I'm interested in the question Elizabeth *doesn't* ask her interviewees, namely why would NZ (or any of other countries) want to have you? What do you bring to the country that means you're not just exploiting it for your own gain as so many colonists have done before you?
Thanks for reading! That's a great question. Short answer: you got me. We definitely came for a chance to improve *our* lives. This is the primary reason most folks move, no? For better and for worse. I strive mightily to be a good guest and contributing citizen, even without citizenship. What's enough? I don't know.
You're absolutely right that this is all a blindspot of online expat chatter, which is so heavily focused on US to Europe--empire to empire, as it were. NZ complicates this narrative in lots of productive ways. There's a deep non-Western history here, then a lot of ugly colonization, and now an energetic (if uneven) reckoning between the two. The big questions are right on the surface here. I find this beautiful, honestly. This tauiwi is writing to learn.
Thanks so much for reading, and taking the time to write! I'm gonna be thinking about this a long while. More on this to come in the newsletter, I think. A happy holidays to you and yours!
Dan, coming with the willingness to learn some history and a bit of te reo automatically ranks you in the top 1% of expats in Aotearoa!
Like so many readers I've always been enjoyed 'American living in NZ', 'NZer living in Laos' stories and I started reading the 'why should you move to' series with the same interest. But in the context of the post-US election 'let's move to NZ/Canada/the UK' discourse so common on Substack and other platforms, and also the context of research I've been doing about the huge impacts of post WW2 internal migration on my own iwi, I've started thinking much more deeply about what it's like to be the people whose country or town gets moved *to*, especially when we're a small country like NZ or a tiny iwi.
So I'm genuinely interested in whether expats or immigrants think of the country they move to as a kind of terra nullius or blank space, a sunny place where they can live in a gated community, a rich learning and cultural contact opportunity, or somewhere to make money before going 'home'. And asking interviewees what they bring *to* the country they've moved to can elicit some great reflections, as it did with your thoughtful response.
As it happens, I'm about to move out of my own rohe in Wellington over to the Wairarapa. I too hope to be a good guest and contributing citizen in Ngāti Kahungunu country, and we might meet up!
Kia ora Tui! My apologies, I dropped out there for the holiday & wanted to come back and say thanks so muchg for your thoughtful comment. You're raising the level around here and it's the sort of conversation one starts blogging to find. I've certainly read about the 1950s migration here from the arrivals' point of view (and heard directly from those who lived it!) but I've thought much less about the effects on those already here. (Did you read that Alison Jones book, This Pakeha Life?) You're right, this 'what do you bring' question is a good one to ask, just to open up the tunnel vision. I will be adding this to my quiver going forward, thank you!
And hey, welcome to the 'rapa! No doubt we're lucky to have you. Would love to continue the conversation. Get yourself settled and give me holler, coffee's my shout!
Kia Ora Tui. I think there are a host of reasons why people immigrate. As a young woman in Aotearoa, I was one of the nursing graduates who could not find employment post graduation in 1990. This was after the stock market crash and similar to what the Nursing graduates face this year, ie a recession. I left to work overseas at the height of the AIDs epidemic. We entered a culture that we knew nothing about and the learning was huge. I was on a ward with all these beautiful young men who were tragically dying. We brought our professional skills to a critical need at the time. Thirty years later, I have brought those skills plus others home to Aotearoa, when I came home to care for unwell whānau. So while some nurses are emigrating some of us are also coming home. The time spent overseas was an enormous learning opportunity about diversity, for which I’m really thankful. Thank you for raising this question because I do think it’s an important conversation, and we can learn from each other.
What a treat to stumble upon your substack today! Hi from a fellow immigrant or expat. I'm originally from Belgium and now living in New Zealand and I can confirm that moving halfway across the world doesn't magically solve all problems, but it's still well worth it. By the way I also saw you're studying fellow expats who write on substack so do feel free to reach out if I can be of value for your PhD study at all!
Hi Sophie! Thanks for reading, and glad to meet you, too! Funny how we get to 'worth it' without solving the problems, isn't it? Hard to define what the worth is even as you can feel it in your bones. Thanks for your offer to help! Sorting my thesis in the year to come, I may come knocking :)
Thanks, kōtare! Means a lot. I’m always afraid I’ll get NZ ‘wrong’ somehow, and y’all are always just like ‘be yourself mate.’ Good vibes. Happy holidays to you and yours!
