrants don't know real hardship like we had to face down South eh!

Kickaha, my earlier point too, can you get a decent doughnut now? I was so used to the big fat round jobs up here full of jam and cream with icing sugar on, go down South and it was all American style with the hole in the middle. No class at all. You needed a decent doughnut to make a real meal in conjunction with a decent pie.

Speaking of meals, the culture then was everything was like steak, eggs and chips, or sausages, eggs and chips, with the blob of coleslaw on the side of the oval plate. Passing through Picton we used to eat at Bill's Top Spot restaurant to aid his sponsorship of John Woodley, and yes there was no yuppie coffee then. Real men don't like foam in their cup.

[Marmoot]

Oh, get over yourself. When was the last time someone called you that?

Last saturday, when I was going 60 in a 50 zone M'way construction. Someone tailgated me all the way into Mobil Quay St before pointing out my yellowness.

Yes, Jrandom, it happens more often than you think. That's why I was a bit p155ed off on one of your thread, but probably that's just me having a bad day.

Oh, and the week before that a lady in a Mitsubishi Wan....eh, Pajero....waved a middle finger up my face for not speeding up in that particular M'way stretch too, but that is irrelevant in this case. Got me fed up with that construction zone, though...... Anyone got the same situation happe.......ah, best not to hijack the thread

[Ms Piggy]

and not get pissed off with the way the country is getting screwed..

Which again is a matter of opinion. Possibly a hijack and maybe you've mentioned it somewhere else but, how is it you think the country is getting screwed? I'm always interested in why people say that and where your POV is coming from.

I personally thought we were doin' ok at the moment.

[Ms Piggy]

Some of these immigrants don't know real hardship like we had to face down South eh!

Being a mainlander myself I know how bloody cold it can get but I also know that I had many a great summer and swam in the ocean lots. Cold? Bollocks! Although I am a bit of a sun worshipper and don't like being cold

Although I must say when I shifted back to Dunedin for 9mths in 99/00 I noticed a distinct backwardness in their attitudes to people of other ethnicities. Ho hum.

[Ms Piggy]

Then how come when I speak English impecably, I talk with NZ idioms, I observe NZ culture and embrace the NZ pride, but I am still an Immigrant?
Worse still, I am still a "fuckin Asian Driver" that we so hate?

I reckon it the same with all minority groups. People make HUGE assumptions based on appearance. It sucks.

I recall a guy who was wheelchair bound telling us that quite often people would ignore him and treat him as if he was intellectually disabled too. He said he was in a resturant and the wating staff asked someone he was with what he wanted to order! (that was a while ago though)

And people often make assumptions of people who have tattoos or peircings. I always found it amusing when I got my 1st tattoo, I worked in a fabric shop and we used to get older women coming in and I had bulit up a friendly relationship with a lot of them. I think it really challenged their way of thinking when someone that they knew and had a fondness for had a tattoo. Possibly (and I'm assuming now) they had preconceieved ideas that only "nasty types" had tattoos and here was the helpful young woman from the fabric shop with one....hmmmmmmm.

It's interesting for me b/c I'm learning to value people for who they are and sometimes what they believe doesn't matter. I can think of friends I have made who have different political, religious or personal philosophies on life than me and I am grateful for those people b/c they help keep me real and checking why I believe what I believe. I have friends who seem to only wnat to be around people who agree with them and believe what they believe - I reckon thats pretty dull and narrow minded.

[Marmoot]

It's interesting for me b/c I'm learning to value people for who they are and sometimes what they believe doesn't matter. I can think of friends I have made who have different political, religious or personal philosophies on life than me and I am grateful for those people b/c they help keep me real and checking why I believe what I believe.

Now, if everybody is like that, that is the ideal manifesto of freedom & democracy.
But there can be no ideal in this world, can there?

As far as how NZ is doing, I think it is still ok, but it certainly has gone down quite far from, say, 5 years ago.
5 years ago I can just keep my keys under my doormat and if I loose my wallet a kind policeman would return it to me (both real story). Now I lock my door all the time but still managed to get burgled 5 times, and a kind gentlemen helped spent my cousin's money by literally snatching her wallet away from her.

Ah well....I'm sure it's just a bad day......

[HanaBelle]

"Yes, come to NZ, but do not expect that we will change our customs and laws to suit you"

Funny, that seems a historically familiar sentiment, I think Maori said that too, and then, as pointed out, there were millions on the way here...

What? goes around, comes around?

HB

[MikeL]

People make HUGE assumptions based on appearance. It sucks.


And people often make assumptions of people who have tattoos or peircings.

Good point. Prejudice is based on generalizations. Generalizations in themselves are not necessarily bad - it's how they are used that makes them good or bad. Too often they are a substitute for careful thought.

When I was young, tattoos were associated with uncouthness, juvenile delinquency, a sea-faring background or other undesirable attributes. Having been brought up in a respectable lower-middle-class/upper-working class family with social aspirations, and therefore indoctrinated in the appropriate values, it would never have occurred to me to have a tattoo.

When my elder son returned from America a few years ago with "Woodstock" proudly tattooed on his upper arm, I had to overcome some residual distaste before I could pretend to admire it. Now I think it's O.K., although I wonder whether some years from now he might outgrow it. A naked lady would have been more universal...

The longer I live the more convinced I become that judging others is judging (and usually damning) yourself.

On the other hand there are certain things that really get up my nose...

[rodgerd]

Then how come when I speak English impecably, I talk with NZ idioms, I observe NZ culture and embrace the NZ pride, but I am still an Immigrant?
Worse still, I am still a "fuckin Asian Driver" that we so hate?

Yeah, well, it's an imperfect world where some people still believe shit like "you are where you're born".

(My reference point for the stupidity of anti-Asian bigotry in New Zealand is my dad, who grew up around market gardens in the Otago/Southland area, many of which are run by Chinese families who've been in New Zealand since the Gold Rush days, and have doubtless been here a damn sight longer than some of those cunts in the National Front).

[Blakamin]

Which again is a matter of opinion. Possibly a hijack and maybe you've mentioned it somewhere else but, how is it you think the country is getting screwed? I'm always interested in why people say that and where your POV is coming from.

I personally thought we were doin' ok at the moment.

Just my view of the health system... cousin had appointment, hospital cancel, goes to quack 3 days later looses leg instead of just toes = screwed
to me anyway

peoples attitudes to tatts make me laugh!... my mum (also in a wheelchair!)
got her first tatt (pretty dolphin on shoulder blade) when she was 64

difference between tattooed and non tattooed people.... tattooed people dont care if you're not tattooed