Goodbye CBD, hello Elsewhere

So I've relocated again, and after 18 short months in the CBD I suddenly got the urge for change; for meeting people in the street who vaguely ressembled me in age (looking older than 20 was a rarity in the CBD...); for a vaguely community feel in the immediate area; for parking space at the door for my long-lost friends and family!

Though it's taken me a month to get around to a belated goodbye to my CBD cave, in other ways it's taken me that long to understand why moving has brought me to a space that seems so strangely normal and natural.

My new and elsewhere space, though not CBD central, is still not far away - an original inner city suburb of eclectic peoples; a mostly older crowd (.) living in their (mostly) renovated wooden villas and bungalows.

My own space, another apartment complex but 70's style...white stucco ceilings and concrete block interior wall. But the sea and city views are the best reason to rush home from work!

Somehow I have not experienced the usual awareness of living in someone else's space for at least a few first days...the only reminder is a built in smoky smell that assails me in the entrance hall.

But I know this area so well the only real strangeness is realising when I am out and about in my familiar and favourite socialising spot, that I can just walk home from my usual shops and eateries and galleries...no car needed.

And my space is small still, the kind of small called 'cosy' by sales agents! But my unpacking has happened in record time, all boxes finally found their place this weekend- pictures on walls, local takeaway menus stashed on top of the frig, neighbours met (and complained to about late-night noise..)and all mail and suppliers sorted

According to the Interchange Institute's Moving Matters Final report 2005
"Speed in doing some settling-in tasks was
especially related to better outcomes:
unpacking all boxes, organizing the kitchen
and furniture, displaying photos, having local and
home visitors, and pursuing hobbies."

http://www.interchangeinstitute.org/files/GraebelMovingMattersFinalReportMarch2006.pdf

Walking the area has shown me local shortcuts and local people, and my clincher discovery was the gorgeous and surprisingly lovely park nearby; seemingly small from the road as it flows down the valley, but filled with luscious, jungle-like giant morton bay figs and wondrous trees of all descriptions with roots spreading outwards to claim the nearest ground.


One of my minor sadnesses on leaving the city (one of the few ) was the thought of not having access to the glorious central city university park...a place to unwind, read and walk for moments alone.

So, time to be moving on with my own research, and my newest most interesting discovery is the Interchange Institute's research into the influence of architecture and design on relocation. I look forward to their findings with interest and to further focusing my own areas of New Zealand matters and questions.

More to come...

Relocation as evolution

In recent discussion with Stanley Frielick http://www.flexilearn.com/, he suggests relocation and migration could be seen as being part of an evolutionary process, essentially fulfilling a need (a basic desire?)to ensure the progression of culture and knowledge.

Certainly the international business world sees value in professional international transfers. Many large companies offer corporate level schemes whereby executives are given the opportunity to live and work for an overseas branch of their organisation for a limited time (eg. 2 years).

One major, overt aim of such schemes is creating opportunities for shared knowledge and expertise within global organisations. Secondary aims include the advancing of global knowledge base of the organisation, as well as with the particular individual. Motivating factors for employees may include moving to higher ranked positions, ex-patriate benefits and perks and the chance to live and work an experience another country and culture.

But on a societal level, there is also an ongoing extra-curricula sharing and exchange of cultural knowledge and awareness, throughout the entire transfer period. The transferee, and often the accompanying family group are faced with making major and rapid changes as they settle into their new country; adjusting to differences in both the corporate and general lifestyle, values and physical environments.

One of the first adjustments, by necessity, is the home environment. A temporary 'home' must be found to replace the more permanent one (in the home country). And the requirements for this more temporal dwelling are subject to an entirely new set of criteria.

This is a focal point of my interest in studying relocating persons- how they choose and create their new homes and how their criteria, judgements, choices and success are influenced by the nature of their temporary relocation.

Through my own past work with relocating personnel on internationl transfers, I observed some positive and negative influences (as perceived by the transferees themselves) that people experience in setting up temporary 'home-base' in NZ.

One positive aspect of having a finite period seemed to be that transferees perceived a degree of free to experiment with a new (maybe long-held desire?) an entirely new and different lifestyle than they would otherwise be comfortable with.
In some instances they made choices in direct contrast to their permanent physical home, such as city dwellers from large urban areas like London or Paris might choose to live right on the beach- something that would not only be impossible financially back home, but impractical due to eg. the distance ratio of coast to work!

One of the perks of being an ex-pat on inernational transfer is often a reasonable- high level of financial support eg. a housing budget for fully funded company rent, which forms an integral part of the criteria for choosing a new type of 'home'.

In advising transferees about how to choose the best, most suitable type of accommodation for their temporary relocation to NZ, Geraldine Speed director of Relocations International Ltd http://www.relocate.co.nz/, suggests they consider their move as an opportunity to experience the best they possibly can of all the wonderful benefits a NZ lifestyle has to offer.