I think you are doing an amazing job. I understood letting the freak flag fly on a deep level. My first job was in Little Rock Arkansas, where no one understood my kiwi accent. So many moments. Pain, laughter, joy, frustration… so yeah mate, you beauty. Bob’s your uncle. Happy holidays to you and your family as well!
My apologies for the circumstances that allowed our current administration to gain power of our hopefully short term future. Let’s hope this will change in 2026 back to an inclusive and caring nation that you surely must have come here to embrace.
We moved to NZ in 2018 from Canada. Bucket list item as my father was from NZ so have all his family to catch up with.
The cost of living is high but you can live cheaply. For starters you can garden, hunt and fish year round. Limit your eating out as its expensive. Items we don't need that we needed in Canada - winter tires, snow shovels, winter boots. Pretty much wear shorts 365 days a year.
Some of the negatives are seeing that the clean green NZ motto is bullshit unless you are in a park - no recycling incentives so there are bottles and cans strewn everywhere. Lots of fly tipping garbage. Bad driving, bad traffic and road maintenance contractors are taking the piss.
If you do some research on polluted waterways in NZ you will be surprized.
Yes as Kiwi it really bothers me that New Zealand is advertised that way. Like, maybe in very specific adventure tourism spots, but elsewhere? We don't even have waste water purification, it just goes straight to the ocean, then we have a bunch of polluted beaches that are too dangerous to swim at...
Then there are the dairy farmers who pollute or drain the rivers then get all upset with you if you point that out. 🙄
True. And the bowel cancer, lordy. I will say on NZ's behalf that there's an admirable amount of shame/concern/anger about all this. Per capita it feels much higher to me than the US? Doesn't clean the rivers, does it, but it's a start.
Kia ora Mick, thanks for reading! The cult of the road cone is real, for sure. I'm always curious about the Canada to NZ track. In stereotypes, at least, it always felt to me like Australia's the America down here, NZ the Canada (smaller, colder, more chill, more buttoned down.)
I hear ya about the green thing. Just drove from Picton to Nelson, which is lovely except the long stretches of industrial pine, brutal clear cuts and all. Nothing natural about it. But maybe this is just a kind of gardening on a national scale? Sigh. Wishing you a proper summer, we've hardly had one ourselves!
Loved that Dan, I really did. I had the reverse experience of moving my life to America in 2008 for love. That mate, would make for some interesting reasons asking some similar questions. One of the main issues that you would not have experienced, as coming from the bigger smoke........I had to confront how what I found in America (lived in Denver) was in constant conflict with my internal enculturation with America, which was via a whole plethora of TV shows that began as a kid. Plus what I had heard...........the greatest this and that . At that time, and I hate how it eventually ends up here..........Aotearoa NZ didn't have peeps at traffic lights holding up the FBI signs at intersections........and the myriad variations. It shocked me to the core. I had some jobs off the radar and conservative and liberal took on a whole new meaning as Dems and Repubs spouted the same shite and no one listened or was bothered about listening to anyone. The buildings were made differently (and I loved the value added of having a basement....or outdoor electricity outlets. ) Home Depot...was heaven at that time for crafty DIY kiwi me. But it all came crashing down.........and while there was beauty totally, and I finally had a key to help driving on the wrong side of the road...........being in America, trying to move my life there and being refused a green card and a more permanent status............being in America made me a kiwi. I returned home, needing a loan from a friend.........and kissed the tarmac. Before I left NZ, I foolishly thought we should have more patriotism, more kiwi flags around the place................on my return, I thought, nahhh. In America I found all the flag waving and ra rah about serving your country in the military very very ugly. It was unreflected patriotism and politics. I don't think a huge % of the population wondered if what they repeated and were saying was really true..............I wont fly a national flag now because of that experience, and now look whats happening currently. I do fly flags but ones that are creative and expressive. I read lots, and have continued to do so. My suspicions were confirmed, and there is a huge snake oil and braggard element that I reacted too. That continues amidst some.
So moving my life to America was seminal. I made some lovely as friends who continue to this day. I made some enemies too..........like my ex wife, a Fox watching, Hannity loving, Obama hating, Palin loving Rep woman. I loved steel in America, the bridges, and the Home Depot type stores that similar stores in NZ were not like that then. They are now. It was a beautiful country, and no more beautiful than any other. I could see how throwing money and resources at making road around and thru mountains and beside rivers..........how conquering those things kinda built the arrogance and bragging we know of that nation, by some. I came home and loved the humble and non native pine trees on NZ, that were previously depised by moi...........but now they were home and I was glad to be so.
