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To: bushisdamanin04
We were in NZ in 2000. We have friends there. We visited in 1975, as well.

In 1975, the anti-Americanism was in the form of drunken WWII veterans gloating that: "You Yanks are going down the tubes"
and leftists/students demonstrating against our resupply ships to Antarctica because they had nuclear power plants or *might* be carrying nuclear arms.

In November, 2000, we were being told that our country didn't have a President.

On our way home from NZ, we shared a layover in Tahiti with a German couple. They told us about their stay on a New Zealand guest farm. They were sitting around before dinner one night with the host and his wife when the 8-year old piped up:" You must be the European bastards." The Germans were bemused by this, only slightly insulted. It was if they didn't expect much better from colonials.

Our friend is an American expat married to a Kiwi and he tells us that he experiences anti-American prejudice even after 25 years.

Kiwis are very direct. They don't particularly care for us, never really have and aren't all that shy about letting us know it. In spite of this, they are mostly good folks, if too socialist for our tastes.
20 posted on 11/07/2004 8:13:32 PM PST by reformedliberal
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To: reformedliberal
That is interesting. I am surprised at their attitude towards Europeans though.

I was having e-mail conversations with a woman in Canada and I referred to her as a "Canuck" in one of the e-mails. Boy did she hit the roof! "You Americans are this and that and this and that!" I was really taken aback. I really chalk most of it up to jealousy. Most Americans, I think, view Canadians as those generally nice people living to the North" and don't otherwise give it much thought. Many of them, however, seem to have a good deal of resentment for us.

I will give them credit, however, for having far better Olympic coverage than either CBS or NBC!

21 posted on 11/07/2004 8:25:15 PM PST by bushisdamanin04
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To: reformedliberal; bushisdamanin04

I live in NZ as a migrant to this country. From time to time there is always a blow against (esp non white) migrants here - there will be calls of eating fish and chips intead of sushi, watch and play rugby and ditch badminton.

If you are not British/Irish descent European or Maori (and partially Pacific Islanders), the chance is that you will have confronted some prejudice at one point. New Zealand's national identity is very wrapped along racial and (British cultural) terms: you are at the most inside if you are British/Irish or Maori, the second circle are those with British colonial backgrounds like Indians, Pacific Islanders, Singaporean Chinese, and finally on the outside are those born in places that had no ties with Britain, such a Italians, Koreans, etc.

One of the ways to enrage native born Kiwis is to say how so-and-so is done far better at the country of your birth than in NZ, and the surest way to et them up in rage is to praise third countries, particularly the United States.


24 posted on 11/07/2004 11:21:30 PM PST by NZerFromHK ("US libs...hypocritical, naive, pompous...if US falls it will be because of these" - Tao Kit (HK))
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