Her trained consultants discuss with transferees the differences between the type of permanent dwelling they have left behind and the practical, logistical and social criteria coming into play for their family situation in NZ. They focus not only on the necessary practicalilites of choosing a home (such as nearness to suitable schools), but also on how well their new home base can best benefit them in making the the most of their short time in NZ.

A Thai couple in their 30's, transferring to Auckland from Bangkok, for example, chose the beachside suburb of Mission Bay as the most postitively different environment in which to make their temporary home. They loved the extreme contrast offered by a spacious brick townhouse, compared to their own Bangkok city apartment. Here they could live only metres from the coast, rather than a huge inland city... They felt they were being given the chance to live in 'paradise.'

I wonder if the modern corporate world now places more positive value on aspects of the nomadic lifestyle? Maybe as long as it's strictly regulated and nomads are confined by finite time zones...
A short stint as a nomad could be seen as greatly beneficial to both personal and public spheres of knowledge within a corporate environment.
Culture transfers itself in sometimes unseen, yet vital manner through contact with the 'other', much as pollen catches on passing skin, clothing, hair as we move through the bushes... an unnoticed, yet integral part of the evolutionary process of furthering our development.
People grow, change and evolve through contact with others, and foreign assignments offer limitless opportunities for both deliberate and serendipitous 'cultural transfer'.

In many countries of Europe and the UK, where the nomadic populations such as gypsies have long existed, they have also long been denigrated as basically unstable and therefore suspect.

Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines (1987) explores the mysteries and motivations behind nomadic societies, and comments that although authorities such as psychiatrists, who

...are forever assuring us that the wandering life is an aberrant form of behaviour; a neurosis; a form of unfulfilled secual longing; a sickness which, in the interests of civilisation, must be suppressed...
...Yet, in the east they still preserve the once universal concept: that wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.

Chatwin goes on to quote Baudeliare (from 'Any Where Out of This World') who expresses a more introverted take on this strange, human desire to be constantly on the move ...

I think I would be happy in that place I happen not to be, and this question of moving house is the subject of a perpetual dialogue I have with my soul.

In a recent Sunday Star Times column http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4340136a20517.html
Paul Little described the contrasting joys of his chosen caravan park in a remote coastal location, as an experience of the real NZ holiday lifestyle, where the priorities of 'permanent' life are turned upside down, albeit temporarily:

I like that it does not have a games room, good TV reception, trampolines, mini golf nor a swimming pool and it does have respect for everyone who turns up there.

I'm thinking that the choosing of holiday accomodation, which brings its own set of alternative priorities and criteria for a temporary 'home away from home', is not dissimilar to those applied to transferees, relocating to other countries to enjoy the benefits of a temporary, drastically contrasted living experience.

Paul Little does point out one rather more frustrating aspect of his temporary caravan home:

If you want to open the fridge you have to make the dog lie down.

Tivaevae at home

In explaining yet again, talking it through with yet another new person today, I delved more thoroughly into the many motives for wanting to study people who relocate to NZ. Putting into words, with hesitancy yet an increasing excitement too, I returned to another strand in the woven ropes of my self-directed passion for migrants and relocation.

Tivaevae was the original subject years ago during research for an art history paper that first sparked my interest in investigating the meanings imbued into the art forms that mirgrate along with their creators.
In choosing tivaevae, I was myself looking for meanings from my own heritage; a Tahitian grandmother whose handmade tivaevae quilts, so colourful, so practical, had adorned the beds and sofas of her home. And now mine.

I found through my research how these representative crafts of traditional polynesian origin, were being recreating to signify and represent new or transitional identities; symbols both of a lost homeland and a newfound home.
It seemed Cook Island women were and are still appliqueing motifs of nature, as is fitting for a traditional polynesian women's craft, but that living in NZ meant the motifs were needing represent and reflect a new environment; its plants and animals, its fish and flowers. New identities were created and reassured through such representation- new visuals clues to a heritage based on older, established wisdoms.

Not only were motifs new, but the uses for these quilted materials was altered- traditional ceremonies and occasions were changing with hte hybridity of a NZ-Cook Is mix present in the 1st generation... Different needs determined different ways of gift giving; practical needs of warmth for example (not an issue in the heat of tropical climes) being met with these padded fabric artforms.

Today not only did I recover a sense of connection to the visual aspects of relocation identity, but rummaging through old treasure boxes while making notes for a 21st speech I found interview notes with an old friend Lyn, an amateur artist and sometime tivaevae maker. Of Danish, not Pasifika heritage, she is 1st generation NZer, and felt drawn to tivaevae initially by its 'exotic' appeal. Having sewn American styled tiny patchwork squares as a child she was not daunted by the new technical challenges. She wanted to make a hybrid piece of 'home decoration, and make it her own.