I remember riding the bus on Colfax once, and in pondering all that was America as I looked out the window................horror of horrors, I found myself glad for our westminster style of government, and how we were not like America. America shaped me into a kiwi...........and I know there are many Americans who won't be offended by this, and many who would say go and get f'd or f, the horse you rode into town on. That's the ugly side, and now they are in the white house.......nearly. America rejected the person who may have been able to bring back goodness and restore her mana in my eyes at least. They spat her out and embraced that other thing and its ilk........I find it hard to say that it does not surprise me or I didn't see it coming.
Would love to meet you and your family one day dan if you ever come north. You would be most welcome.
Hi Graham! Thanks for this, man, I never knew you'd lived up there. Denver's a solid place. The steel, the bridges--I loved this. These are the details we locals take for granted, or have forgotten. In another age the painters used to do these. Charles Sheeler's got one of the Golden Gate Bridge I've always loved. Now, who knows. Funny how going abroad can bring out the diehard in you. I never feel more American than when living outside America, which has got to be part of the reason I keep living abroad? Hmmm. Yes, would love to meet someday. If you're ever in the 'rapa, do give a holler. Happy New Year to you, sir!
A good summary Dan, imho. And that’s from my perspective as someone who was born, raised and educated in Aotearoa, but lived in Japan for 30 years—continuously for the last 27. I have mixed feelings about living in New Zealand, as you might imagine, and I’ve only been back for visits twice in the last 15 years. One other thing—I really don’t like the word “expat”. Way too many colonial connotations, and as you say, it implies separateness from the people whose hospitality one is enjoying. Kia ora
Kia ora Stephen! Thanks for reading, and for taking the time to write! I feel that about expat, for sure. I was just at a migration conference and scholars far smarter than me kindly raked me over the coals for using it. (Migrant is the preferred term, it turns out, as a broad category, with various levels of privilege/class/mobility in subheadings underneath.) I try to wrestle with the word as openly as I can. Just because it's ugly doesn't mean the differences it describes aren't real, no? I move easier than most in this world, by virtue of powers simply handed me at birth. This can breed an odd relationship to nation and place. There's good in this exchange, surely! But it leaves much to learn. This whole blog might be simply the wandering journey in my own head expat to self-acknowledged immigrant...?
I wonder what that's been like for you in Japan, home for so many years now. What a beautiful place! Was there only briefly once. Seems vaguely NZ-like, with the green islands and all, but of course totally different in so many ways. And the food, the food! Eat some noodles for me! Merry Xmas from NZ--
Another ex-pat Kiwi here 👋 I moved to NZ from the UK 19 years ago, after coming to Auckland for a 'year out' and just, well, staying. I now have citizenship and have put down a few roots in Aotearoa soil. Immigrant life is always a little conflicted, with multiple homes and multiple selves, but there's something quite special about this place... the rawness, the wildness, the whenua, the wairua, and the remoteness from the rest of the world.
Hi Vicki! Lovely to hear from another expat much farther down that road! We have 'just stayed' ourselves, for all kinds of revolving reasons. Always a little conflicted, indeed--it's a comfort to hear you say so. NZ is something else, ain't it? Remoteness cuts both ways, always, but I find I'm continually drawn to the edge. Edge of what, exactly?NZ's got it, whatever it is. Writing to figure it out. Thanks for reading!
Thank you for this piece Dan. I read it yesterday while waiting in AKL for my plane "home" to Dunedin. I'm an expat of 1.5 years and man, this second year is hitting me hard. I moved here with my two (brown) kids from Boulder. I left a pretty cush lifestyle to give my kids a better shot at life, and their kids and so on. Currently I am fighting with the quality of life piece that you mention. You're right, it is SUCH an American attribute isn't it? But we all need it, quality. For me quality means coming home and being warm. I obviously don't have that here in the cold cold south (who needs insulation anyway?!), so I'm left evaluating the other bits of quality I have here. Trading one for another I suppose. I appreciate all the things one would appreciate about this place, it's absolutely beautiful and we can step outside and be on a trail or the beach within minutes. We have free (albeit not the best) healthcare, I was able to buy a house when I wouldn't have done in the US, and so on. But still, day after day, I come home and wish I was warm. I strive for the day when I'm less soft, hoping it comes to me in the third year here?
