1 Captions by James Brown. Edited by Alex Walker. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 (WHIMSICAL MUSIC) Wellington Central is the eclectic, colourful, sometime wind tunnel, multicultural centre at the heart of New Zealand's capital city. I remember the first time I hiked up here to the lookout and just seeing the whole city laid out in front of me, and it was just amazing, wrapped up in the hills, and I was thinking, 'Wow. I live here.' I'm Cambodian-American, and I was born in a Thai refugee camp. But by the time I was 6 months old, my family was living in the San Francisco Bay Area. And now this is my home, along with 40% of other Wellington Central residents who were also born overseas. I'd like to share with you just how diverse the heart of New Zealand's capital city has become. In this episode of Neighbourhood, a local man says thanks to the city that has welcomed him by sharing the language he loves. Those are capital letters. Yeah, I wanted to give, because I took a lot. So it was a... a good chance for me to say I am grateful, you know, practically. A Wellington artist references his Samoan heritage in his work. I thought, 'If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna look at things that haven't been done in Pacific art.' I thought I'll just take a different approach. We'll discover the challenges of being a child in a refugee family. My parents were relying too much on me, but at the same time, I was, like, they have looked after me all my life; I need to do something for them now. We'll meet a group of former refugee women providing Wellington Central with a new take on lunch. And where did you learn to make this one? From my country. From family. From my mum and auntie. I'm watching and I'm cooking also. I'm Molly Sokhom, and this is my neighbourhood. (INTRIGUING MUSIC) I have been doing stand-up comedy for about nine years now. And a lot of my material comes from my own particular cross-cultural mash-up. My new show that I'm working on is about me travelling to Cambodia with my parents for the first time to meet family, and especially the half-brother I didn't know I had. I know ` deep, huh? The humour really comes from the fact that I don't speak the language, but I can understand Cambodian very well, and it was really hard when I heard people talk behind my back about how fat and old I was. And I couldn't say anything. So having a common language really makes all the difference. (GENTLE MUSIC) My name is Yousef Mazraeh. I was born in south Iran. In Iran, there live many different ethnicities. Arab minorities are one of those ethnicities. We have no rights to study by our mother tongue. We have to study by Persian. After Iranian Revolution, we faced by more challenges ` Iranian resettlement coming to our land and taking our land. So we started to talk about helping people to have more understanding about our history, our rights, our tradition. But Iranian security service find our movement, and they arrested me. They, um, hanged... two from my uncles. And they... put me in the... detention. I didn't have right to contact my family, and they didn't know am I alive or not. Yeah, it was... a hard time, and they put me under torture, physically and mentally. Yeah. And still I have... nightmare (CHUCKLES) from those... that period of time. Yeah, it was really hard. (GENTLE MUSIC) While I was in the jail, all the time I was thinking about a better future. And I believe in God strongly, and still I think... the future will be better than past. 15, 16 years they didn't let me go out from Iran ` they didn't give me a passport. But in 2010, they gave me the passport, and when I got the passport, I immediately moved. Yeah, my work is in the Wellington Red Cross. I'm working as a cross-cultural worker, which means I am as a bridge between the key workers with the refugee Arab families. I was teaching one of my colleagues. One day we were talking about Arabic, and... I said, 'If you want, I can help you to learn Arabic.' Ayn, Ghayn, Fa, Qaf, Kaf, Lam, Meem, Noon, Wow, Ha, Ya. Those are capital letters. 'I really excited when I saw many people, you know, they want to learn. 'Many of them are Red Cross volunteers who are working with the refugees. 'And some of them are students, and some of them are from the neighbourhood.' Yeah, I wanted to give, because I took a lot. So it was a... a good chance for me to say I am grateful, you know, practically. We have three other vowels. What are they? 'When I was a child, it was one of my biggest... 'wishes to be an Arabic teacher one day. 'So, in Iran, I couldn't do this, because, you know, policy and the government 'doesn't let us to study by our mother tongue or to teach our mother tongue. 