9 (THEME MUSIC) Captions by Tracey Dawson. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. (RELAXED GUITAR MUSIC) The venerable Auckland suburb of Remuera, with its grand old mansions and leafy streets, is still seen by some as the bastion of old money and conservative values. But the community here is quietly changing, and these days there are over 40 ethnicities on the local intermediate school roll. My father, George, was born in Budapest, Hungary; my mother, Bernadette, was raised in a big Lebanese family in Wellington. As a child growing up, people found it hard to place our ethnicity. It wasn't exactly a common mix. I think this set us apart from other people because our peers couldn't put us in a box. After my time in front of the cameras, I now work mostly behind the scenes. My husband and I have a company together where he stunt-coordinates and I run the stunt department for international feature films. Auckland is a great base for us because we travel so frequently for work. And we've chosen Remuera to raise our kids. It still has that reputation for old money, but for me it's more about green spaces, safe streets and a warm community vibe with a lot more colour and diversity than people give it credit for. In this episode of Neighbourhood, we'll meet a Remuera local who's on a mission to inspire new arrivals from China to care for the environment. Kauri is like the panda of China. So if we lost the panda, well, how do we feel? So if we lost the kauri, we will be` well, what a disaster. A man from Mexico connects his community through a shared love of food. I think my one, compared to my mum's ` this is better. (LAUGHS) No, because it has the, um, the spicy taste of the chipotle. Yeah. A Remuera man defines what family means to him. So, the way that Tuatapu relates to Buckwheat is quite funny, really. I still think she's slightly unsure. I think over time` I mean, she knows all the photos, so when she sees a photo of Buckwheat she looks at it and will say, 'Daddy'. And a musician from Germany shares his passion with the local kids. It is the greatest privilege to be able to teach young people to learn a skill that they will have for life and that will open up all sorts of doors in their life. I'm Erika Takacs, and this is my neighbourhood. (GENTLE ACOUSTIC GUITAR) My great-grandfather, Massed El Georr, came to New Zealand from Lebanon in the late 1880s. The surname was later anglicised to Gore, but family links to the Lebanese community in Wellington stayed strong. My mother and her family were a huge influence on me growing up. What with six aunties, 16 cousins and a huge extended family I needed really look anywhere else for friendship. With birthdays, Christmases, first Holy Communions, Easter, every occasion meant a huge family gathering at one or the other of the aunties' with vast quantities of great Lebanese food. Food really does seem to be one of the things that keeps people connected to their heritage long after other traditions have fallen away. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) My full name is Juan Jose Hernandez Calixto. I am a yoga teacher in Remuera. I come from Leon, Guanajuato. That is a city in the heart of Mexico. When I first came here, I don't actually want to meet any Latino because I just want to learn English. Like, 'No, I don't want to meet some Latinos.' But I think it's something in the blood, it's something in the language, it's something like in common that you ended up meeting them anyway. (FUNKY MUSIC) Last year I tried to create a space where the community can start to connect. And I called this kind of project Latin Kiwis. (BOTH SPEAK SPANISH) We do a podcast. The idea is to promote myself as a yoga teacher and my friend, my colleague China as a comedian. And we've been planning that just to promote ourselves in the Latino community. But then things happened around the world. In July we got the Brexit, and one of the big demands was the immigration law. And then we got the rise of Donald Trump. One of his speech is, well, building a wall. So we need to connect and then express what we think about these global issues. (SPEAKS SPANISH) She's a girl from California. Oh, really? So, hang on, it's two immigrants running... Two immigrants. It can be quite political, but we try and make it entertaining because otherwise who would listen to us? (LAUGHS) JUAN: Yeah, right. (EXPECTANT MUSIC) Part of this project of Latin Kiwis, we have two channels. And one channel is a podcast, and then we've got a channel that tries to promote the Latin American cuisine. One of the things I miss more from home is actually not any particular kind of dish, it's more the spice and the taste. And it's something that I try to replicate or try to make it up here in New Zealand. One of the things I find quite funny is the fact that we have a Mexican section in the heart of Remuera. And I think it's because Mexican food is quite popular. I'm gonna cook, uh, fried beans. That is the English name, but actually in Mexico we call them frijoles refritos. Um, that is just fried beans. In the times when people don't have much to eat or can't afford to eat much, beans are very affordable. So you get the beans, you put some seasoning, some spices, and you have that with bread. So... I've grown up with beans all my life. (UPBEAT, JAZZY MUSIC) Two. Onion, butter. Now, do