Hi Ani! Thanks for taking the time to write, and apologies for taking so long to reply! You had me thinking about 'quality' all through our (sometimes rainy) holiday. I don't think there's an easy answer, and I can feel like an ungrateful jerk even raising the question! In many ways, moving from America to NZ is moving from More to Less. Quite often this is trading 'more bad stuff' to 'less bad stuff.' And there are indeed more trails and beaches, etc...but the beaches are great in part because there are far Less people on them, right? I often miss America's noise & heat & light, both literal and cultural. And then I sit here in my jacket and think myself soft or narcissist or melodramatic or whatever? Other times I'm ecstatic to be out on the edge, away from it all. I know some Americans who've made the jump. Some who look back, some who don't. I also know the look in a visitor's eyes when they take it all in and think, is this it? Yes and no. I don't know. No easy answers. I'm writing through it, which is all I know how to do. I wish you all the luck & peace & home Dunedin can give. That and a cheap Macpac puffer for a housecoat. Godspeed for years two & three!
Wait, I have /never/ heard "rellies", is this a greater Wellington area thing? Or am I just oblivious about kiwi slang again, despite living here my entire life?
Yeah I feel like this one snuck by me for years and now I hear it all the time? Around the holidays, I guess. Fits in there with sparkies for electricians and vollies for volunteer fire fighters, which i just heard the other day!
I'm interested in the question Elizabeth *doesn't* ask her interviewees, namely why would NZ (or any of other countries) want to have you? What do you bring to the country that means you're not just exploiting it for your own gain as so many colonists have done before you?
Thanks for reading! That's a great question. Short answer: you got me. We definitely came for a chance to improve *our* lives. This is the primary reason most folks move, no? For better and for worse. I strive mightily to be a good guest and contributing citizen, even without citizenship. What's enough? I don't know.
You're absolutely right that this is all a blindspot of online expat chatter, which is so heavily focused on US to Europe--empire to empire, as it were. NZ complicates this narrative in lots of productive ways. There's a deep non-Western history here, then a lot of ugly colonization, and now an energetic (if uneven) reckoning between the two. The big questions are right on the surface here. I find this beautiful, honestly. This tauiwi is writing to learn.
Thanks so much for reading, and taking the time to write! I'm gonna be thinking about this a long while. More on this to come in the newsletter, I think. A happy holidays to you and yours!
Dan, coming with the willingness to learn some history and a bit of te reo automatically ranks you in the top 1% of expats in Aotearoa!
Like so many readers I've always been enjoyed 'American living in NZ', 'NZer living in Laos' stories and I started reading the 'why should you move to' series with the same interest. But in the context of the post-US election 'let's move to NZ/Canada/the UK' discourse so common on Substack and other platforms, and also the context of research I've been doing about the huge impacts of post WW2 internal migration on my own iwi, I've started thinking much more deeply about what it's like to be the people whose country or town gets moved *to*, especially when we're a small country like NZ or a tiny iwi.
So I'm genuinely interested in whether expats or immigrants think of the country they move to as a kind of terra nullius or blank space, a sunny place where they can live in a gated community, a rich learning and cultural contact opportunity, or somewhere to make money before going 'home'. And asking interviewees what they bring *to* the country they've moved to can elicit some great reflections, as it did with your thoughtful response.
As it happens, I'm about to move out of my own rohe in Wellington over to the Wairarapa. I too hope to be a good guest and contributing citizen in Ngāti Kahungunu country, and we might meet up!
Kia ora Tui! My apologies, I dropped out there for the holiday & wanted to come back and say thanks so muchg for your thoughtful comment. You're raising the level around here and it's the sort of conversation one starts blogging to find. I've certainly read about the 1950s migration here from the arrivals' point of view (and heard directly from those who lived it!) but I've thought much less about the effects on those already here. (Did you read that Alison Jones book, This Pakeha Life?) You're right, this 'what do you bring' question is a good one to ask, just to open up the tunnel vision. I will be adding this to my quiver going forward, thank you!
And hey, welcome to the 'rapa! No doubt we're lucky to have you. Would love to continue the conversation. Get yourself settled and give me holler, coffee's my shout!
