Considering a move to New Zealand, info appreciated
- Thread starter Abyss
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Sample life in NZ without leaving London ?Just follow these simple steps for a perfect taster:
1) reduce your salary by 50%
2)Imagine that everyone around you averages about 5ft 2 inches in height
3) hang around Sheperds Bush/ Action town
4) Compress your words so that every vowel is distorted, eg Sex shoudl be prononcced as "Six"
5)Limit yourself to drinking Steinlager Only all the fuckin time
6) refuse to go to bars that dont play crowded house fuckin 24/7
7) go to the church at KingsX on sunday mornings & cop off with short wide girls with fuckin herpes
8) Refuse to talk about anything that doesnt involve a) what a great place NZ is & b) How great Rugby is
9) develop an intense jealousy/ hatred of laid back Australians
10) try to spend as much time as you can away from NZ.
Easy .
1) reduce your salary by 50%
2)Imagine that everyone around you averages about 5ft 2 inches in height
3) hang around Sheperds Bush/ Action town
4) Compress your words so that every vowel is distorted, eg Sex shoudl be prononcced as "Six"
5)Limit yourself to drinking Steinlager Only all the fuckin time
6) refuse to go to bars that dont play crowded house fuckin 24/7
7) go to the church at KingsX on sunday mornings & cop off with short wide girls with fuckin herpes
8) Refuse to talk about anything that doesnt involve a) what a great place NZ is & b) How great Rugby is
9) develop an intense jealousy/ hatred of laid back Australians
10) try to spend as much time as you can away from NZ.
Easy .
[Sample life in NZ without leaving London ?Just follow these simple steps for a perfect taster:
1) reduce your salary by 50%. Yup.
2)Imagine that everyone around you averages about 5ft 2 inches in height. Kiwis tend to be a bit taller than most UKers I've seen.
3) hang around Sheperds Bush/ Action town. Yeah, ghettos suck.
4) Compress your words so that every vowel is distorted, eg Sex shoudl be prononcced as "Six". No funny accents in the UK then...
5)Limit yourself to drinking Steinlager Only all the fuckin time. All lager is shit, whatever its name. Give 'em time. If they can make one of the world's best vodkas there they'll get into real ale soon enough.
6) refuse to go to bars that dont play crowded house fuckin 24/7. Australian band, I think you'll find.
7) go to the church at KingsX on sunday mornings & cop off with short wide girls with fuckin herpes. Looks like you attract the wrong sort of girl, my friend.
8) Refuse to talk about anything that doesnt involve a) what a great place NZ is & b) How great Rugby is. Kiwis are some of the biggest critics of their own country of all people I know. They just don't like to hear it from a non-Kiwi.
9) develop an intense jealousy/ hatred of laid back Australians. Nah, it's just that there isn't the love affair like between the English and Australia.
10) try to spend as much time as you can away from NZ. Yup. When you head 12,000 miles away you don't return too soon.
1) reduce your salary by 50%. Yup.
2)Imagine that everyone around you averages about 5ft 2 inches in height. Kiwis tend to be a bit taller than most UKers I've seen.
3) hang around Sheperds Bush/ Action town. Yeah, ghettos suck.
4) Compress your words so that every vowel is distorted, eg Sex shoudl be prononcced as "Six". No funny accents in the UK then...
5)Limit yourself to drinking Steinlager Only all the fuckin time. All lager is shit, whatever its name. Give 'em time. If they can make one of the world's best vodkas there they'll get into real ale soon enough.
6) refuse to go to bars that dont play crowded house fuckin 24/7. Australian band, I think you'll find.
7) go to the church at KingsX on sunday mornings & cop off with short wide girls with fuckin herpes. Looks like you attract the wrong sort of girl, my friend.
8) Refuse to talk about anything that doesnt involve a) what a great place NZ is & b) How great Rugby is. Kiwis are some of the biggest critics of their own country of all people I know. They just don't like to hear it from a non-Kiwi.
9) develop an intense jealousy/ hatred of laid back Australians. Nah, it's just that there isn't the love affair like between the English and Australia.
10) try to spend as much time as you can away from NZ. Yup. When you head 12,000 miles away you don't return too soon.
Poi E said:[Sample life in NZ without leaving London ?Just follow these simple steps for a perfect taster:
1) reduce your salary by 50%. Yup.
2)Imagine that everyone around you averages about 5ft 2 inches in height. Kiwis tend to be a bit taller than most UKers I've seen.
3) hang around Sheperds Bush/ Action town. Yeah, ghettos suck.
4) Compress your words so that every vowel is distorted, eg Sex shoudl be prononcced as "Six". No funny accents in the UK then...
5)Limit yourself to drinking Steinlager Only all the fuckin time. All lager is shit, whatever its name. Give 'em time. If they can make one of the world's best vodkas there they'll get into real ale soon enough.
6) refuse to go to bars that dont play crowded house fuckin 24/7. Australian band, I think you'll find.
