Up Front: Where You From?
231 Responses
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I still have no idea how those of you who live in ChCh are brave or strong enough to choose to stay
Or lazy enough. The practicalities of leaving are crushing: how would we sell our house? so how could we buy another? Finding new jobs, new schools for the kids, leaving all our friends behind - and almost all of our friends are staying, which is a big deal, because Home is also people.
And yes, as you so beautifully put it, that fragility is everywhere, it's inescapable, so we may as well learn to live with it here as elsewhere.
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That’s quite an unlikely talent… ;-)
Sorry, that does sound a trifle confused. Two quite unrelated casting decisions.
I have just been reading through the page proofs of the Te Papa Press New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History book, due out in July. It looks wonderful and will most likely be the definitive book on New Zealand film.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
so am I wrong in thinking you don't have an accent when you speak? And that's why we'd never guess?
In my hubris (a word that sounds so much better than arrogance) I used to think I didn't have much of an accent, or much of an easily recognisable Italian accent at any rate. Then my first child got into a Bob the Builder phase, and I would read him the books. Hereinafter he called him "Bobba". So that was quite sobering.
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On accents, I applied for a job in Japan in a 'Bristish Teachers Only' school and had a phone interview. The owner was quite put out when he saw my New Zealand passport at the second meeting. 'I thought you were from England?' 'Well sort of. I learnt my English at the lessor known Public School called Opotiki Primary. It's quite posh, what?'
He gave me the job.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
Beautiful, just beautiful. Thankyou. I would add comment about one thing I have noticed. For those who choose to live in NZ, it takes a great deal of compromise to live in this small land at the bottom of the populated world, whether you were born here or not. I gladly make those compromises every day because this is my home, my heart, my all. I am, above everything else born of, and from, this land. It is me, and I am it. But to live here, you really, really have to want to be here. That’s for sure.
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Islander, in reply to
I am, above everything else born of, and from, this land
While I’ve travelled quite a bit overseas, I’ve never managed – wanted – to stay away from here for longer than 6 weeks. I know I could’ve been a great deal wealthier (in $$$) and maybe would’ve learned much more than I have to date.
But I literally get home-sick-And, +1, webweaver-
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Despite having lived in this country my whole life, my accent is often mistaken - by NZers and otherwise - for English, or perhaps South African. Perhaps that's another reason for being "from" Wellington - when asked where I'm from (or more insidiously, where I'm originally from), it's easier to reply "Wellington" than get all defensive.
I have a sporting acquaintance with an accent (not sure where from exactly) that's at the "proper" end of English accents.
The day I met him I asked him where his accent came from. His answer:
"Proper diction." Well prepared sir.
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Moz,
I can't beleive no-one has posted this yet: The Front Lawn - When You Come Back Home
For me it's complicated. My Tūrangawaewae is more conceptual, Aotearoa as a whole. Mostly I remember specific places rather than houses or people. There's still a pond next to a creek just north of Punakaiki that I like a lot and go back to, but I wouldn't call that home. It's something I might try to replicate if I owned a big enough block of land, more the atmosphere than the specifics. There's a few other spots like that, mostly in the conservation estate. Partly that's from living in Australia, where some kiwi values stand out in stark relief (but National is making sure we catch up as fast as possible). My sense of place isn't especially strong, I grew up in Nelson, moved the Christchurch for uni, then Wellington, Sydney and now Melbourne. I find that after about 10 years in a city I want to move on.
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recordari, in reply to
The Front Lawn - When You Come Back Home
After the events of yesterday, that is both apposite and poignant.
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BenWilson, in reply to
"Proper diction." Well prepared sir.
Are you sure that's not some obscure town in the UK? Next to Upper Diction, and mortal enemies of Diction On Jubblies?
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linger, in reply to
Isn't diction the act of avoiding, e.g., Paul Henry?
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The practicalities of leaving are crushing: how would we sell our house? so how could we buy another? Finding new jobs, new schools for the kids, leaving all our friends behind – and almost all of our friends are staying, which is a big deal, because Home is also people.
My stepdaughter was struggling through trying to prepare her house in Chch for sale having separated from her partner (they're both still living there). She's now feeling in a right hole as the house is badly damaged but not bad enough for demolition, and she just wants to walk away and start somewhere else, but can't financially.
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Wah-hey: it's here.
The new "Places" tab on all NZ On Screen clips takes geographical information provided by users.
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Isabel Hitchings, in reply to
I still have no idea how those of you who live in ChCh are brave or strong enough to choose to stay
Like Emma said, a lot of it is in the practicalities - this is where we have friends and jobs and schools and commitments and starting over somewhere new takes a lot of organising. The places my partner would be most likely to find work are probably Wellington or San Franscisco neither of which are know for seismic stability so we wouldn't actually be any safer.
The other thing, for me, is loyalty. Leaving Christchurch right now would feel like divorcing someone who has just had a cancer diagnosis. This is particularly so in regards to my children's school which has to pretty much start from scratch and for which the loss of funding and staff levels if the roll drops could be catastrophic.
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The Front Lawn – When You Come Back Home
The one that gets me is 'Tomorrow Night', especially in the verse when she comes back from the UK and flies in over Oriental Bay. Sniffle. And I've never even lived in Wellington.
Jacqui, there was a running joke for a while that Gio was incapable of posting without saying something about 'Italy, where I am originally from'. It might have faded from view before you joined us though.
It may be something to do with always having had the option of living somewhere else, but I fucking love this place and I am a big sloppy dork about it. That is all.
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Andre Alessi, in reply to
In my hubris (a word that sounds so much better than arrogance) I used to think I didn’t have much of an accent, or much of an easily recognisable Italian accent at any rate.