Kia Ora Tui. I think there are a host of reasons why people immigrate. As a young woman in Aotearoa, I was one of the nursing graduates who could not find employment post graduation in 1990. This was after the stock market crash and similar to what the Nursing graduates face this year, ie a recession. I left to work overseas at the height of the AIDs epidemic. We entered a culture that we knew nothing about and the learning was huge. I was on a ward with all these beautiful young men who were tragically dying. We brought our professional skills to a critical need at the time. Thirty years later, I have brought those skills plus others home to Aotearoa, when I came home to care for unwell whānau. So while some nurses are emigrating some of us are also coming home. The time spent overseas was an enormous learning opportunity about diversity, for which I’m really thankful. Thank you for raising this question because I do think it’s an important conversation, and we can learn from each other.
What a treat to stumble upon your substack today! Hi from a fellow immigrant or expat. I'm originally from Belgium and now living in New Zealand and I can confirm that moving halfway across the world doesn't magically solve all problems, but it's still well worth it. By the way I also saw you're studying fellow expats who write on substack so do feel free to reach out if I can be of value for your PhD study at all!
Hi Sophie! Thanks for reading, and glad to meet you, too! Funny how we get to 'worth it' without solving the problems, isn't it? Hard to define what the worth is even as you can feel it in your bones. Thanks for your offer to help! Sorting my thesis in the year to come, I may come knocking :)
Awesome Dan. I laughed out loud at let American Freak flag fly. I liked the pure honesty in this piece of your experiences here.
Thanks, kōtare! Means a lot. I’m always afraid I’ll get NZ ‘wrong’ somehow, and y’all are always just like ‘be yourself mate.’ Good vibes. Happy holidays to you and yours!
I think you are doing an amazing job. I understood letting the freak flag fly on a deep level. My first job was in Little Rock Arkansas, where no one understood my kiwi accent. So many moments. Pain, laughter, joy, frustration… so yeah mate, you beauty. Bob’s your uncle. Happy holidays to you and your family as well!
Little Rock??? What?! That’s Real America right there. I want to hear stories! You’re ever in Welly or the Wairarapa, coffee’s my shout!
Deal! Would love to. Cheers.
Thanks Dan for your honesty .
My apologies for the circumstances that allowed our current administration to gain power of our hopefully short term future. Let’s hope this will change in 2026 back to an inclusive and caring nation that you surely must have come here to embrace.
Let us hope! The caring folks are still everywhere here, though :)
well said, me too
Kia ora Dan,
We moved to NZ in 2018 from Canada. Bucket list item as my father was from NZ so have all his family to catch up with.
The cost of living is high but you can live cheaply. For starters you can garden, hunt and fish year round. Limit your eating out as its expensive. Items we don't need that we needed in Canada - winter tires, snow shovels, winter boots. Pretty much wear shorts 365 days a year.
Some of the negatives are seeing that the clean green NZ motto is bullshit unless you are in a park - no recycling incentives so there are bottles and cans strewn everywhere. Lots of fly tipping garbage. Bad driving, bad traffic and road maintenance contractors are taking the piss.
If you do some research on polluted waterways in NZ you will be surprized.
Hope all is well in windy Wairarapa.
Yes as Kiwi it really bothers me that New Zealand is advertised that way. Like, maybe in very specific adventure tourism spots, but elsewhere? We don't even have waste water purification, it just goes straight to the ocean, then we have a bunch of polluted beaches that are too dangerous to swim at...
Then there are the dairy farmers who pollute or drain the rivers then get all upset with you if you point that out. 🙄
True. And the bowel cancer, lordy. I will say on NZ's behalf that there's an admirable amount of shame/concern/anger about all this. Per capita it feels much higher to me than the US? Doesn't clean the rivers, does it, but it's a start.
Kia ora Mick, thanks for reading! The cult of the road cone is real, for sure. I'm always curious about the Canada to NZ track. In stereotypes, at least, it always felt to me like Australia's the America down here, NZ the Canada (smaller, colder, more chill, more buttoned down.)
I hear ya about the green thing. Just drove from Picton to Nelson, which is lovely except the long stretches of industrial pine, brutal clear cuts and all. Nothing natural about it. But maybe this is just a kind of gardening on a national scale? Sigh. Wishing you a proper summer, we've hardly had one ourselves!
