Eyes Above The Waves

Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Repatriate Kiwi. Hacker.

Sunday 21 September 2008

Whiny Expats

I get grumpy when some NZer based overseas presumes to lecture his former compatriots about how to run the country. In the same vein I got extremely grumpy about the "lost generation" controversy several years ago. If these people cared, they'd put their money and energy where their mouths are, come back to NZ and actually do something positive instead of just absconding with their skills and upbringing and then hectoring those who remain here to make a contribution.

Their plans always seem to be self-serving and/or wrong, as well. At least the plans related to gestating high-tech industry, which I know something about, are invariably wrong.

I also get annoyed by the cringey way the media reports this stuff. It's classic gloomocrat material.

It's especially galling to be lectured from Russia. I hope no-one sees the Russian situation as a model for New Zealand's future!



Comments

Sebastian Redl
And here I thought you'd be writing about the maintainers of expat ;)
Mikhail
Being Russian, I've seen a lot of lecturing from abroad about how to run our country. Likewise, the plans have been turning out to be mostly self-serving and wrong.
Such things can hurt one's patriotic feelings. But I am not sure what you mean by 'the Russian situation.' I'm puzzled.
Robert O'Callahan
Massive concentration of wealth into the hands of a very few, corruption, ineffective democratic opposition, and economic strength based more on fabulous natural resources (especially oil) than brilliant government policy.
That last one really irritates. A lot of prescriptions are based on identifying something successful in a country, identifying one possible cause, and suggesting that importing that cause to another country will produce the desired effect ... totally ignoring other more important causes that aren't importable (e.g. oil wealth, mineral resources, sheer size, vast cheap labour, geopolitical might, existing civic or industrial pre-eminence).
Geoff Langdale
It's an absolute epidemic in Australia. Especially the 'I left Australia in the 60s and have been complaining about it ever since' crowd. Most younger Australians I know are pretty weary of hearing about modern Australia from Robert Hughes and Germaine Greer. We get it, we get it, you had a bad time growing up in the 50s.
Mikhail
Couldn't have said it better myself.
The things you cited aren't unique to Russia. But the combination probably is. Well, you can't solve all the problems at once... I'm just hoping we are moving in the right direction.
J. McNair
The lovely thing about being American is we are far to self-centered and egotistical to notice when expats lecture us. We just assume the person was bonkers to have left the glory and wonder that is the USA and ignore them. But then again, I think the rest of the world already knows all this and doesn't bother, eh?
If even half of your blog is true, New Zealand seems like a wonderful country to live and work. Every time you put up photos or describe people and places I am impressed. It just has its share of UNIQUE problems, like EVERYWHERE ELSE. I'm sorry your entire country has to endure "Helpful Critical Guy Syndrome" (from Dilbert, by Scott Adams).
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It's all about learning the culture of the new place. Observe and learn to act on which ones you prefer.