What’s It Like To Live In NZ?
What’s it really like to live in NZ? We all know about the scenery and the rugby, the hot springs and Lord of the Rings, but what’s daily life like?
This section is divided up into two sub-sections, use the drop down menus in the header above, or click on the links. to see the content of :
SS1: What Kiwis say about NZ –
SS2: NZ Life
Both of which may be read in conjunction with any of our Migrant Tales, which give a view of New Zealand through the eyes of immigrants.
I was surprised to see figurines for Day of the Dead being sold in an international gift store in Auckland, as everything else is in New Zealand being pitched as something special and unique and therefore worth paying many times more than actual value (as everything “Kiwi” is). They wanted about nine times the actual value. Not knowing, you might pay for that. Or some stupid tourist maybe. No Kiwi would pay that. They do know value for money here and squeeze the money to get all the juice out ! haha The problem is that when you move to New Zealand and then cannot leave shortly after because of contract or no more money, you are bleeded by everyone all the time, because that is the way of here. But it is harder to leave than to stay because of moving cost and cost of living and the debt you may have borne for living expense.
Get a life Jorge! Yep, maybe people can fly to Mexico and by their Day of the Dead figurines. Sure, they’ll get them cheaper but add on the flight cost. Business is business Jorge.
by – buy sorry
no, seriously, I think life is what you make of it. I hope life gets better for you Jorge.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10659094
Life is what you makke of it. Like 400% mark-ups. Sweeeeeeeeeeet.
339 comments.
I thought I would share this e-book I found, about the experiences of an immigrant to NZ:
http://www.amazon.com/Move-New-Zealand-story-ebook/dp/B004VF67CA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307760831&sr=8-1
As a sixth-generation kiwi it shames me to say this, but its true. Kiwis have become lazy, dishonest, greedy and frankly, incredibly stupid. We have become addicted to government handouts and blame immigrants for problems we don’t want to take ownership of. We cling to an image of “Friendlyness” that we haven’t lived up to since the end of the second world war. Once we were farmers, warriors, inventors, painters and poets. Now we are just a bunch of in-bred whiners claiming immigrants are taking our jobs while we happily claim sickness benefits and dole payouts. It makes me utterly furious! There is no person in this country, proud Maori included, that didn’t come from another place. The only difference is when we came here. I would advise all immigrants: Don’t come here. This is NOT a happy country. Maybe one day New Zealand will be better, but now we need to put our house in order, and until then.. it’s just a nasty, dangerous little country.. for EVERYONE.
What can I say James. I arrived in NZ last June (2011) from Germany since I was thinking Western Europe including Germany are becoming so decadent. But it only took me two days after having arrived in NZ to realize over here its even worse and I suddenly had big hope again for Germany. NZ infrastructure, technical standards as they are carried out are decades behind. Most People want to become Lawyers, Real Estate Agents etc.. Drinking seems to be the national sport just after Rugby. Crime rates are astonishing high. Young generation is mostly under educated. So I must -sadly- totally agree with you James. Its a disgrace since there is so much potential.
@ Michael Dennler re. technical standards. You may like to read our infrastructure stats and facts page, which details some of the shortcomings with New Zealand’s infrastructure. e.g.
@ Michael Dennler re. infrastructure andtechnical standards.
You may like to read our infrastructure stats and facts page, which details some New Zealand’s infrastructure shortcomings.
e.g.
I was very surprised to note that cost of health services was the major complaint of UK migrants to NZ.
http://www.broadbaseimmigration.co.uk/getting-started/new-zealand-immigration-skilled-migrant-survey.html#dislikes
and was amused by this -
“you won’t be too surprised to hear that most migrants from the UK do stay in New Zealand. NZ Immigration research suggests that just 16% of 90,354 migrants from the UK who were granted permanent residence in New Zealand between 2002-2008 have since left. When you consider that some of these migrants would not have intended to stay, and that some perhaps had to return for unforeseeable reasons such as family illness, 16% is not too bad!”
The number of people who leave because they know they will not be able to stay sane enough to obtain permanent resident status is not considered. And how about the ones who obtain citizenship and then bugger off to Oz with passport in hand? I suspect they chose the chronological slice with the prettiest figures.
James Smithins, I admire your candor. That is something that many a Kiwi is loath to admit.
As it is with most post-modern social democratic states these days.
Some say that NZ is 10 years behind [put country name here], but in some ways, it is ahead, especially in regards to the “entitlement mentality”. Nearly every thing bad is being blamed on some kind of “disadvantage” that was unjustly perpetrated. Individual responsability is highly discouraged, as the schools teach in a collective consensus model. So, the things that made NZ great, as with most other pioneered countries, are being socially engineered out of them.