Loved that Dan, I really did. I had the reverse experience of moving my life to America in 2008 for love. That mate, would make for some interesting reasons asking some similar questions. One of the main issues that you would not have experienced, as coming from the bigger smoke........I had to confront how what I found in America (lived in Denver) was in constant conflict with my internal enculturation with America, which was via a whole plethora of TV shows that began as a kid. Plus what I had heard...........the greatest this and that . At that time, and I hate how it eventually ends up here..........Aotearoa NZ didn't have peeps at traffic lights holding up the FBI signs at intersections........and the myriad variations. It shocked me to the core. I had some jobs off the radar and conservative and liberal took on a whole new meaning as Dems and Repubs spouted the same shite and no one listened or was bothered about listening to anyone. The buildings were made differently (and I loved the value added of having a basement....or outdoor electricity outlets. ) Home Depot...was heaven at that time for crafty DIY kiwi me. But it all came crashing down.........and while there was beauty totally, and I finally had a key to help driving on the wrong side of the road...........being in America, trying to move my life there and being refused a green card and a more permanent status............being in America made me a kiwi. I returned home, needing a loan from a friend.........and kissed the tarmac. Before I left NZ, I foolishly thought we should have more patriotism, more kiwi flags around the place................on my return, I thought, nahhh. In America I found all the flag waving and ra rah about serving your country in the military very very ugly. It was unreflected patriotism and politics. I don't think a huge % of the population wondered if what they repeated and were saying was really true..............I wont fly a national flag now because of that experience, and now look whats happening currently. I do fly flags but ones that are creative and expressive. I read lots, and have continued to do so. My suspicions were confirmed, and there is a huge snake oil and braggard element that I reacted too. That continues amidst some.
So moving my life to America was seminal. I made some lovely as friends who continue to this day. I made some enemies too..........like my ex wife, a Fox watching, Hannity loving, Obama hating, Palin loving Rep woman. I loved steel in America, the bridges, and the Home Depot type stores that similar stores in NZ were not like that then. They are now. It was a beautiful country, and no more beautiful than any other. I could see how throwing money and resources at making road around and thru mountains and beside rivers..........how conquering those things kinda built the arrogance and bragging we know of that nation, by some. I came home and loved the humble and non native pine trees on NZ, that were previously depised by moi...........but now they were home and I was glad to be so.
I remember riding the bus on Colfax once, and in pondering all that was America as I looked out the window................horror of horrors, I found myself glad for our westminster style of government, and how we were not like America. America shaped me into a kiwi...........and I know there are many Americans who won't be offended by this, and many who would say go and get f'd or f, the horse you rode into town on. That's the ugly side, and now they are in the white house.......nearly. America rejected the person who may have been able to bring back goodness and restore her mana in my eyes at least. They spat her out and embraced that other thing and its ilk........I find it hard to say that it does not surprise me or I didn't see it coming.
Would love to meet you and your family one day dan if you ever come north. You would be most welcome.
Hi Graham! Thanks for this, man, I never knew you'd lived up there. Denver's a solid place. The steel, the bridges--I loved this. These are the details we locals take for granted, or have forgotten. In another age the painters used to do these. Charles Sheeler's got one of the Golden Gate Bridge I've always loved. Now, who knows. Funny how going abroad can bring out the diehard in you. I never feel more American than when living outside America, which has got to be part of the reason I keep living abroad? Hmmm. Yes, would love to meet someday. If you're ever in the 'rapa, do give a holler. Happy New Year to you, sir!
I'm a Brit who's lived in the Netherlands and now the US, and currently visiting NZ. Loved this, all of it. Color me expat Substacker!
Thanks John, glad you enjoyed! Welcome to NZ, and say hi to my dear Yanks when you get home!
A good summary Dan, imho. And that’s from my perspective as someone who was born, raised and educated in Aotearoa, but lived in Japan for 30 years—continuously for the last 27. I have mixed feelings about living in New Zealand, as you might imagine, and I’ve only been back for visits twice in the last 15 years. One other thing—I really don’t like the word “expat”. Way too many colonial connotations, and as you say, it implies separateness from the people whose hospitality one is enjoying. Kia ora
Kia ora Stephen! Thanks for reading, and for taking the time to write! I feel that about expat, for sure. I was just at a migration conference and scholars far smarter than me kindly raked me over the coals for using it. (Migrant is the preferred term, it turns out, as a broad category, with various levels of privilege/class/mobility in subheadings underneath.) I try to wrestle with the word as openly as I can. Just because it's ugly doesn't mean the differences it describes aren't real, no? I move easier than most in this world, by virtue of powers simply handed me at birth. This can breed an odd relationship to nation and place. There's good in this exchange, surely! But it leaves much to learn. This whole blog might be simply the wandering journey in my own head expat to self-acknowledged immigrant...?
