I came to New Zealand from the Philippines in March 1996. Was it my dream to go abroad? NO! When I was young I hated having to speak English because I couldn’t express myself properly, as it was my second language. I did my best to avoid visitors from other countries so I didn’t have to talk to them in English.
Then one day, I met a group of engineers from a high-tech phone factory and one of them named Alex talked about going to New Zealand to live. I just said ‘good luck’. However a few months later in February 1995 I received a letter totally out of the blue from an immigration consultant inviting me to calculate my points to see if I qualified for permanent residency in NZ.
The funny thing was that at the time I didn’t even know where NZ was and thought it might be one of the Scandinavian countries in Europe. When I found out that NZ was near Australia I became more interested because a lot of my cousins live in Melbourne and I thought NZ could be a stepping stone to residency in Australia. So I applied straight away, lodging my application in May 1995 and receiving permanent residency in September 1995.
Everything happened so quickly, taking less than a year. I had Alex to thank for initially alerting me to NZ’s existence, and for helping me find a place to live when I arrived. Now after 19 years I’m still here happily married to John and with 2 lovely dogs in my family.
Restarting life abroad whether in NZ or somewhere else is not easy especially when you have kids and I really admire people who have made the commitment. I’ve heard some great stories and some not so great stories of families relocating. Whenever I meet a fellow Filipino here for the first time I always ask them how long they’ve been in NZ and in most cases they’ve only been here a very short time. I’ve mentored many who had been having difficulty finding work, mostly with great success.
Here are some of my tips on how to thrive living abroad.
Strong Determination. Do you have what it takes to live abroad? Moving abroad is not easy especially if you are cut off from your family and close friends – there’s no place like home. But when you make a decision to live abroad you’re making a decision to leave the familiarity and comfort of family and friends. You need to be able to move on, start a new home, find new friends, a new job and relish the opportunity to experience new adventures.
You need to begin with the end in mind. When I went to New Zealand I didn’t really have a plan B – I was determined to make the move work for me. Many people come abroad with a plan B lurking in the back of their minds which is almost like saying it’s an option to fail. You need to remove these options from your thinking.
Technology Makes It Easy. It is much easier now to keep in touch with family and friends using Skype, Viber or Facebook. Nineteen years ago, I paid hundreds of dollars on overseas calls, stamps and trips just to lessen my homesickness. Do your research before migrating so that you’ll have a good idea how much it will cost you to maintain your own internet or mobile data, particularly for the first six months. This will help you to feel more at home in your new environment.
Master the Language. If you’re going to NZ, Australia or USA – you need to master English! If you’re going to Italy, it makes sense to learn Italian. It always surprises me that some immigrants come here without learning English first. What doesn’t surprise me is that they then struggle to find work and get out and about in the community, and meet new friends. Then they feel sorry for themselves and feel they’re being discriminated against. I struggle to understand their reasoning. I can understand that a refugee desperate to find a home in a new country won’t always know the language, but it doesn’t make sense for anyone deliberately moving to a new country not to speak the language.
Networking. I was really fortunate that my first 5 years working in NZ were at Sky City Casino, as it’s very multicultural and a great place to practice speaking English. It was almost like having all my Facebook friends in one building – the networking and social aspects were fantastic! I was always open to meeting new friends – never predetermining who would or wouldn’t be a friend – after all, we’re all the same and we love to have friendships. I participated in all sorts of activities, from football, rugby 7’s, volleyball, parties, yum char, top teams etc. I hosted lots of parties including for children and dogs. We had lots of fun and many unforgettable experiences.
I’ve discovered that some of my fellow Filipinos lack confidence in speaking English which is one of the reasons why they only network with other Filipinos – which does nothing to improve their English and hinders their social interaction with non-Filipinos.
I attended a party where I met Maria who was an accountant and worked in one of the large banks in Singapore. In NZ she was working in a factory with lots of other Filipino workers – hey, don’t get me wrong, that’s perfectly fine, but her English got worse and she lost the confidence to find a better job. She did however put plenty of energy into widening her network by attending parties and other social functions and that’s where she met me. I spent a little bit of time mentoring her, and not long after she phoned to say that she got a job in one of the banks in NZ. So if you wish to move forward — do your networking!
Keep Your Life Balanced. When I first arrived in NZ, I found it so easy to get what I wanted – easy to get a car, credit cards, goods on hire purchase etc. It’s easy to get over-excited about buying lots of things that used to be out of reach before. I’ve seen people competing to buy the biggest TV or the best car but they had to work 3 jobs. I knew a guy who collapsed at work because he was doing incredibly long hours and only getting 2-3 hours sleep a day just so that he could deliver on his wife’s wish to have the biggest TV in town.
I feel sick when I see things like this. There’s so much more to life than having a 60″ TV, and here in NZ there are so many sights to see and things to do that cost very little – so why would you even want to be sat in front of TV? My advice is to keep things simple, and look for a good balance between work and play.
Discrimination. One thing I’ve learned is to accept who I am and where I’ve come from. If you think people are going to discriminate against you, the chances are you will be discriminated against. I’ve learned to have an open mind and send out good vibes to everyone no matter the colour of their skin.
I’ve been disappointed that sometimes discrimination has come from my own fellow countrymen. I was at church one day and a lady called out my name. I’ll call her Shona, she’s a good friend of my sister and a former school mate. I was so excited at the time to see someone in NZ that I really knew. When she invited me to attend her birthday party I asked if I could bring my boyfriend. She told me that if he was white, he wouldn’t be welcome. Whoa!!! I wasn’t expecting that. So I made a choice to stop seeing her because I don’t want to be surrounded by people with that kind of attitude. It’s awful, right?
There was another Filipino I met who was a nursing graduate back in Manila and who’d been in NZ for around 15 months and couldn’t get a job, even in nursing home. Let’s call her Hana. Hana walked into a nursing home to apply for a job near her house. A Filipino working there shooed her away telling her aggressively “no vacancy”. Perhaps this lady was having a bad day, but it’s sad to think a fellow countryman wouldn’t try and help her. As a result Hana lost her confidence. I spent some time mentoring her and showed her how to apply for a job with the same nursing home, and a few weeks later she got a job there. I’m happy to say that I helped her regain her confidence.
Help and share. If everyone helped each other, even in a small way, this world would be a much better place. We don’t necessarily need to give money to help others, it could be sharing your time or even sharing your life experiences. I’ve made it my mission to always have time available to help anyone who needs it. Even an hour a week can make a huge difference to someone’s life. Try volunteering for community events, you never know who you might meet. And remember too, it pays to help yourself before helping others. As our parents always say ‘charity begins at home’.
Can Do Attitude. When I first came to NZ, I brought with me a CAN DO attitude. I did what it took to get a job, and was prepared to do any reasonable job to have food on the table and send money back home. I was prepared to be a cleaner, a janitor, a rubbish collector. You need to accept that your qualification back in Philippines may not guarantee similar employment here in NZ – at least not straight away. Getting any job to begin with is a foot in the door and can lead to better and brighter things.
Travel. When I lived in the Philippines, I never traveled to the popular tourist spots such as the South Islands. For some reason it was much harder to earn enough money to enjoy leisure activities there. Here in New Zealand, if you live sensibly, it’s much easier to save enough money to travel around inside the country and abroad.
Life is too short, do things now while you have your health and mobility, take lots of selfies and laugh out loud!
