Letters from the Southern Man

Migrating is more than just filling in forms and submitting paperwork, its a complex process that will test even the most resilient of people. 

Understanding New Zealand is paramount to your immigration survival and to give you a realistic view of the country, its people and how we see the world, read our weekly Southern Man blogs. Often humorous, sometimes challenging, but always food for thought.

Auckland hits 15 million souls

Somewhere in Auckland earlier this week the city’s population increased by one to reach 1.5 million.

Chances were that the baby was of Polynesian ethnicity, has four or five brothers and sisters, its mother is 30 years old and our newest Aucklander was born in South Auckland. (Stop Press – the news media reported yesterday she was a little girl born of Samoan parents at Middlemore Hospital in South Auckland – now how was that for a prediction?? -Ed). 

How this city has changed over the past 25 years.

As my wife and I enjoyed a stroll up the spectacular (and thankfully extinct) volcanic cone of Mount Eden/Maungawhau last night we paused (for breath - its a steep climb) and discussed how big this city has got. Sky scrapers, the Sky Tower, a huge light drenched 24 hour port, bustling harbour, rainforest covered Waitakere Ranges to the west, the eight lane freeway snaking through Auckland's heart and sprawling suburbs stretching as far as the eye can see.

I for one love it as do most of the people I know. 

It is not just that the population has increased by some 500,000 in the past 15 years but the face of the city is literally changing. 

Auckland now has the most ethnically diverse population in the country. I have often touched on the fact that it is increasingly difficult to know what it is to be a New Zealander - and nowhere more so than in Auckland. With so many different cultures here each has its own makeup - some combination of local versus imported values, standards and ideals. When I was a small boy in the late 1960s and early 1970s I knew one Chinese boy (his dad owned the local green grocers). I went through my primary school years with one Pacific Islander that I recall – a boy from Tonga and I only recall his runny nose and penchant for doughnuts and potato chips (crisps - I was green with envy and often tried to swap my egg sandwiches for some of his lunch). Everyone I knew was basically white and 'European'. Immigrants, such as there were, were either British or occassionally Dutch. South Africans were as rare as hen's teeth, Indians were few and far between and the Chinese were all in the future. It was incredibly monocultural. And dare I say culturally very dull.

My own children on the other hand enjoyed the company of 41 nationalities at their local primary school 30 years later.

A quarter of a century ago 23% of Auckland's population was born overseas. By 2006 this had increased to 37%. It is now somewhere north of 42% and climbing. 

Around 53% of the city’s population now identify with the label ‘European’. I confess that it is a label I detest - I am not a European - Germans, French and Polish people are European - I am proudly Pakeha - a Maori word describing New Zealanders of European descent. My father's family have been here for over 150 years and I am a 5th generation Pakeha New Zealander. 

It is estimated that around 27% of people in this city identify as ‘Asian’, 17% Pacific Islanders and 12% Maori.

As you might expect in the migrant city Auckland has become, many identify with more than one ethnic group hence those numbers adding up to slightly over 100% (in case you thought I couldn't count).

There I was yesterday afternoon pondering this evolving Auckland standing while in the local Asian Supermarket (and I mean supermarket, not convenience store) of which there are two within two minutes drive of my home in Mount Eden.  I was in there buying some pork. That is a meat my family have never traditionally eaten but if I may say so myself with the help of some marinade manufacturer from Shanghai I make rather good Pork Spare Ribs. 

Two things struck me during the visit to their butchery given this is the week we welcomed our 1.5 millionth Aucklander to town. The first (vegetarians and vegans should look away or skip the next few lines) was the choice of flesh is basically pork (including their tails, ears - the mind boggles but good on them for a zero waste policy -heads, feet, bones, intestines and other body parts I could only speculate as to their function, or chicken (including their feet, their kidneys and assorted other bits of their deceased fowl selves (I assume feathers are inedible or no doubt something would be done with those as well!). A tray of ducks' heads greeted me with their bald heads and their unblinking eyes. Now you don't get any of that down at the local 'New Zealand' supermarket. 

There was little in the way of beef (except their stomachs, intestines and God only knows what else) and no lamb, both of which are of course two historical staples of the New Zealand diet. So now we buy more pork because we can't buy the lamb without going to another supermarket.

The other thing that struck me is that when I am in there 95% of the shoppers are Chinese, everyone is speaking Chinese and most of the labeling is in Chinese - a habit I find frustrating because most of the time I have no idea what the bottles and packages contain and the shop owner is missing out potentially on my business (and my neighbours who don't read Chinese but cook a lot of 'Asian' food).

And there is the rub. These ethnic communities have in many cases reached a critical mass and they are now able to trade and do business among themselves in their native languages without having to communicate with nor worry about selling anything to me.

This can cause some locals discomfort - especially the 'we should all be the same and this is New Zealand so speak English and integrate or bugger off' brigade. I am pretty relaxed about it. Their children all go to the local schools, have accents like my children, think the All Blacks are the beginning and end of world sport, can't work out why Brendon McCullum doesn't score more runs at cricket and identify with most of the fashions, values and aspirations of their school mates.

All over this city now there are pockets of migrants turning whole suburbs into their own. Indians in Mount Roskill, South Africans in Browns Bay and Howick, Chinese in Botany, Mount Eden and Sandringham, Filipinos in Glenfield, Vietnamese in Onehunga, Samoans, Tongans and other Pacific Islanders in East Tamaki, Otara and Mangere.

I'm not into empty platitudes but I love this diversity and find none of this threatening (and that I hasten to add has nothing to do with my day job). The diversity does enrich my city.

Perhaps our 1.5 millionth Aucklander wasn't a Samoan New Zealander in reality. Maybe she was a Pakeha like me, or maybe Tongan, Fijian, Chinese, South African, Vietnamese, Polish or Brazillian. I really don't care.

To me she is just another Aucklander and a very special one.

Iain Macleod - Southern Man

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