'So now here I am doing this for lovely Wellingtonians.' They are really good people. I love them all. I'm a strong believer in the philosophy behind this course ` his idea of giving back to the community. And I also have friends and colleagues who speak Arabic, and it would be kind of cool to maybe understand what they're saying every once in a while. (LAUGHS) You have to add Ya. My dad goes to teach the people every Wednesday. I come with him to help out and also learn as well. Yeah, he's... A. ...he's just so fluent, and... I. ...he knows the language well,... U. ...so he can teach anyone. Thanks for coming. Thanks for listening. Thanks for... giving us your time. Proud of you. (LAUGHTER) Shukran jazeelan. (INTRIGUING MUSIC) I think we will understand each other better and we will trust each other more, because when we are getting in touch, communication and socialising is making our relationship stronger. Yeah, when I was a child, I used to play soccer, and I liked it. But I have never had the chance to buy a soccer ball. (LAUGHS) It was too expensive for us. But now Mohammed, I think, has this opportunity to have many balls, (LAUGHS) not just one. New Zealand is my hometown, and I am belong to this land, and I wanna be... you know, a person who is giving to this country more than he is taking. (PEACEFUL MUSIC) Growing up, I lived in a big, diverse Asian community, but I was still bullied quite a bit as a kid in school. I was a little dorky, but not shy, sporty, into the arts, and I never really hung out with the same group of kids ` I always liked a diverse group of friends. Well, I think this helped with my stand-up. A mix of influence does help the creative juices flow. Who would win out of Captain America and Iron Man? I think Captain America won. That` Oh, yeah, in the movie. Yeah. So, my mum's from Samoa. She came over in the late '60s. And she met my dad in a soda-pop factory ` Schweppes. There's a little joke ` dad Schwepped her off her feet or something. We had Mum's dad from Samoa living with us, and we had a lot of Mum's relatives living with us. So we used to go to church, and then afterwards there'd be a big spread, a big feed, and then we'd all sit around, because you weren't allowed to do much, because it's... a very religious environment. And the day off is the day off ` you can't go out and play football in the backyard. And one of the cousins was into Marvel Comics and DC Comics. And we used to copy them. So it was, like, these drawing competitions on Sundays. What do you think of my profile of the Hulk? Good. You know, it needs a little bit more action, like... (LAUGHS) Oh yeah. A bit more aggro. Yeah. OK. Yeah, I think that's where all my art playground sort of started in my head... and sort of continues all the time. It's, like, your art` it's always going on in your head; you just never stop it. (PEACEFUL MUSIC) I studied printmaking all through art school. It was` It was real practical art ` the press, the rollers. This was, like, the early '90s, and Pacific art was really coming up. I sort of was quite cautious. So that's why I went to Europe, to look at other stuff. But at the same time, I was doing Pacific-inspired art, and I couldn't get away from it. It was just in me. It looked Pacific, but it didn't come from tapa-cloth design or tattoo designs. I thought, 'If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna look at things that haven't been done in Pacific art.' I thought, 'I'll just take a different approach, and I'll look at it from a graphic point of view.' When I'm chiselling, it's just sort of, like, I just zone out. But when I'm printing, I'm always aware of what's going on. Cos this is the best part, is printing, cos... So, what you've got is pressure here on a roller, and you've got a thin bit of ink on top of some wood. And usually it's out slightly, and you always get a few things that go wrong, and I quite like that. I like pattern and things. I like repetition. And I started looking at tapa, and it just, like` 'Wow, this stuff's all sort of` It's like postmodernism.' It's very minimal, but it's rustic. It gave me a new body of work, a new sort of avenue to explore, and I'm still on it. I've got a title in Samoa. So my title is 'Lesa' ` L-E-S-A. Every title's got a job responsibility, and I'm an orator, so I'm meant to stand up and talk and do stories and stuff. It's a culture of storytelling. I drive past this wall every day. And it's in this little high-density area full of council flats, which I love ` it's got a lot of friction down there, a lot of cross-culture, all-walks-of-life kind of people. 