Slight modifications to my post on nz edge.com's blog (https://www.nzedge.blogspot.com)

https://www.nzedge.blogspot.com/

I love and miss NZ, and many of my fellow NZders, but it is telling that a sixth of us live abroad! That's a massive proportion of any nation's population. It's also telling that most of the Heroes on this site - amazing people - had to move abroad to achieve their goals. The tall poppy syndrome is a cliche, but it's a cliche because it's true. I see it as the hugely negative flipside of what is otherwise our admirable egalitarianism.

After living a decade in Europe, the extraordinarily dumbed down nature of the NZ public culture is actually a bit shocking, and potentially turns me off moving back. As does the crime (note the gangs feature here), which is rather high. Too high, for what we always present to the world as a southern seas paradise / idyll. Would that it were so, but NZ has too many problems to be so complacent. And yes, I know how pretentious my 'dumbed down' comments might make me sound to some people, but it's true.

Still, NZders can be extraordinarily open-minded, ingenious and proactive, as nzedge has shown us, I just wish we had more of that spirit in evidence at home today. Here's some free advice; it would be a good idea for the NZ Govt to look up the word 'infrastructure', and realise NZ needs some. It might also help if the govt reaslied that slapping GM or GE labels on our produce would be the kiss of death to our exports - in Europe, at least. It would also be a good idea if NZ people stopped obssessing to an almost dangerous degree about a minority sport (Rugby), and stopped faffing about with the America's Cup. Out here in the world, hardly anyone's heard of it. Certainly it shouldn't large sums of NZ taxpayer's money. It would also be nice if we could make a decent movie for once that wasn't about bloody hobbits.

I am not a hobbit, I'm a proud Kiwi. They do say patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, and despite the above comments, I am a patriotic NZder, but I also try to be clear-sighted about NZ's downsides. I think NZ's 'leaders' should be too.