1 Captions by Catherine de Chalain. Edited by Desney Shaw. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 UPBEAT GUITAR MUSIC Fairfield lies north-east of central Hamilton. It's a true working class suburb with streets lined with state houses, and there's a real sense of community here. I lived here in my mid-20s when I was struggling, having recently come out as gay to my family, and while training for international Ironman events along the banks of the Waikato River here. Like many lower socio-economic neighbourhoods, Fairfield has had its challenges over the years. Nonetheless, this place has provided a warm welcome to a diverse mix of people. We'll take a look at what makes the community here so rich. We'll find out about the teaching method that brought a Hungarian woman halfway around the world. I, uh, use, um, music throughout my teaching. Uh, I do regularly sing to the children. Music gives a reason of the movement, so they all know that if there is fast music, fast-paced music, you walk faster. If there is slow-paced music, it relaxes you. Some new arrivals prepare a traditional Burmese dish for the neighbour. TRANSLATOR: Hector likes Shan noodles, and it is a nice way to say thank you. A woman from Guatemala shares her secret to finding support when you're far from home. We felt like, OK, we've got, like, sisters here, and then, like, we see all the kids from our friends like cousins for` for my kids, so it's good, like, to have, like, a network, or like a support group around us. And a Samoan family harvest a little locally grown goodness. God give you the land to use, so use your brain to get all the stuff to plant it and use the soil. That's what we do at the islands. We get all our food from the soil. You know, it's easy to plant. I'm Aaron Fleming, and this is my neighbourhood. THEME MUSIC PLAYS SLOW GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS If you'd asked me eight years ago when I moved from Wellington to Hamilton, I would've said that this city is very conservative. You didn't really see gay on the street. Things have changed, however, and Hamilton's gay community is much more active these days. Civil unions and same-sex marriages have made gay relationships much more visible, and Hamilton has become a much more accepting place because of it. My first flat in Hamilton was in Fairfield. The three guys that I moved in with were all gay, although I didn't realise that at the time. However, they were great support for me at a time when I felt very exposed. It's great the way that neighbours and friends can make you feel very welcome, even when home can feel such a long way away. GENTLE MUSIC PLAYS TRANSLATOR: My name is Nang Phong. I was born in Myanmar. (SPEAKS BURMESE) TRANSLATOR: We left in 2007 when all the monks were marching on the street, and the soldier, they look at my husband, so might he looks like Chinese, so they try to hit him. And that's why we left. My father is Chinese, but my mother is half-Shan, so she get ID. Because we were Chinese, we couldn't get passports. I was scared, because when the soldier` the soldier would come get the food from our house and they take it away. (SPEAKS BURMESE) TRANSLATOR: When I went to Malaysia with agent, first we had to cross the river by boat to Thailand, and there the agent left us at` at somewhere at the mountain. They didn't feed us. We stayed there for two nights, and then around 9pm or 10pm the agent came back and get us, and they push us into a truck like a pig. We can't see outside. We didn't know where we were going. And the truck stop, and we get out of the truck, and then we have to walk. If we got caught, somebody has to come and collect them and pay for them, or otherwise they will shave our head and they will send us back to the country. Before I came to NZ, I didn't know anything about NZ. But, uh, when UN said, 'Your family is going to NZ,' and then I look at the map, and then I found out where NZ is. It was not hard to make friends here. People here is really friendly. When I first arrived, my daughter was still little. I went shopping, and so I got lots of stuff in my hand and also I have to carry my daughter, and then, uh, some people, they saw me and they feel sorry for me, and they help me carry my stuff, and then they bring me home. So the people are really friendly. (SPEAKS BURMESE) (SPEAKS BURMESE) TRANSLATOR: In Shan noodle we have vegetable and chicken. We make it like a paste in chicken soup. (SPEAKS BURMESE) TRANSLATOR: I grow some vegetables in the community garden and few in our garden. We cook a lot at home, and we sometimes can get it from the shop as well. Hector is my neighbour. I don't` We don't call him by his name; we just call him Uncle. Big one. Big one in there. Yeah, yeah. Oh, they'll` they'll come out, and... Uncle helps us a lot. He... Sometimes he will bring us food, and sometime when we doing the garden, chopping the bushes at the front, he was looking at us, and we don't have enough equipment, so he bring his equipment and help us with cutting those bush. I think it was, um,... most probably pretty hard for, um, Z` Nang and Zaw, cos, you know, they didn't know anyone. And it was` um, might've been a month or so before I got talking to them, and then I started giving them a bit of a hand here and there, and they're good neighbours. Uh, Hector likes Shan noodle, and it is a nice way to say thank you. (SPEAKS BURMESE) TRANSLATOR: It's remind me of home a lot. When I'm eating, I think of my mother. I've been thinking of how she's doing and what she is eating. First you put sesame oil, and then you fry garlic and the soy sauce, and for people who can eat spicy, they can put the chilli sauce and the chicken sauce as well. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS It tastes good, Mum. It's very nice, yes. < Thank you. TRANSLATOR: I hope for many things. I want to see my mother again, and I also want to get a job and would like to get a house for our family, and I want my children to grow up healthy. (SPEAKS BURMESE) PEACEFUL MUSIC PLAYS As a kid I was a keen gymnast, and I was really looking forward to wearing the silver fern on my chest and representing my country. But then when I was age 16, my lung collapsed four times and I had two lots of surgery. It was a really tough time, and I had to take the best part of a year off school. As my health deteriorated, I got addicted to my painkillers and I struggled with depression. After my last operation, my surgeon told me that I'd never be physically active again. Despite the warnings from my surgeon, I decided to enter the 2006 NZ Ironman. At that stage I couldn't swim, bike or run, and I had to start training from scratch, but I did it, and since then, I've competed in a further five Ironman races and later this year will be competing in Ironman Malaysia. I love it how you can end up on the other side of the world when you follow your dream. When I was invited, uh, to NZ, we` we didn't know much about NZ at all. There were no travelling books. So we came to, uh, a land which was non-existing (LAUGHS) in Hungary, so it was a huge, big, um, challenge, really, to, uh, sit up on that airplane, not knowing where we going to actually land. That's my mum and dad when they got married, uh, after knowing each other for one week, and they're still happily married, and that's (LAUGHS) nearly 50 years now. I` I grew up in Szekszard, which is south part of Hungary, um, and, um, this is a township, about 30,000 people. And I` physically I grew up on the fifth floor. It was a big apartment block with, uh, 520 apartments lined up. Imagine, it's a whole village. I was very, uh, rebellish, I guess, and outgoing, and, um,... it seemed like my brain working the other way around than the other kids. (LAUGHS) I went to this primary school, and I was exposed to music. On an everyday basis we had at least two hours' music education, and I also had to go to the choir after that, and, um, immediately, um, the recorder was introduced as a musical instrument, and later, around` I think I was about 8 when I had to choose another, um,... instrument, which I choose the trumpet. (LAUGHS) But growing up on the sixth floor it wasn't a very clever idea. The neighbours and my mother didn't like, (LAUGHS) so she highly recommended that I change my mind, and so I started to study the flute, which sounded a bit better. (LAUGHS) Conductive education is an educational method that has been developed in Hungary, and that's one of the reason I am actually here, that I have been invited to NZ to, uh, help with the establishment of one of the first schools here. I, uh, use music throughout my teaching. I do regularly sing to the children, and I implement lots of nursery rhymes with them. Music gives a reason of the movement, so we all know that if there is fast music, fast-paced music, you walk faster; if there is slow-paced music, it relaxes you. We have this programme basically set up for children from 0 up to 6 years. My speciality is from 0 to 2. I like to capture them as early as possible and just giving them healthy movement experience. It's nothing else but just giving them the experience, um, the movements, what they` they are unable to carry out by themselves. You put it there all by yourself. What colour is that one? Red. Red. And you do it. Originally conductive education has been developed for children, um, mainly who had cerebral palsy. Um, but again, um, since conductive education not only have been practised in Hungary, but the past 20 years it became worldwide famous. (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Standing tall. Oh, there's your eyes. Those my eyes. Basically it's proved itself that it is beneficial for lots of children who have behaviour problems, additional difficulties, like they would` like visually impaired or hearing impaired. I would say, um, the most confident I feel educating children with motor disorder. Jump off. We're going to go somewhere else. Ready, steady, jump. I got puzzles the other side. Sometimes we can see a very quick change. Um, maybe one or two or three sessions enough for them to actually have a significant improvement. Although the skill was always there, but