I'm gonna miss your posts, kool thing, but I know this won't be the last we'll hear from you.

Good luck in your... um... new position, but do come out of the... shadows to dazzle us and skewer a few?

Still, if you are working for the likes of NZTE or MFAT (is that who is redacted?) all I can say is, about time. The hot meals for?

What you've done here is important, and people will still think that in years to come. More so, probably.

Remember, the door is always open for a guest post from Geneva. Always.

I'm very sad about this, and I hope you'll come back here physically and virtually. Thanks for all the entertainment and information.

And from what I can see from here, the Movement back home is taking care of itself.

Have you seen this?

Are you sure you want to desert us?

All the very best. I've enjoyed your blog immensely and will miss your writing.

You certainly helped force me into delurking, all the very best.

Thank you so much for your awesome posts, for being the voice I could relate to (and thanks for introducing Sepia Mutiny into my world) and, well, making the political sphere at home not feel so isolating.

Good luck!

thank you so much for you amazing posts, and having the strength to say so many things as a writer on PA. I've always loved your thoughts and contribution to PA.

honestly it's truly sad to see another woman with a strong voice depart from the online world?

Your measured, intelligent reaction, analysis and deconstruction of the "Asian Angst" bilge was outstanding amd much appreciated.

Look after yourself, take it easy and have a most-excellent Christmas and 2008.

From my experiences, I found Dunners to be more cosmopolitan than ChCh. All the more so when I attended a very prestigious private school?

Nope, the Lucky Cat belongs to us, always.

Is that the actual North and South Asian Angst cover kitty?

Nope, the Lucky Cat belongs to us, always.

Well, obviously, but it was a pretty neat reference anyway. :)

Still gutted that there won't be any more, but again, all the best.

but i reckon that the halycon days of public address were just after you and keith joined the team. lots of posting, lots of debate. the big issues were canvassed and blogs were still a teeny bit guerilla.

i think that's?

Many, many were the times I stood on a bus in Singabore, hungover, confused, lonely and hot, reading Yellow Peril on the WAP and trying to click my?

That's a great stoush going on on Expat Exposed. It's funny how some New Zealanders are in complete denial that racism exists here and that Christchurch is a shop window for it.

BTW – When's?

And to add to the chorus of offers, you can always guest-blog at No Right Turn if you want to vent your spleen (and I can imagine that working in Geneva, you're going to want to).

I feel your pain, being in an expat in a public service paradise, which is even whiter than?

I consider you to write the former, in case?

But I'm genuinely surprised to read that the "overall middle ground of this site" is counter to your point-of-view, to the point where it's no longer tolerable; that's not how I had imagined the average PA reader, or average reader of your posts in particular.

I have to admit, I?

I'm closer to the prostate, perhaps.

Thats a real bummer.

a big ???????
(otsukaresama!)

as we say over here.

best of luck in all your current and future endeavours.
i just hope [redacted] sends you over here for a power-noodle symposium at a certain large building on Aoyama Dori. or something.

p.s. the prices of?

Ka kite ano, Tze Ming.

You know I'm going to have to beat your narrow yellow behind for leaving us like this don't you?

Thank you Tze Ming for all your wit, your anger, your perception and your analysis. We are all much, much poorer for your retirement from?

...can't find the words...my cyber-crush...is it ending?

me too merc, me too...

Seriously awesome blog, Tze Ming. To bastardise a potential word of the year, I declare your writing to be super prime. All the best in Geneva.

Also, If you haven't already, jump on a bus to Chamonix and?

are people who spend their time writing to discussion forums and not out and about town very much. You can easily avoid the bad attitude in question by not going out, but?

Thanks Tze Ming, for opening a window into another world for me – I'm a white chick who moved from Auckland's North Shore to Wellington's CBD before?

Echoing what others have expressed before me: your work at PA has been important and very much appreciated, far beyond Aotearoa's blessed shores. More than once, you've sparked a good deal of?