'This wall, that needs peace. I'm gonna propose an idea to the council.' And they said, 'Yep, that wall gets tagged so much.' And the taggers usually go away after a piece of art's gone up. So, yeah, it was kind of a win-win. I had to do a workshop with the residents, and it's all different cultures, of course, in the council flats. The workshop was, 'Tell me all your stories, and I'll put them in there.' So I did the om ` it's the om symbol, and that's Hindu. And it got the big tick from the family that work the dairy. And also I've done some Chinese symbols in there. There used to be a Chinese market garden here. So I got a local guy who speaks Mandarin to come and check it out, and he said, 'Looks pretty good,' so, yeah, I went with that. This is basically peace and happiness. Culture's always moving. It's always changing. It's not so black and white. There's all different degrees of culture. That's why I think it's important to take something and try and put your own twist on it. I love looking at old photos of my family and especially enjoy looking at pictures of my parents when they were young in Cambodia. This is tinged with huge sadness when I think of the horror that engulfed Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975. Luckily, my parents made it safely to a refugee camp in Thailand. This is a picture of their wedding day. They had an arranged marriage, but the look on my mom's face doesn't really say 'happy'. But I can assure you, they are still totally in love. Families are so resilient. It doesn't take much for them to flourish. (GENTLE JAZZY MUSIC) I had nightmares remembering everything that happened when they came and knocked the door. My mum opened, and she just started screaming. I dreamed all my childhood that she was screaming, and then my dad grabbed me, and they grabbed stuff, and then we had to run a lot. And I was tired, and I said, 'Dad, where are we going? Where are we going?' And all he said was, 'To a better life.' I'm Yibeth Morales Ayala. I was born in Putumayo, Colombia. I was 3 years old when I had to leave Colombia. We left because we had to flee the country. We were attacked by the paramilitaries. They came and knocked our door, and they said we have to leave the country in 15 minutes or they will kill us all. We just went to Ecuador. Everyone shut the doors in our faces and said, 'No Colombians. No Colombians. 'You are robs, drug dealers, narcotraffickers,' everything. So we just lost everything. We started again, and we lost it again. So we went to UNICEF. They said, 'Yes, we're gonna help you. We're gonna do a resettlement for you.' We came to New Zealand, and we start a new life. I was 14 years old. Those two first years were tough. I was the oldest. I was the one who my little sister looked up and who my parents were relying on. I was the only one speaking English. So my parents will go, every time they had an appointment, take me out of school, I will be translating. Every call, I will be answering. Every email that we got, I will be writing and answering. So it was really hard. It was hard. My parents were relying too much on me, but at the same time, I was like, 'They have looked after me all my life; I need to do something for them now.' There has been situations where my parents don't understand what they're trying to buy or anything, so the people lose their patience. And I understand, because it's hard. How can you explain a medication or how to be taken to people that don't speak English? (SPEAKS SPANISH) We're looking for something because my little sister's got a blister on her foot. I was having too many responsibilities at my age, that I would have a mood all the time ` you know, I would be, like, angry at everything. I would be, like, 'No, I need to look after this. I can't go out. I can't have friends. 'I can't this; I can't do that.' There was this time where I got out of my good road to the bad road, you know, with just hanging out with friends, partying, all this stuff. I'm painting my own self. In some of them, I'm covering my mouth, my ears, my eyes, or turning around and not looking. So I feel like that's what we are doing. Some people are just covering their eyes so they don't see how people are suffering. (GENTLE MUSIC) When I was in Ecuador, I did some drama courses as well. And when I got here, with the Refugee Youth Council, we were thinking about things, workshops that we should do. So we actually got together, and we did some improvisations, and we learned more about how to express ourselves through drama, how to just let everything go and do... do it, like, in that moment. No, it's OK. You're going to do fine. These classes are taking place in the centre of Wellington, in the Toi Poneke Arts. Well, it's been great to meet with the guys and the gals and just have a lot of improvisation. You just wake up in a room. OK? You think you are alone, but then... after a few seconds, or whatever, you're going to realise there is another... thing there. It's just amazing to be