you wanna start chopping or`? Yep. We have a team. We are cooking together, but to prepare our channel. So those guys are preparing the set of the video and everything, getting all the pictures right for the camera. Have a glass of wine. (GLASSES CLINK) So, the recipe normally is going with manteca. That is the pork fat. But I think because we're in New Zealand we should use the New Zealand butter. We're using local products to promote the cuisine. And I think it's a lot of cultural expression in the cuisine and the food. It's about tradition, about the way we cook, about the ingredients we use, So we try for the Latin Kiwis project be a multicultural project. How are the things going? Perfect. yes. Is perfect? My fried beans are very simple. I use pretty much you can use black beans, kidney beans, any kind of beans that you like. When they're kind of semi-smashed is when we add our special ingredient. That is, this makes my fried beans different to other fried beans that you can find even in internet or everywhere. That is just the chipotle peppers. Chipotle is a chilli, is a pepper, but just go for the chipotle and you will be surprised how different and how real the taste makes. I think my one, compared to my mum's, this is better. (LAUGHS) I don't know, because it has the spicy taste of the chipotle. Yeah. Don't tell your mom. Or it's something` Because it's my thing and I'm proud of it. But it's not your thing, it's my thing. We cooked it. (LAUGHS) Right. It's actually your thing. You just had the wine. (LAUGHS) New Zealand feels like home, not just because I've been here for a period of time. It's just I feel happier here. I mean, in Mexico I was happy too, but I found, like, my space. Like, Mexico is my house` my parents house, and New Zealand is my home. 9 (PLAYS JAZZY TUNE) # The way you hold your knife, # the way you sip your tea. # The way you've changed my life. # Oh no, they can't take that away from me. # No, they can't take that away from me. # All my family gatherings ended in a song. The love of music runs in my family. My great-uncle Freddie led a big band, back in the day, that used to entertain and welcome diplomats. My grandad was also a jazz musician, and my mum and her six sisters, well, they were renowned in Wellington, infamous, known as the Gore Girls. They'd be rolled out to entertain at many an occasion. They actually still do it to this day, and I absolutely love it. Music ` it is the most wonderful thing to pass down through the generations. (ETHEREAL MUSIC) This is the St Luke's church. It's not unlike some of the churches that I've grown up in. Because of the stone, it reminds me of the churches in Europe. Music for me has been a calling from very early on, and it is the greatest joy for me to be able to listen or teach or play or conduct music. (PLAYS CLASSICAL TUNE) This is a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is the last movement of the St John Passion, which in fact was the first piece of music that inspired me to become a professional musician. I was born in Stuttgart, Germany. I was maybe just 14� and I went to the Bach St John Passion in the Stiftskirche, which is a very large cathedral ` in fact, where I was christened. And this beautiful melody somehow hit my soul... really, really deeply. I don't know what happened at that moment, but all I could remember is I sat there and cried. I just wept. I sat and wept. People had clapped, they had gone out, and I was still sitting there weeping. It was just a mind-changing and a life-changing moment. And I knew, 'That is what I want to do. I want to do classical music.' I had to do it. (LYRICAL ACOUSTIC GUITAR DUET) Oh, look, you're in your little lederhosen type of outfits. Yeah. My lederhosen were my favourite outfit. (CHUCKLES) I never took them off. My interest in music started very early on by playing the recorder first of all, so obviously quite in a timid way, as one does in school. But it became a passion very early on, and I took it very seriously, that little recorder. For me it became a world of its own that I could communicate. But that wasn't quite enough for me. I wanted a real instrument. And that was the flute, and that was my whole fascination. This was my first solo appearance at age 9. I was very proud and very, very nervous. Oh, look at you. You're so focused. Yep. (LAUGHS) Petrified. I came to New Zealand at first on a holiday in a typical backpacker kind of way, travelling up and down the country in the late '70s. And there was a bit of sabre-rattling going on in Europe. It felt very uncomfortable, very, very uneasy. And New Zealand was such a bright, beautiful, easy-going country with a real interest in the creative arts, and that was very attractive. I'm a professor at the University of Auckland in the School of Music. In my work outside the university, I'm music direct of the Manukau Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Choral and recently the Remuera Music Academy. At the university we are encouraged to help other institutions, to use our expertise to inspire teachers, programmes, or in fact even the odd lesson, and certainly the odd master class ` partly because of recruitment, but also that these youngsters will eventually grow into university students. So they come to us to study. OK, Lewis, let's start again at the end of the cadenza, please. Um, you remember