7) go to the church at KingsX on sunday mornings & cop off with short wide girls with fuckin herpes. Looks like you attract the wrong sort of girl, my friend.
8) Refuse to talk about anything that doesnt involve a) what a great place NZ is & b) How great Rugby is. Kiwis are some of the biggest critics of their own country of all people I know. They just don't like to hear it from a non-Kiwi.
9) develop an intense jealousy/ hatred of laid back Australians. Nah, it's just that there isn't the love affair like between the English and Australia.
10) try to spend as much time as you can away from NZ. Yup. When you head 12,000 miles away you don't return too soon.
maybe my experience of Kiwi culture is a little bit "twisted".
Spion
I hear ya
I read that the murder rate over there is twice the UK. I've not seen that backed up but the NZ papers were full of grisly goings on when I was therePoi E said:
Where you gonna land for that money in NZ? I'm sure we can check via t'internet, but off the top if my head I'd have said 100k an acre upwardsPoi E said:
zoltan69 said:maybe my experience of Kiwi culture is a little bit "twisted".
small country, much, much poorer than the UK, miles from anywhere and living in some pretty inhospitable terrain (floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes...) and right next to the United States of Australia makes em jumpy.
having spent LONG years working & mixing with itinerant Kiwis, I once came across a lone Australian working in the fast moving world of banking ( Zzzzzzzzzzzzz).. I asked him how come that for such a small country, how come there were so many Kiwis working in the city.
he told me that that NZ produces a massive amunt of vocationally qualified professionals, but virtually nothing/ no one in terms of culture/Literature & whatever- He likened it them to the Irish - the good ones ( eg behan/ Shaw/bacon/ geldof ) have to get out beacsue the crippling dullness & orthodoxy of their home country numbs the brain & produces automatons, whereas Australia nurtures originality & embraces the individual.
Was I getting a baised view ?
he told me that that NZ produces a massive amunt of vocationally qualified professionals, but virtually nothing/ no one in terms of culture/Literature & whatever- He likened it them to the Irish - the good ones ( eg behan/ Shaw/bacon/ geldof
) have to get out beacsue the crippling dullness & orthodoxy of their home country numbs the brain & produces automatons, whereas Australia nurtures originality & embraces the individual.Was I getting a baised view ?
I reckon conscription had a fair bit to do with it.
NZ has become a lot less provincial in the last 5-10 years, but it's still a population half the size of London's in an area larger than Britain, so if what you want is a bustling megalopolis then you might want to look elsewhere.
My gf is from NI, and it seems to me that the difference between the kiwi and Irish diasporas is that pretty much all kiwis go back eventually, whereas for the Irish it's usually a one-way ticket.
NZ has become a lot less provincial in the last 5-10 years, but it's still a population half the size of London's in an area larger than Britain, so if what you want is a bustling megalopolis then you might want to look elsewhere.
My gf is from NI, and it seems to me that the difference between the kiwi and Irish diasporas is that pretty much all kiwis go back eventually, whereas for the Irish it's usually a one-way ticket.
Spion
I hear ya
Fruitloop said:
Race relations struck me as fairly grim when I was in NZ. The immigration officer who dealt with us off the plane went into a rant about the Chinese trying to take over (there were some behind us in the queue) and the next day in Christchurch city centre we came across the National Front having a little rally in a town square.
I guess like many places people just rub along, but the degree of alienation and in some cases barely concealed hostility from maori was pretty noticeable
Spion said:
Yeah, you'll get some pissed off Maori, but do you really wonder?
You get the fash, but they're not the organised, European style of fash. It's pretty damn hard to say anyone is a "real Kiwi" because it's very mixed. You don't get the ghettoes of people like you have in the UK with groups living side-by-side but knowing very little about each other.
Spion said:
I knew a guy who was head of a gang of skins but he was Maori. Didn't seem to bother them and he wore the swatika. I gues something was lost in the translation.
Kiwis do get quite fervant about things, though, like with the monetarist madness that went on there. Seemed like every prick was talking about the "maaarket" as the panacea to all ills a while back. I'd hate to see that turn into something extreme. Probabaly the most likely would be a nationalist movement of Maori and Pakeha against new immigration. As it stands with a centrist government the immigration is still tough, unless you can buy your way in.
I was gonna say that a lot of this stuff that would have specific meanings elsewhere (like a skinhead) gets a bit 'lot in translation' in NZ, particularly in more rural areas. I reckon with a lot of people it would be as much a fashion statement or role that they're playing as much as anything else.
A maori skin would be a thing to see though.
A maori skin would be a thing to see though.
Fruitloop said:I was gonna say that a lot of this stuff that would have specific meanings elsewhere (like a skinhead) gets a bit 'lot in translation' in NZ, particularly in more rural areas. I reckon with a lot of people it would be as much a fashion statement or role that they're playing as much as anything else.
A maori skin would be a thing to see though.
A bunch of skin heads sitting around, smoking weed, saying "cher bro" and listening to Bob Marley was a funny thing indeed.