there, sharing with other people like me, other teenagers like me that go through the same stuff and have been` have a refugee background. You know? We understand each other. I think that what helps me, or what I've taken out of this, is that I've, you know, taken all the stress out of my body, other things, all the thoughts ` I go home and I have to do homework, I have to help my mum with this, and all that stuff just goes away for, like, an hour or two hours and a half. And it's actually really good. Where do I see myself? I feel like I want to study law and international... international rights. So in 10 years, maybe I'll be the professional person I really want to be. Maybe meet the love of my life; (LAUGHS) we don't know. Maybe it's too far away for that. So, yeah, we never know in 10 years' time. I'll be the person I always wanted to be, cos now I'm working on it. (GENTLE MUSIC) I learned how to make spring rolls from my mom and her friends. They used to sell them around the neighbourhood, and they used to have these spring rolling parties, with about 10 women. And these women were strict. My mom would not approve of that. I'll try my best. Yeah. Each roll had to be perfect, and then they just looked at mine and said, 'No!' On the plus side, we got to eat the ones that didn't make the cut. Nowadays, I love making spring rolls for my friends. And I play around with the ingredients ` a little chilli pepper, a little taro. The fusion is where the fun comes in. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) My name is Genet Tsegaye. I born in Ethiopia. (SPEAKS AMHARIC) Pomegranate Kitchen is a catering company, and we provide training and skill development as well as work for people from refugee background. Often our cooks already know how to make the meals, and they often already know how to scale up to 500 or 700 people for weddings. So really, what we're providing is the... the commercial element ` so, the health and safety and the connection with the Kiwi community. (SPEAKS AMHARIC) So, up until now, we've mostly used Middle Eastern food on our menu. And the reason for that is that most of our cooks are from Middle Eastern background. But we're looking forward to using some of Genet's Ethiopian dishes on our menu. It's really important to us that Genet feels she's contributing some of her foods and some of her culture as well. (SPEAKS AMHARIC) And where did you learn to make this one? From my country. From family. From my mum and auntie. I'm watching and I'm cooking also. (SPEAKS AMHARIC) Are there any Ethiopian restaurants in Wellington you can get it, or not really? Not really. Yeah. Not... Is this something that you would eat every day in Ethiopia? Yes, every day. Lunch and dinner... Yeah, right. ...we use injera. Yeah. Most people, they use it. Sometimes they use for breakfast, also. Wow, so sometimes three meals a day. Yeah. Rebecca, can you try one? Sure. Wow. (LAUGHS) Nice. Keep going. Well done. (LAUGHS) You did. Bravo. What I've seen with some of our cooks is that they're quite socially isolated if they're not here with family. And so to come here every day really provides a sense of community, and they get a lot more out of it than just the technical skills. Right, so we tear off some of this? Yes, please. You show me. OK. A little bit like that. Can I have this one? Mm. Hold like this. Mm-hm. Just... take the sauce. And... mmm! Nice. Mmm. Yeah, beautiful flavours. For Pomegranate, we could use these if we rolled them up. She's got this really great kind of can-do attitude, so she picks everything up really quickly, and she's happy to kind of lend a hand wherever. And I guess that's` more broadly, that's what we believe about people from refugee background as employees, that it's not just about the different cooking skills but also the resilience and the flexibility that they've shown to travel this far means that they actually make really great employees. (SPEAKS AMHARIC) So we hope that when your children arrive` I am crying. Yeah. When your children come here, then we can make injera with them as well. Yes. I hope. Yeah, I hope so too. We make big party ` Pomegranate Kitchen. We will. (GENTLE MUSIC) Wellington Central really feels like home to me. I love the nightlife, the energy and the big, multicultural mix of people I see every day on the street. If I could wave a magic wand, I'd like to conjure up a future where New Zealand opens its doors to more immigrants and refugees. My parents were refugees in California. Life was difficult at the start, but they both worked hard and made their adopted land their home. I think Wellington Central can still lay out the welcome mat for a few more arrivals yet. Captions by James Brown. Edited by Alex Walker. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017