the sequence? (PLAYS FLUTE) (PLAYS FLUTE) That's what you did in the concert, remember? You made that C sharp really, really long. Yeah, don't do it. Just keep going through it in the chromatic run. (PLAYS PHRASE) (PLAYS PHRASE) Perfect. Great. My first teacher on the flute was terrible. He really taught very, very poorly and very badly. And I ended up with real, real problems. And I had to basically struggle for years to solve these problems. And I think that has informed me as a teacher very, very strongly. (EMOTIVE PIANO TUNE) I can now problem-spot any kind of alignment issues or technical issues in young ones especially, and quickly troubleshoot them because I had to learn it the really hard way. I love teaching because it is always a journey of discovery. You never quite know at the start of a lesson where you will be in five minutes or in 50 minutes. And it is the greatest privilege to be able to teach young people to learn a skill that they will have for life and that will open up all sorts of doors in their life. (TRANQUIL PIANO MUSIC) The traditions and festivals of the Catholic Church formed a big part of my childhood, bringing together both the Lebanese and the Hungarian sides of my family. My dad left Hungary during the uprising in 1956 when he was just 14 years old. He, his mother and his sister escaped to Austria, and then waited there for my grandfather to escape and meet them. My father has never talked about his time in Hungary, and as much as I'd love to know more about it, I just don't think I ever will. But what I do know is that although he made his life here in New Zealand, his childhood in Hungary must have had a profound influence on the man he became. (REFLECTIVE, DREAMY MUSIC) Remuera, of course, to some people, a rich area. For me, well, my house is a cheaper one. (LAUGHS) Well, but I love the area because it is, uh, safe, the neighbourhood is so good, and I'm lucky to be just opposite a park that I like to walk. I don't have any children, but I know we need to sustain the world. If our ancestor do not help us, we cannot live in this world any more. So actually, there are a lot of things we can do. Uh, checking the bait station. I have been doing this job, on and off, for around 10 years. When you go into the bush, you would like to hear the birds. But you wouldn't like to see the rats running around. So it, uh, makes me really feel very happy and relaxing. (RHYTHMIC GUITAR) I was born and brought up in Hong Kong. My daddy do not believe that girls is worth to bring up with good education, so he always said, 'OK, study till form three.' But then he's too busy, and he didn't know that I'm in form five already! So when I was almost time for me to sit School C exam, he asked me, 'Are you now in form two or form three?' (LAUGHS) And finally I got it, the certificate, and I went to the College of Education and became a teacher. (DREAMY, RHYTHMIC MUSIC) Teaching is very good because we have long holidays, and I like travelling. And I promised myself that I would travel all over China. I've written five travel books and very successful. All these are taken by me, but I am not a good photographer, so some of them are quite dark. (LAUGHS) I got a bit of a name from the book at the time. And actually, when I want to come to New Zealand, the book helped me. I told the person who interviewed me, I said, 'Look at my books. I' can promote New Zealand as I promote China.' (LAID-BACK KEYBOARD) We launched a Chinese Conservation Education Trust in 2002. After the trust's been set up, we attract people through activities. (SPEAKS MANDARIN) Most of the new immigrants, they have to have very good education, maybe they have to have a lot of money. When it comes to money, most of them are businesspeople or they're high-ranking officials, so most of them are from the city. When they look at the hillside, green. Green is good. But actually there are so many weeds there. (LAUGHS) So I gotta tell them, 'This is weed! This is no good!' A lot of things to tell them, to teach them. It's quite a big job. But we can only do it bit by bit by bit. (BOTH SPEAK MANDARIN) We try to educate the Chinese about kauri dieback and how to protect the kauri tree. One little pinhead of phytophthora can kill a very big kauri, regardless of their age. We have to do something. Actually, doing it is not hard at all. You just clean your shoes. That's it. So easy. They all said, 'We will do it when we see the cleaning station again. 'And we will tell the friends and our family 'when we get into the kauri forest we gotta clean our shoes in and out.' Kauri is like the panda of China. So if we lost the panda, well, how do we feel? So if we lost the kauri, we'll be` well, what a disaster. I do think that I am making a difference for these people and making a difference to the environment. 