Leaving NZ? share your exit interviews here
It was a long story with my approx 1 decade’s experience moving to NZ and then back to HK. To summarise, Kiwi’s were very hostile to us whereas in HK I could coexist and get along with white and asians from all over happily and peacefully. White higher ups impose white terrorism at workplace and serious breach of human rights plus censorship when the media may bash about Chinese violations of IP, Human rights, censorship etc. My personal experience is that the violation in NZ is even worse.
The good things were the cheap kiwi fruit and mussles. But they are not what all your life live for. There was no expection of being able to dig gold in NZ from us, but it was my hope to get along with locals, have happy friendship, being able to work and earn a living, enjoy the surroundings in peace. Even if there was no expectation of fair treatment at work or school, the harmful bullying and defamation/sabotage I think is uncalled for and unnecessary. If we got serious abuse from locals, there is no further conflict that we look forward to, so we went back. There was not much we could hope for in any partnership or win win relationship. We are often looked upon with distrust and suspiciousion, or treated like a traitor. Why should we bother carrying all these bad labels and wronged?
Read more Exit Interviews here
E2NZ.org 
Like other people who have responded to pt’s comments ” They violate people’s privacy, perform white collar crime, dishonest and irresponsible. You get nowhere acting in good faith or trying to be a hero helping the coworkers, customers or the country. All you do is get targeted and destroyed” this comes close to my experience as an Australian working in NZ. I have now left with my family after only one year and I’m still finding it harder to understand the experience I had working in Auckland and also the experience my daughter had at school in Auckland.
We were living/working in the U.K. before moving to NZ and my daughter was attending a government school there i.e. not fee paying, but she felt that she lost knowledge in the year she was at high school in NZ. In addition the students were very competitive and racist, including towards Australia/Australians. What I found amazing was that this high school mentality was present at my work place, with racist comments about Australians by people in my department as well as by staff in other departments in the biweekly all-staff meetings. But I have to say many of the racist comments came from people from the U.K. and also Canada in my experience at work, so it wasn’t only New Zealanders.
One of the most bizarre comments came from a female colleague originally from the U.K. who had lived in Auckland for many years. It was at the time of the rugby world cup and a group of us were having morning coffee talking about rugby and she said she had heard a funny story about the rugby final between NZ and Australia i.e. “the advice for Kiwis flying back to NZ from the U.K. in the event that Australia won the world cup rugby and you had misfortune to be sitting next to an Australian on the plane, was to grab the meal tray table off the back of the seat in front of you and bang your head repeatedly with it as that would be better than talking with the Australian”.
I have worked in Australia, the U.S., the U.K., and mainland Europe in a profession that is multicultural and priedes itsself as being inclusive and I have never heard comments like this at work. In the privacy of people’s living rooms in front of the rugby is one thing but at work it’s not professional and I still find it hard to believe that I had this experience and my daughter had a bad experience in her school in NZ.
“They violate people’s privacy, perform white collar crime, dishonest and irresponsible. You get nowhere acting in good faith or trying to be a hero helping the coworkers, customers or the country. All you do is get targeted and destroyed”.
That has seemed to be my experience. I’m even thinking about fighting back by putting up my Sole Trader IT skills and marketing myself as a resource for all immigrants and ethnic minorities who all seem to suffer at the hands of the “White Trash” of this country. (and by the way I am caucasian from Scotland), had a guts full and ready to William Wallace on these underhanded, sneaky, passive aggressive, backstabbing biatches! I have read so many comments on these exit interviews that really resonate with my experience. But feel like if I leave, I’ve let bad people prevail.
Well, as an immigrant who left New Zealand recently, now I make sure that what I felt while living in New Zealand was not subjective experience. Thanks for sharing your story. And, let’s forgive the racist and close-minded locals of New Zealand. Peace.
We knew a nice family from HK where we were. He was there for years, but what ultimately drove him away from New Zealand along with one of the other Asian families in town was the low quality of the education, for their children. This was decile 7, and still nowhere near the standard of other developed nations.
but what ultimately drove him away from New Zealand along with one of the other Asian families in town was the low quality of the education, for their children.
Is that code for racism? It seems to be a more acceptable thing to say than “because of the likely prejudice my children will face after completion of their studies, I am not sure their future is secure”.
that’s not racism P Ray that’s fact. Children in New Zealand are several years behind other developed countries educationally. A secure future these days requires one to be able to see past the borders of a small country and a modicum of learning is a useful tool to have!
Children in New Zealand are several years behind other developed countries educationally.
Well, they must then have some superior ability in catch up, certainly because in STEM at University, while many fail (the norm for any education which demonstrates a winnowing process) – some pass.
And some of those considered “differently-abled” by most people, had intellects capable of handling VERY esoteric subjects (I assisted some of them personally with research, and can vouch for that).
“Their future is secure” I suppose was a clumsy way to put it, more accurate is “they shall not want for the ability to produce for anyone seeking specialised skills, or put in the hard yards where required”.
At least, that’s my opinion of it based on personal experience. Some of them were merchandise suppliers for vending machines, others were shelf-stackers. But just while earning their degree. They’re not multi-millionaires by any stretch of the imagination … but they’re not starving either now.
You could be right, P. Ray. He never mentioned racism to me, P Ray, but then I am not Asian. He moved back to the UK, where he had been before NZ, and not to HK. My child did mention to me that as fellow migrants they had confessed that it felt as if they had moved to a planet where everyone else was much stupider than they were. Must have felt like an Idiocracy movie.to them. I observed them try very hard to make friends, but ultimately only fellow migrants socialised with them. Part of this was that their English was not too good. There was a chicken-egg problem of “English not good – hard to make friends, but without friends to help you, your English cannot get good”. If it is a struggle to communicate, well, no one needs to invite more struggle in New Zealand than already incurred by the fact of living there. We knew some local Koreans and were friends with them. Very nice people. They became involved with the local church, and that was the key to their better integration, I suppose, but with this involvement, they socialised more and more with church people, who formed their own clique. The local migrant “ethnic cliques” were unpleasant due to their isolation from the mainstream, and gossip, and we avoided these like the plague, as did the Korean family we knew, preferring to make friends with individual people or families from all walks who were simply nice across the board. It was like crossing a large swamp with only a few floating logs to step on. And some of these were alligators. 🙂
that workplace bully called Lee M?Nab? with no relevant qualification in the field just jumped in to the office using misrepresented interview skills and on first day she already rob away my perfect programming source code to label it as her own work instead of mine. Then falsiified all records against written company policy, but when i voiced the concern about this unethical and risky character for a giant telecon company, the coworkers and higher ups do nothing and brush off the pain i suffered. people were very shallow and selfish, and i found it unbelievable that you were doing the job that you were hired for, and manufactured billions of dollars of value for someone, only have you targeted for serious mental damage, redicule, defamation and dumped after being abused. The serial bully was promoted by the bad management to higher positions in charge of ecommerce where integrity privacy etc are supposedly to be the values, but these people have no character that matches these core needs. They violate people’s privacy, perform white collar crime, dishonest and irresponsible. You get nowhere acting in good faith or trying to be a hero helping the coworkers, customers or the country. All you do is get targeted and destroyed, while the politicians moving to roles to promote themselves at your expense.