She imposed a certain European flavour on her design, sticking to a red and white theme- the Danish colours dominated her design. These hot colours also spoke to her of the NZ tropical heat in which she feels at home. Working with a lighter fabric compared to the heavy, somewhat impractical nature of layers of traditional patchworking appealed to her as being far more user friendly in an era of machine washing...
And like a Cook Is family intended to give her finished product as a wedding present to her sister. An extension of a new homeland, a memento that creates, than than reminds one of where home is now.

So I have had a day of insights, past visions returning to reassure me I'm still on a path that seems true enough to myself. I am reassured my recent mental wandering off into the silent shrubbery alongside the path have not been in vain...
there's a method yet and I'm ending the year with a positive note to stay tuned, to stay energised, grateful and alert to all the twists and turns of this wonderful life!

What about my home?

In my first few blogs I have been getting into serious debate about the meanings of home to relocating peoples...and realised I have not explored, here anyway, what home might mean to me.
Have I relocated to NZ? yes...as a child. And from childhood onwards, I've moved house over 20 times now (and counting).
So relocating is part of my life's pattern, part of what I've come to expect every few years.
Part of my norm, my 'usual' and not a bad part at all.
Much of the positives about moving house are about the way each new home comes to mean 'home' to me.

At what stage after the move do I look forward to coming back to my house because it will feel like 'home'?
When I'm travelling home in the traffic, hungry and weary at the end of the day, what is it about my 'home' that I am looking forward to experiencing?

Some of my thoughts over the last 15 months in this new place of home:

...The sunsets, sitting on the balcony, feet on the railings, silently soaking in the largeness of the light out there. Looking further, past those near office buildings- upwards and outwards to a red- streaked stretch of wide, quiet sky.

...I'm safe, I'm up high, there's noone above me...it seems physically safe here. Noone looks in, walks past, knocks on my door at odd hours - just getting into the building isn't easy. It lends a welcome veneer of safety anyway. I'm grateful every day for my veneer. A choice and freedom.

...It's so quiet, so free of unexpected, uncontrollable noises. No dogs, children, lawnmowers, leaf blowers, neighbourhood parties...(well, maybe an occasional Friday night!).

... It's just big enough for one. For me and there's no room, no guilty empty spaces suggestive of guests to fill them. Not even a fold down sofa bed... There's choices and freedom from choices.

... Afternoon sun-filled rooms, coming home to warm furniture, orange chairs turning soft and golden, warm breezes drifting aimlessly in around the floor, tired warm dry air over me.

...Clean, plain creamy walls, calm and uncluttered, able to let my mind wander, to think and dream.

...Safety in hearing other neighbours coming home too, knowing I'm tucked inside my warm golden room. By myself, but not alone. Choices and freedom from choices.

**************************************

Migration narratives

I've been reading a fascinating review of a research study based on case studies of people who moved to NZ after WW2 - 'MIGRATION AND NARRATION' (Brigitte Boenisch-Brednich)http://tihane.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/migrating-affordances/
The researcher identifies 3 main narratives which i felt were just as pertinent today:

a) Stories about leaving and arriving
b) stories about the first year in New Zealand, which are stories about cultural misunderstanding, language problems, homesickness; basically about feeling alien, and being considered alien.
c) there is a form of narratives covering the whole life of a migrant: the narratives of comparing countries and cultures – the culture you come from and the one you are now living in.

The Estonian researcher Kai Pata who reviewed this study on her blog site (see link above) sums up the key aspect of comparing the countries, which was a common theme for the migrants questioned, and was an ongoing process; part of their settlement.

I felt strong links with my own interest in researching and identifying current migrant experiences, paritcularly of professional peoples, I've heard the same stories;
the feeling of alienation and isolation; of being seen as alien; of needing to compare cultures...

Maybe these narratives form part of a common journey to create what Ruth Hill Useem termed in 60's sociology speak as 3rd culture kids (TCKs); those children who became global nomads, whose parents eg. military, were constantly on the move
These children were forced to create their own independant identity that remained intact when they moved from 'home' to 'home'.

But it' s not just the children in these situations who face issues of where the home base is, but increasingly the world is a nomadic place for professionals, executive level personnel encouraged to participate in schemes which entail taking on the top jobs, the CEO positions on 2-3 yr contracts. And taking their families with them.

The need for a third culture becomes relevant not only for the individual's sense of identity but
as a way of surviving in the workplace, working out how to function in a space between, outside? of ones own familiar country's culture, but not wholly adopting the new country's ways.

The idea of workplace cultures, corporate cultures, institutional culture where certain unspoken norms and rules , dress codes and behaviours prevail is already a well known reality to many.

