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Wellington (capital of New Zealand) is looking for 100 qualified IT professionals and will pay for flights and accommodation from anywhere and introduce them to employers like Weta Digital, Xero etc.
But of course there is a catch...I lived and worked in Wellington for a few years: it is a fairly small and affordable city to live in, treats ex-pats well, has an amazing vibrant inner city, magnificent scenery and on a good day is truly wonderful. However, good days are few and far between and you have to tie down small children and old people when the wind blows - which is most days.
Anyway, for all those who aren't enamoured of your current Trump ridden, Brexit pending, war torn or whatever environment - here's a chance to do something about it. You have a couple of weeks before it closes up shop.
https://www.wellingtonnz.com/work/looksee-wellington/
Yeah, I know - this sounds like an ad. I would like to know about other peoples experiences as ex-pats though. What makes a good place to live and work for you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @01:45PM (8 children)
The saddest thing I see here (Switzerland), are American enclaves that are utterly isolated from the world around them. You see them occasionally, shopping and insisting on speaking English with the personnel. Ask them how they're enjoying their visit (assuming they are tourists) and you find out they've been living here for years. WTF?
Sounds like many of the immigrant enclaves that we have all other the USA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @02:03PM (1 child)
Sounds like many of the immigrant enclaves that we have all other the USA.
The most annoying thing is that they don't learn the local language.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday March 09 2017, @11:33PM
As an American in Switzerland (Germany, Austria, etc) you really only need to know one phrase to get by: "Waiso kinnts es deppn ned a Emerican ren wia jeda nuamaale mensch?". Just practice this and say it to the locals and you'll be fine.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Thursday March 09 2017, @03:00PM (5 children)
It's been that way for a long, long time. Your great grandparents were probably immigrants that barely spoke English, if at all. The assimilation process in America has always relied on slow generational shifts to erase cultural differences.
Granted it's a lot more pleasant for the first generation if they are able to assimilate directly. Unfortunately anti-immigrant bigotry usually makes that difficult enough that they'd rather not bother.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday March 09 2017, @04:31PM
Granted it's a lot more pleasant for the first generation if they are able to assimilate directly. Unfortunately anti-immigrant bigotry usually makes that difficult enough that they'd rather not bother.
Which let us note often comes from the immigrants themselves. I doubt the "American enclaves" of Switzerland are all that immigrant friendly to immigrants to Switzerland from other countries, for example. The US also has a long history of ethnic conflict between rival immigrant groups. In New York City, one of the factors behind the rise of patronage politics in the "Tammany Hall" machine [wikipedia.org] was that it suppressed unrest among immigrant groups in large part by getting them a slice of public funds and political power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @06:10PM (3 children)
Literally every immigrant family I've known (including stories of my great grandparents, since only my british colonial and native american ancestors came over earlier) has had their children speaking native english from the get-go. Some will try and make sure their kids know their native tongue so they won't lose *ALL* their cultural identity, but none of them have focused exclusively on their kids being monolingual in their former nation's 'native tongue'. Most moved to America to give themselves or their children opportunities that weren't available in their former homeland, and in many cases they didn't have a high level of respect for their OWN cultural heritage as it was. Within 2 generations nobody on any side of my family spoke that line's previous native tongue, and going off most people I know, outside of Mexicans and a very small minority who travel further to visit non-English speaking family, almost nobody even focuses on Bilingualism except as an academic, recreational, or business pursuit.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @08:48PM
I really can't find the source of your complaint. OP said it takes generations to fully assimilate, I didn't see anything about keeping the next generation monolingual with their original language.
(Score: 1) by GeriatricGentleman on Friday March 10 2017, @02:33AM (1 child)
To add a little to this - my kids spent their first few years in China (their mum is Chinese) and they spoke no English before coming to Australia about 5 years ago.
Now English is definitely their first language. the oldest refuses to speak her mother tongue at all - not even when we went to China for a month - and the youngest stumbles over simple written words now. Their mother despairs, but they want to fit in with their friends etc.
My problem is that they support Australians in the Olympics and worse, in the rugby!
Anyway, my anecdote isn't evidence, but now I look for it I can see it in other immigrant kids - they want to assimilate even if their parents struggle to fully integrate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @03:45AM
If you and your wife spoke chinese at home your kids would be bilingual.
The typical progression has always been:
1st generation - struggle to learn their new country's native tongue, typically marry other 1st generation immigrant
2nd generation - bilingual because they speak origin language in the home and new language everywhere else, marry 2nd gen immigrants or "natives"
3rd generation - monolingual in new language with maybe an ear for a few words of the origin language
My wife is 1st generation, we have no kids, but her sister married a native too and her 2nd gen kids are already at the 3rd gen stage because their parents only speak english at home (since that is all the father knows).