Welcome to our ever popular series of Migrant Tales – first hand accounts of the migrant experience of New Zealand taken from locations around the net.
Today’s tale was first published on a commercial, advertorial supported emigration forum and attracted the usual ‘victim blaming’ ‘it must be you’ type responses that greet any criticism of New Zealand. We’re publishing it here to get away from that narrow-minded attitude.
“Is New Zealand really a promised country? There is a lot of people who might consider New Zealand as a promised country and yet they have not been there. Thus the first good idea is to travel for a week or two to “the land of a long white cloud”. Once you are in NZ. you can see if your character is able to mix with mentality of the people and environment itself. My intention going to this promised country was to get a job and decent standard of life. However things did not went as I anticipated.
To proceed…When I arrived to Auckland International Airport the first thing I noticed was awful weather. Off course it was winter, thus it was raining all the time. Then I took a bus who drive me to the center of the Auckland. Here I can expose that the driver was a Maori stunned and you could also smell alcohol. This was not a lonely case. Walking through the Auckland I have noticed that this is multicultural environment, nonetheless one could see that Indians, Chinese and Japans are sticking together, grouping. Once in the hostel my mood soon improved. However the price for the hostel was ridiculous expensive not to mention the fact that the building itself was similar to the ones in Yugoslavia or Eastern Europe. After a while I begun looking for a room. It was hard, really hard, to get a decent room for a decent price in Auckland and similar to get a well paid job at the beginning. I went all over the Auckland, suburbs i.e. Patatote.
“When looking for a place, people or landlords were sometimes even too lazy to remove dog faces from a porch. Not to mention the fact that Auckland is really neglected in some areas, the structure of buildings is ridiculous, low buildings mixed with high buildings. It is like uncontrolled, inconsiderate layout of the complexes. After a while I consider going to Wellington.
Arrived to wellington, place was cleaner although here was not only rainy but also windy. Hostel where I lived a week was little better, though still nothing like the hostels in Europe. After a week living in a hostel I found myself a room. It was decent and for a good price $123 including expenses. The house was located in Island Bay, I think the best area in Wellington. After a while looking for a decent job with my qualifications (all recognized with NZQA) and with no success I start looking for non-qualified jobs. After a month I got a part time job. Working as a gardener. It was enough to cover my expenses, but far away to get a decent standard. I have exposed the mentality of the people in Auckland. Well here was pretty much the same. Thus people in the shop centers rather put a bucket to the floor instead filling the hole when leaking. It would be funny If there would be no people with this mentality in my house. Thus, as I mentioned before place was nice, but the problem was that kiwi girls were holding filthily pots either in their rooms or in the counter in the kitchen. They washed their dish approximately once in a week. And even when they washed the dish I would not consider this as a washing. The whole washing liquid was still on the pods, when moving them to the place to dry.They are advertising that there should be heaps of work in hospitaly. But even this is not true. There was a nice kiwi girl living with me and on a dole struggling to get a job as a barrister or working in a store. She was looking for a job for a month unsuccessful. After a while she decided going for a 8 weeks course as a barrista. When talking to her she mentioned that there are also some kind of boot camps in New Zealand. Whereas these boot camps are more a joke than anything else. But in the end you could put your boot camp experience in your CV.lol
When I meet a Chinese guy in Auckland, who was really friendly and we keep in touch till this day, he got only 2 interviews in a 6 months period. He was an IT engineer and in similar position as I and came to NZ with WHV. Though he gained high qualifications in IT and with 5 years of working experiences he was working 2 days a week as a cleaner in a hostel.
After a four months and 21 days I finally gave up. However there was also complication when trying to buy a fly ticket going back home. When I tried to buy a ticket my bank account was “blocked”. I contact my bank and they tolled me that everything is ok. Nonetheless I could not buy a fly ticket. I spent all day calling bank and airline company. Literally all day. Next day I went to my bank branch (on Saturday) where we tried to buy a fly ticket with a branch supervisor. After a while we figure it out that my bank did not gave me a PIN code for my VISA debit card. Once we solve the problem I managed to buy a ticket.
The similar event occur when tried to send a packet with a Kiwi post. First they told me that I should pack my bag in a box. However it is impossible to get the box which would meet the dimensions of the bag. Thus I went to the company Storage King and bought the best box. Coming back to Kiwi post the lady at the counter told me: your sum dimension excess 10cm…LOL. Thereby I had to took my bag out, and put all sides apart and glue them together on the bag to reduce 10cm.
To sum up New Zealand in my opinion has nothing to offer. It is really hard to get a job. There is also no history in this country and if you want to see a nature, Europe has much, much more to offer.
It is just my pure subjective opinion and if there would be someone writing something like this prior I decided going to NZ. I would consider twice.
In 4 months and 21 days I have spent $9000 including return ticket, medical exams, qualifications assessment, WHV visa…Although I did earn for living but the sum altogether was $9000.
Would not stay in NZ. even if permanent residency would be granted to me. No offense to those who like NZ.
When I tried to send my mobile phone back to home, they told me, that the post is unable to send lithium batteries oversea. Is this a joke? Than I just said to the lady at the counter I will pay for the envelope and went to another branch where I wrote on the envelop: Gift – sweets. And the phone came back to my home. Miracle.
And as I wrote before the jobs are really hard to get. I had seen what Indians are working and what kind of wage do they get. In the hopsitality sector they earn 60 cents per room. Looking in the contract the most sarcastic thing is that they give them 30 min. for a lunch break. Albeit they are paid per room not per hour. This is the problem because those people do not care for their rights and consequently they lower the wages in all sectors.
Some houses in the New Zealand would be considered as a shacks in Western Europe. A lot of houses do not contain isolation nor central heating. Thus the electricity bill will go up in winter. If you want decent place (comparing with European standard) you will pay a lot…Real Estates sector in NZ. is a mess an old house in Wellington – Island Bay could get up to $500.000 and the house does not contain isolation and heating system.
It is funny when you read things as: Auckland (Wellington) on the top ten most livable cities in the world…This is more a commercial than independent research. There are countries i.e. Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland whereas their capitals are really decent. Been there.”
E2NZ.org 