9 (LAID-BACK MUSIC) When I look back at my childhood, I see that we were not your typical Kiwi family. Obviously, we looked different, we ate different food, and we held a bond that I didn't really see in other families around me. I definitely felt more accepted by my family than I did by my peers, and I suppose that's why I felt closer to them. I realise now that the things that made me different and caused me to feel ostracised as a teenager were in fact some of the precious gifts I received from my family that made me who I am today. (SLOW, FUNKY MUSIC) I had a typical childhood, kind of, an upbringing for a typical sort of Pacific Island family whose parents were migrants. So, uh, my mum and dad came here in the late '50s. Both my parents are Samoan; both of them worked really hard. You know, we had a lot to do with the Church. We had a very strict religious upbringing, and they wanted us to work hard at school to do well to benefit the family and to, sort of, remain tight-knit, close ` close to the Church, close to them, close to traditional Pacific values. I'm currently getting into the character of Buckwheat. So what I've had to do here is I've got to block my own eyebrows out. So I use a wax to cover that, then I can put all the foundation on and then kind of draw over it. Uh, in the old days I used to shave off my eyebrows, but it's a bit spooky during the day, so I tend to find it's much easier to block them out. Cos this is only, you know, part of what I do, it's not all of what I do, so I don't want to be scaring people (CHUCKLES) during everyday. I always knew within myself that I was not quite right, or I wasn't the norm. So I always knew that I was attracted to same sex. Wasn't something we discussed at home because the Church was first and foremost of what we discussed. But coming from a family of love, it was never an issue for them at all. I was very lucky to just be able to be me. (GENTLE PIANO) Buckwheat was born out of a need, really, out of a need for the Staircase to have a hostess. I was a part owner of New Zealand's most successful gay nightclub that had ever happened, with Staircase. So I wanted someone that was warm and friendly and was able to be a welcoming force for people coming to the club. Cos, you know, as you can imagine, the first time going into a gay nightclub for lots of people, lots of young men, it can be really daunting. And actually, in lots of ways those young people coming through the door are really nervous about themselves. So they get to the top, they see a drag queen, and then all of a sudden they're like, 'God, I've got nothing to worry about. Look at them.' So, you know, the freak factor is then on the drag queen and not on the person. So, kind of, 30 years later I'm doing drag still. But even now that phone still keeps ringing and I still keep getting really good bookings, so (CHUCKLES) lucky me. (UPBEAT MUSIC) We have a really close family, so I'm one of eight kids. We see each other regularly during the week and on the weekends too. So we're, kind of, all in and out of each other's lives constantly. I'm here watching my little nephew play, uh, with my mother, my partner, Peter, and my brother-in-law. Go, Johannes! Yeah! Whoo! (LAUGHS) Did I ever want children of my own? Probably not. I probably never thought about it because it was never on my radar. But I guess having the family that I have, there were always children around, whether they be nieces or nephews or cousins. You're growing up in that environment and the collective way that Pacific people live, so everyone is responsible for a child; it's not just one person. But somebody asked if I'd consider being a father and having children, and that's probably when I thought about it and kind of thought, 'Well, actually, 'it probably wouldn't be a bad thing.' I've got a lovely partner and his name is Peter Brown, and we've been together for 17 years. Oh, look how much she's grown. She was so tiny. Mm. Goes really fast. She would've been about 4 months old there. Mm. Look how tiny she was. She could fit in this part of my arm. Yeah. The mums are two friends we met some years ago, and the question arose and they asked if we would be prepared to, uh, to be involved and be co-parenting, and this is how we've come to this journey. So it's been a fantastic journey. So, yeah, I guess in terms of the care and the way it works for us is that, you know, Sarah and Alex have been the primary caregivers and Peter and I are here to support and love. But, you know, we see Tuatapu every weekend and, um, you know, generally one day a week, and we can come and go as we please. So that's kind of good. So she calls us 'the daddies'. She's got 'the mummies'. So, the way that Tuatapu relates to Buckwheat is quite funny, really. I still think she's slightly unsure. Um, I think over time` I mean, she knows all the photos, so when she sees a photo of Buckwheat she looks at it and will say, 'Daddy'. I knew that I would love the child and I knew that I'd be part of it. But actually, you said to me it was this much, but it's not, cos it's, like, that much. The good thing about this in our situation is we've got four people that love her dearly. But we've come from different, diverse families, and all of them love her dearly too. (RELAXED MUSIC) Based on my past and present experiences of being culturally different, I'd say those differences are much more widely accepted in New Zealand now than they ever were before. When we have film industry people come from abroad to work in New Zealand, we make sure they're welcomed, looked after and embraced as family. My hope is that New Zealand society as a whole can welcome those who may seem different to us into the wider community in that very same way. We live in a wonderful and diverse country, and I'm immensely proud of that. Captions by Tracey Dawson. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017