I wonder what that's been like for you in Japan, home for so many years now. What a beautiful place! Was there only briefly once. Seems vaguely NZ-like, with the green islands and all, but of course totally different in so many ways. And the food, the food! Eat some noodles for me! Merry Xmas from NZ--
Dan, I enjoyed this. Insightful. You really do have a knack for this kind of writing.
Thanks! More to come, I hope. Merry Xmas! We miss you guys!
Love your writing, Dan! Feels like having a chat in person while waiting at school pickup :)
Thanks, Ali! So glad you dig it. Let’s get the girls together this break!
Another ex-pat Kiwi here 👋 I moved to NZ from the UK 19 years ago, after coming to Auckland for a 'year out' and just, well, staying. I now have citizenship and have put down a few roots in Aotearoa soil. Immigrant life is always a little conflicted, with multiple homes and multiple selves, but there's something quite special about this place... the rawness, the wildness, the whenua, the wairua, and the remoteness from the rest of the world.
Hi Vicki! Lovely to hear from another expat much farther down that road! We have 'just stayed' ourselves, for all kinds of revolving reasons. Always a little conflicted, indeed--it's a comfort to hear you say so. NZ is something else, ain't it? Remoteness cuts both ways, always, but I find I'm continually drawn to the edge. Edge of what, exactly?NZ's got it, whatever it is. Writing to figure it out. Thanks for reading!
Thank you for this piece Dan. I read it yesterday while waiting in AKL for my plane "home" to Dunedin. I'm an expat of 1.5 years and man, this second year is hitting me hard. I moved here with my two (brown) kids from Boulder. I left a pretty cush lifestyle to give my kids a better shot at life, and their kids and so on. Currently I am fighting with the quality of life piece that you mention. You're right, it is SUCH an American attribute isn't it? But we all need it, quality. For me quality means coming home and being warm. I obviously don't have that here in the cold cold south (who needs insulation anyway?!), so I'm left evaluating the other bits of quality I have here. Trading one for another I suppose. I appreciate all the things one would appreciate about this place, it's absolutely beautiful and we can step outside and be on a trail or the beach within minutes. We have free (albeit not the best) healthcare, I was able to buy a house when I wouldn't have done in the US, and so on. But still, day after day, I come home and wish I was warm. I strive for the day when I'm less soft, hoping it comes to me in the third year here?
Hi Ani! Thanks for taking the time to write, and apologies for taking so long to reply! You had me thinking about 'quality' all through our (sometimes rainy) holiday. I don't think there's an easy answer, and I can feel like an ungrateful jerk even raising the question! In many ways, moving from America to NZ is moving from More to Less. Quite often this is trading 'more bad stuff' to 'less bad stuff.' And there are indeed more trails and beaches, etc...but the beaches are great in part because there are far Less people on them, right? I often miss America's noise & heat & light, both literal and cultural. And then I sit here in my jacket and think myself soft or narcissist or melodramatic or whatever? Other times I'm ecstatic to be out on the edge, away from it all. I know some Americans who've made the jump. Some who look back, some who don't. I also know the look in a visitor's eyes when they take it all in and think, is this it? Yes and no. I don't know. No easy answers. I'm writing through it, which is all I know how to do. I wish you all the luck & peace & home Dunedin can give. That and a cheap Macpac puffer for a housecoat. Godspeed for years two & three!
Wait, I have /never/ heard "rellies", is this a greater Wellington area thing? Or am I just oblivious about kiwi slang again, despite living here my entire life?
Yeah I feel like this one snuck by me for years and now I hear it all the time? Around the holidays, I guess. Fits in there with sparkies for electricians and vollies for volunteer fire fighters, which i just heard the other day!
Okay, definitely heard sparkles, but vollies?? This has gone too far haha
Sigh, autocorrect... Sparkies*
Let’s start calling them sparkles!
The answer is of course, yes, from a proud kiwi!
No, too far away
You ain't wrong. Couldn't even go there in the survey, too painful to think about