never anybody could actually bring out of the child. And, uh, sometimes it takes quite a while until you actually see coming back what you are, um, implanting day by day. Lucy, um, just learned to crawl. This is a new skill, and actually, uh, last year she learned it, uh, towards the end of the year, and also she stood up the first time last year, so basically we are revisiting the skill, what she has been busy practising over the summer. # Standing up. # Lucy standing tall. # Very straight and tall. # One, two, three, four, five. # Lucy standing tall. # Awesome. It's part of, um, our culture. Music is, um, quite strong in Hungary, but also it's one of the key elements in conductive education where we actually reinforce the children, um, learning by using the same songs. And it also helps with, um, children with, um, more complex needs to settle into the routine a bit easier. I got it. It's just` It's just amazing to see the progress. Um, we have challenges, obviously, and we, um, do the best we can, and we bring her here every day, and we moved up from New Plymouth so Lucy can come and see Virag, um, every day. She is a really special person, and we have come to really love her as` as a family. Um, yeah, she's not just a therapist. She really is a friend to our whole family, and we just, yeah, can't speak highly enough of her. I am very proud what I was able to bring to NZ. I think there are hundreds and hundreds of children benefiting, just being able to go through conductive education throughout the country. DUCKS QUACK I was 22 when I came out as gay. My parents didn't take it well, and that hurt like hell. But just as I needed time to learn who I was, my parents needed time to come to terms with the fact that I was the same person they'd always loved; that it wasn't anyone's fault; that being gay wasn't a choice. I'm proud to say that my parents are now very accepting. They treat my partner like a son, and they even coach other parents going through a similar challenge. Healing our relationship took time and patience, both of which are needed in tending Mativa's garden. My name is Mativa Metangi. The meaning of my name is 'poor'. You know, you've got nothing. Poor. I'm rich in knowledge from God, and I'm rich in family and friends and all my kids. I've been living in this house for about nearly 30 years in this place. I was born at Samoa. When I reached the age of 20 years old, and, uh... my parents want us to come over. They said, uh,... to come and find a better life for me in NZ. I got nine kids altogether, 11 grandchildren. I brought up all my kids here. When I first got here, there was no garden in the place, so I start doing all the planting and everything ` flower, plus my garden at the back. My hands are really good in planting, and some people calls me I've got green fingers. This is my garden. And, uh, I spend most of my time in here, planting and looking after it. When I got nothing to do, this where I am. Planting all the veges and plus the pumpkin. As you can see, the pumpkin is covering the whole garden. We got taro, bananas, all the veges out there and the pumpkins. And, uh, the main thing for me it represent me ` I'm a Samoan. You know, it feels like at home. So we call it our umu, but it's a house we built, and we prepare the food inside, and we call it a umu. Plus what we cook the meal in is a umu. God give you the land to use, so use your brain to get all the stuff to plant it and use the soil. That's what we do in the islands. We get all our food from the soil. You know, it's easy to plant, and then you` at the end, you get all the stuff from it. Any meeting... or any` where all the family coming, maybe easy for Islanders do this. Save the power for cooking for the oven. < Now we put the hot stones on it. There's a lot of mouths to feed from that garden. I raised them to know we are Samoans. We are not from other islands. We are Samoans. (SPEAKS SAMOAN) That's fine. (SPEAKS SAMOAN) (SPEAKS SAMOAN) Every week we get together every Sunday, and we have a meal here for lunch after church. It's good to see, uh, them, uh, come and have a look what we do, and I hope one of them will carry on doing what we do ` you know, to carry on, uh, the Samoan way of preparing food. I will be gardening as long as I've got the strength to do it. You know, I'm really strong to do it, and so I'm carrying on to do my garden, no matter what. It is my happy place. When my husband leave for work in the morning, 'round about 5 o'clock, and, uh, I know the sun is nearly coming out 'round about 6, and that's where I am in the morning. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC Because of my fundraising work for cystic fibrosis, I was lucky enough to be selected as NZ's ambassador to carry the Olympic torch in Canberra for the 2008 Games. Running with the torch was an incredible experience, and for that one small moment, it did really feel as though the whole world was in my hands. The torch for me now is a reminder of just how special that Olympic spirit is, a time when the whole world comes together to unite in healthy competition and comradery. Through sport, I've made lifelong friends. I've supported many people, and in return I have received a lot of support as well. It's become like a family, really, and that family feeling is really important, especially if you're a long way from home. Even though I love Guatemala, but there was always something inside me that was looking, like, to go overseas. Even when I met my husband, and I wanted to... to go somewhere, and I just finished, like, my primary teacher degree and then I also finished the... my degree in` in uni, so I thought, 'OK, I wanna do something else.' And he was like, 'Are you really sure?' And I said, like, yes. And I think probably the main reason we're living overseas is because of me, because that's how our journey started. So he applied for the job, and then we got the job in Fiji, and then that's just history, and then we came here, and... we love NZ. GUITAR PLAYS SINGING IN SPANISH Guatemala, it's a very multicultural country, if you want to see it like that. It's like we descend from the Mayans, so there's, like, uh,... 21 languages that are... Probably it's, like, they're considered languages but still, like, dialects from different regions, so everyone's got their own dialect. (SINGS IN SPANISH) Like a happy culture, I think, and it's like... when you see other cultures, especially, like, Western cultures, it's like when they come to Guatemala, they're` they are just amazed of how welcoming we are, and, like, a meal, we can share it with someone else, so it doesn't matter, like, if we just know you. It's like it's just a thing of, like, welcoming to our homes, so... And that's why this common say of like, 'mi casa es tu casa', like, 'my home is your home', so it's very popular. (SINGS IN SPANISH) Actually, it's really important for us that they learn where we come from, because that's a huge part of what we are, so we really like sharing with them, like` like what` stories about what we used to do back home or, like, things that we eat, and then... Like, we actually let them talk to` to their family back home, so that's why it's important for us for them to learn the language ` so they can communicate with them easily and with no problem. When we were trying to plan our move to NZ, one of the things that actually came up was the Hispano-Latino group, so we're like, 'Oh, there's a big Spanish community,' and then looking further, he found this` the Spanish playgroup. The playgroup Manitas is in Fairfield in Insoll Avenue, and we meet every Thursday from 9.30 to 11.30. ALL SING IN SPANISH We have people from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia... And because Spanish is getting really popular at the moment, even at the moment we have a parent whose daughter is half Tongan and half Kiwi, but he came because he just likes the idea of her daughter being able to learn other languages, and he thought Spanish was a really good idea. We found, like, the place was kind of like the family we didn't have back home, so` so everyone is back home, so we felt like, OK, we've got, like, sisters here, and then, like... I th` We see, like, all the kids from our friends like cousins for` for my kids. so it's good, like, to have, like, a network, or like a support group around us. Um, it's been really good for the kids to have a bit of piece from home, to get to meet people from the same sort of background, and in Spanish is amazing because then they get to, um, practise it, and, um, understand it a bit better. Yeah, so my dad's from Bolivia. Um, my mum also speaks Spanish, but when he came to NZ, he couldn't speak a word of English, so they, um` We grew up at home speaking English. Um, and it wasn't till` uh, yeah, as an adult I tried to learn. I realised how much I miss the Spanish in my life, and not only` n-not just the language, but the culture as well, so when we found them, we were like, 'Wow, this is great.' Because even though we have lovely friends, like, Kiwi friends, just knowing they understand where you come from, and even... They like probably the same food, how you cook. It's like` Even if you just met them, it's like you've known them forever, because there's just that click. So I think that made our... like, coming to NZ way easier than we thought. CHEERFUL ELECTRONIC MUSIC Fairfield is a place where a car will stop to let you walk across the street, where people say hello, where kids feel safe in the park, and where I feel connected to a diverse community. NZ is changing. It's becoming much easier to be part of a minority, whether it's your ethnicity, your religion or your sexuality, as in my case, that sets you apart. But there's still some way to go. I remember the feeling my partner and I felt when planning for our civil union, when businesses refused to be part of our special day. But as minority groups become braver and more confident in speaking out, hopefully in a decade it will be much easier to be part of a minority, and diversity will be just the norm. Captions by Catherine de Chalain Edited by Desney Shaw. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016