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Kiwi here - Here's something cool: My grandparents (both still alive but over 100) grandparents were among the first settlers here in NZ. Not the very first to
by malux85 2y ago
Kiwi here - Here's something cool: My grandparents (both still alive but over 100) grandparents were among the first settlers here in NZ.
Not the very first to land, a few decades after that, but early enough that they had to build a single room shelter out of clay and mud, and hunt in nature for food. Now, as I sit on the 20th floor in an air conditioned flat with gigabit ethernet, I overlook the city, and marvel about how quickly a country can be built up from nothing.
One other thing that is interesting, my grandparents were farmers their whole lives and only recently retired, when they started farming they were still using horses, and now their farm has computer controlled, almost entirely automated combine harvestors, they themselves often tell us they cant believe the rate at which farming automation advanced - they manage an enormous farm - so big I dont know the boundaries - with less than 10 people because of all the automation. It's pretty impressive to a non-farmer like me.
- echelon_musk 2y agoMy parents flew me to NZ as a 3 month old baby to show to my aunt. They would remark about how the airport was little more than a corrugated iron hut at the time. I love NZ deeply and when I visited again later in life parts of the islands gave me the feeling that it was still a frontier.
- lostlogin 2y ago> They would remark about how the airport was little more than a corrugated iron hut at the time. It hasn’t got any better. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018928627/auckland-airport-processes-need-attention-helen-clark https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2...
- malux85 2y agoI guess it's all about perspective. I was born kiwi and grew up here until I was 24, then. I spent 10 years travelling, I lived in Spain, France, UK, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Dubai, LA, each for 8months - 1 year, and visited all the countries surrounding each. I've seen a lot of east european poverty and watched covid induced unemployment convert entire districts of cities into violent crime pits. When I came back to NZ I found New Zealanders complaining about such trivial things quite sad. New Zealand isn't perfect, but here, in the great scheme of things, we have it good.
- mkl 2y agoAmong the first European settlers, sure, same here (more like my grandparents' grandparents' grandparents), but a few centuries after the first settlers.
- malux85 2y agoyes sorry, European settlers. It's pretty inspiring that the Maori got here long before them with such primitive technology, I always thought that was a really incredible illustration of human spirit and bravery.