But in the personal, family, home lives of people who choose a temporary (albeit long-term) move for professional reasons, there is also a need to create something new.
Both in the workplace and outside world, the prevailing culture they face is new and unfamiliar in its attitudes, values and practices. Yet their own culture is needing to be preserved for the (inevitable and presumed) return home...

Yet also, alongside a dual carriageway as this, they start to realise their own culture with new eyes- that it has accompanied them not as a pre-packaged affair, remaining neatly in its little box to be taken out and played with at whim, but is in itself a moving, mobile, changing and growing live entity that refuses to be completly tamed and inert.

Somehow these people deal to and deal with a recreation of a 'third culture' for themselves; one still recognisable and distinct as 'home', comfortingly familiar signs of 'how we always do things', patterns as much of the past as the future...a culture sandwich that created an inbetween space- a temporary life zone.

An example many of us may relate to are 'suitcase people' who, knowing they are only staying a 6 months, as opposed to 2 years, might bring a few photos to place around the room. But probably wouldn't buy or hang any pictures...

Staying put for 2-3 years however, might entail buying certain key furniture items couldn't be brought with them. Decorating with carefully chosen signs of identity, making the place feel 'homely'.

And it's how people go about personalising their space that interests me; what do they do to create a zone of otherness, a cultural bubble in which the physical environment is made to help shape the estabishment of that 3rd culture, the home away from home.

Relocation issues -NZ houses

Another aspect of homes that fascinated me during a couple of years of involvement with an relocation company is process of choosing a new home/ house for the incoming transferee.
The company I worked for specialised in settling foreign professionals (mostly executive level ) and their families to Auckland, and I was constantly intrigued by the issues these families faced in choosing and settling into their (short-medium term ) rental accomodation.

Concerns about not only areas to live in but the specifics of the NZ housing style, construction, interior layout and design were common queries as we looked at potential properties together.
Mostly northern hemisphere transferees, they frequently expressed horror at not only the poor quality rental properties on the market, but the high prices being asked for them (even taking into account executive budgets anywhere from $500 to $1000 + p/wk).

Most of them also came from being homeowners themselves and were facing a rental situation for perhaps the first time in a decade or more (if ever!). They often seemed surprised unprepared for the reality of parting with their money to go into a 'compromise' sitiuation- a less than mortgaged ideal.
An English family likened the separate little houses crammed and dotted amidst the tree-lined valleys in the East coast bays to 'shanty towns'.... although aware of the hugely inverse quality of the expensive housing there, this visual impression was not one to inspire comfort.
A Thai couple stopped mid-tour in Mission Bay and declared themselves to have arrived in 'paradise' with its beach and shops, relaxed park/ holiday atmosphere and spread out housing (compared to their years of apartment living in Bangkok). And could they please rent a place there immediately?!

So much of a transferee's expectations in coming to NZ revolve around ensuring a better lifestyle than what they had at home. Partially the is the unstated but understood compensation for making such a major, yet 'temporary' move (often an imposed, unwilling relocation for family members).
Where the executive transferee has already adopted a self-imposed positive approach to all things new and uncomfortable, as they were the ones who invited, or accepted the offer to relocate. If the family were unwillingly moved from their homes...their resistance can make the choosing of a new home particularly fraught!

House interiors bring myriad problems coupled with disbelief (!)for all but the most hardy souls, as they face their first winter in a typical unheated, unlined, uninsulated NZ weatherboard house with wooden floors and leaky, single-glazed windows.

Then there are the hopelessly high electricity bills for the old-fashioned heaters which they can't bear NOT to have going most of the time, not to mention the ;
...no-nonsense brisk responses of 'just put another jersey on' from uncomplaining NZ neighbours and workmates;
...blase dismissals of the need for double-glazing "in this climate", where they are also expected to keep the windows open in the day to ventilate their increasingly dampening house (due to the heaters being on 24/7....);
...and anyway double glazing would cost an arm and a leg and is consdiered a luxury;
...and gas heaters are even more rare and highly priced.

They're feeling colder than they ever felt at home in a snow-covered northern winter...!
And they hadn't expected a house that created physical discomfort and this was often a discouraging start to the long and emotional process of setting up 'home' in another country.

Homes in time and space

In a recent lecture entitled 'The gift of truth', AUT's head of spatial design Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul discusses the Pacific cultural concept of not being alone in your body...Moreover the body functions as an environment melding both time and space where you ancestors also dwell; a kind of multi-habitation, essentially allowing them to making their time-space home in you! I kind of like this idea of my own body as a home base for my ancestors...! I can already think of a few who might be there/ here..Schwarzpaul goes on to describe the design processes as a cultural construct in itself (xf. Schwarzpaul), where meaning is created through the necessary and unconcious drivers of interactions with others. And I'm thinking also of the influences those 'many' persons who live and within us may have..This seems to me also part and parcel of the way we recreate 'homes' in a new environment- the relocated cultural construction which bears influences of past and present lives...