You've been?

The discussion posts that your retirement have prompted are some of what I rely on you for – I live?

MPs in the Beehive sandpit have been throwing their toys around over the?

I would suggest that's a Cantabrian thing (the racism)

oh would you jackie?
cos it doesn't occur anywhere else in this country?
its probably more of a brain drain thing where any people with an iq move to the more cosmopolitan cities, or overseas leaving a higher proportion of mildly?

I would suggest that's a Cantabrian thing (the racism).

Is it just me, or can someone else detect irony in this statement? It's okay to make offensive generalisations about a province, but not a race?

CHCH has seen fit to empty its central city of people (friday night 7.30 pm?

I would suggest that's a Cantabrian thing (the racism).

Is it just me, or can someone else detect irony in this statement? It's okay to make offensive generalisations about a province, but not a race?

Is yelling offensive comments at someone because of their race worse than making qualified, obviously?

Is yelling offensive comments at someone because of their race worse than making qualified, obviously generalised observations about a broad area?

Yes, obviously.

Sorry, obviously unclear, I was likening 'Cantabrians are racist' to 'Asians are bad drivers'. A generalised assertion, which people feel they can back up with anecdotal evidence.

Those aren't tumbleweeds, those are prostitutes. I'd suggest heading two blocks over to Oxford Tce, where the bars are.

thats 7.30pm, hookers aren't out earning a honest nights pay till later (eh um, so I'm told) and bars aren't a humming till way too late, and he happening area isn't?

Is yelling offensive comments at someone because of their race worse than making qualified, obviously generalised observations about a broad area?

what was qualified about jackie's comment?
anyone would think a visit to chch will see you streets filled with jackboot wearing charlie chaplin mostachioe'd nazis as opposed to the?

Sorry, obviously unclear, I was likening 'Cantabrians are racist' to 'Asians are bad drivers'. A generalised assertion, which people feel they can?

(when in doubt, pass the buck)

Yeah, I blame Timaru for most things, too.

concerns over disproportionately high levels of racism were more an issue in Canterbury than NZ in general.

sorry? what scientific study was that jackie was referring too.
was it the law of 'couple o people on the internet said it so it must be true'

As a person that travels?

If the objects of the abuse would rather just keep their heads down, what can the rest of us do about it?

I wonder if the objects of the abuse keep their heads down becasue they think that n one is going to stick up for them anyway, so they?

I thought the idea was more that there was a greater concentration of visible racist idiots there...

and my point was, based on what study?
its easy to call a place racist and absolve ones own place of living from said critcism, but truth is chch is no different from?

"sorry? what scientific study was that jackie was referring too.

We can only comment following scientific studies?

I've heard a lot more than just a couple of people on the net voicing concerns over racism in Christchurch. I've only got anecdotes, but there have been a lot of them. And?

So I'm more inclined to want to respond to the people handing out the abuse, and say something helpful and constructive, like, "Piss off, you fcukwits. We don't need racist scum like you here."

Could be a personally dangerous strategy, of course.

I have done that, in the past, on?

Hamilton is boring, Timaru is violent, and your home town , ***-vegas, is a shithole.

And my birth town, Whangarei is muddy and it's over grown with kikuya grass .

Anyway what's with all the racist talk?

I like visiting my?

same kind of incidents were pretty common in Palmerston North. I have a couple of theories about flatness.

Lack of vision. You can see a lot further standing on a hill :-)

I've heard a number of people say Chch is racist as well. Nothing scientific of course. My ex?

I suspect that families that grow up in areas where they have less contact with different sorts of people, tend to have more anger/fears about them. And that comes out sometimes.

Could be that the reverse is true. Have a look at this Financial Times piece about some research by?

I wasn't at all saying that all Cantabrians are racist, of course I wasn't.

yet what you said was

Are you saying that you can't come home because it's so racist here? I would suggest that's a Cantabrian thing (the racism).

Which quite clearly states you think the issue of?