My father was unmistakably a FOB Italian, even twenty years after he arrived. I was so used to hearing his accent that I didn't even realise he had one unless someone specifically commented on it when I was growing up-and they did comment, because small-town Hawke's Bay was so very beige. Even now, it's one of the first things people we knew back then remember about our family.
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Oh and I lived in a Mary Clifford flat on Gloucester St in the mid-nineties (at which point the buildings were run by a trust). It was a crazy old place full of doors that lead nowhere and a floorplan that lead me to suspect there was a sealed room in the middle. It was totally rundown yet had several pieces of utterly gorgeous art deco furniture. I shared it with a succession of increasingly dodgy flatmates - the league player who was so thick he actually got smarter when stoned, the guy who would spend days on end in his darkened bedroom then come out and speak incomprehensibly fast. Fortunately my bedroom was huge and had a sink and an outside door so I could largely avoid contact.
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It surprises me when ex-pats still refer to the country of their birth as “home” – even after they’ve lived here for decades.
I've lived here for decades but Canada will always be home for me, this place -the landscape, lifestyle and the customs are all very nice but completely foreign to me. I miss how outdoorsy and active the lifestyle is back home.
American musician and 60s draft dodger Jessie Winchester became a Canadian citizen, but while living in freezing cold Montreal he was horribly homesick for his native Tennessee. He was unable to even visit the US until President Jimmy Carter granted all draft dodgers amnesty, and he wrote this beautiful song that can almost make this Canadian from Vancouver homesick for a place I've never even visited. (The song doesn't start till the 16 second mark).
I'm from North Vancouver, and this list from a "You're Know You're From North Van if..." website pretty much sums up my local traits.
YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM NORTH VAN IF...
..You love the fact that you can go up the mountains and to the beach in the same day
- You can do the Grouse Grind with a 300 lb keg strapped to your back
... and you think people who take the gondola back down are pussies
- Every member of your family owns a mountain bike
- You know how to either ski, skateboard or snowboard... or all three
- You know Jason Priestly's postal code was V7L- - - before it was 90210
- You still use "like" and "dude" and "totally" as part of your daily vocab
- Someone in your family knew Chief Dan George
- You know what a 360, the Casper, or what an Ollie is
- You knew Bryan Adams went to Argyle AND Sutherland
- You had bonfires under Lions Gate Bridge
- You partied at the Quarry
- You partied at the Canyon
- You partied on Seymour
- You drove up to Cypress to tan in the snow with your friends on Spring Break
- You grew up with a KICK ASS view of Downtown VancouverExcept I can't do the Grouse Grind with a 300b keg strapped to my back.
Interesting NZ fact: the record for the Grouse Grind was held for six years by NZ runner James Wyatt, though his record was broken by Sebastian Selas last year.Here is a London magazine editor struggling on the Grind, going very slowly:
And here's a toddler (not quite 3 years old) beating the magazine guy's time by quite a bit - despite stopping to find homes for stray rocks, have a drink and draw pictures in the dirt.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
It may be something to do with always having had the option of living somewhere else, but I fucking love this place and I am a big sloppy dork about it. That is all.
Yessity yes yes yes. And I'm a bit judgeypants about people who don't.
Actually, I may as well confess, while we're at it, that when people are having a big old whinge about NZ in general, I am one of those dreadful priggy bastards who thinks (I used to say it, but age mellows the tongue etc) "Well fuck off somewhere else, then". And when people lament about the brain drain and angst about infrastructure, and the costs of living in such a small country etc? I don't care. If you don't want to live here, no-one can stop you going away. You may never come back, you may come back briefly. But whatever. That's up to you. We'll survive. -
I am now utterly terrified to visit Canada, the land which apparently makes New Zealand seem 'not very outdoorsy'.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
I am now utterly terrified to visit Canada, the land which apparently makes New Zealand seem 'not very outdoorsy'.
I was in Ottawa for six days and we spent exactly six minutes outdoors.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
I was going to say.....
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It took me almost 30 years to find 'home'.
Born in Nelson but moved to Christchurch for Uni and then work. Loved CHCH for 10 years but missed my geographical locators (hills). It seemed kinda wierd, almost claustrophobic, that the sky came down to meet the plains without the buffer of the mountains. That's how living in the suburbs of CHCH felt to me.
(Oh CHCH how my heart still breaks when I see the images of those crumbled buildings that I had lived and laughed in.)
Then I moved to Wellington. Fell in love with the city and particularly the South Coast. For years I had dreams of living on a hill above the sea - suddenly it made so much sense to me. This is were I'm meant to be.
I think I have always been a Wellingtonian at heart; a bit quirky, a bit wild, a lot of fun and never static.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
Wellington is fantastic, isn't it, Jo? I went there to boarding school for 4 years (Marsden by the way, in the days when it wasn't quite as elite as it is now) and I spent all my exeats at the homes of family friends or my own friends. I loved it so much. I loved the hills, and the sea. I loved the wind, and the wildness of the weather. I loved the tram bus, and that once in town, you could walk and walk, and the shops were so interesting. I loved going shopping at James Smiths, and I loved going to Ceramco's outpost office in The Terrace, where they spoiled me and fed me choccie biscuits. I loved Cuba Mall, and I loved Paekakariki. I always felt at home there, I have to say. A very lovely place, and I really enjoy going back. Which I don't do enough of.
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I get that "I could be at home here" feeling in Wellington - it's the same instinctive yes or no you get house-hunting. I love the way when you fly in the land looks like it's just now shoved itself up out of the sea. I love the way the centre of town, the shopping and all the bars we keep getting asked to leave, is all walkable. I love the area around the waterfront. I love the way that even though I've never lived there, if I spend fifteen minutes standing on the street I'll meet someone I know.
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