www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 (SOFT POP MUSIC) Glendene is like Grove St in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, only there's no pimps, there's no hookers, there's no gangs, there's no guns. Oh, and it's real. It's not a PlayStation game. (SOFT POP MUSIC CONTINUES) I live with my grandparents here at this house, and my other grandparents just live down the road. Samoan families are pretty strict, so it was a little bit embarrassing telling your friends that you weren't allowed out late or you couldn't go to their house. I was the only kid in the house, and I relied heavily on my imagination, which is probably why I chose to make a living as a dancer, and that didn't work, so now I'm a film-maker. And looking around me, there are so many interesting stories here in Glendene. In this episode of Neighbourhood ` we'll meet a woman from China who's found her time to shine. A lot of good things can come out of music. It's a good thing to make my life happy and feel vivid, and can never be` feel lonely. A man from Kazakhstan shares a taste of home. When we would visit grandmother, we would always eat traditional food, as in manti, chak-chak or any broths ` traditional, and mainly lamb, and, of course, we would also eat horse. A local sculptor celebrates West Auckland in her work. This is my latest public sculpture. It's called 'Estuarine'. This work's describing this area if you were flying over it in an aeroplane, looking down, this depicts all the rivers and streams coming in. And a woman from Niue stitches a community together. 'Mata fiafia' means 'happy face'. So many people want to join us, but we didn't advertise. All we want is, you know, only the island people ` the Niuean people ` so we can use our language. Talofa. I'm Nikki Si'ulepa, and this is my neighbourhood. (SLOW POP MUSIC) My grandparents were Samoan immigrants, so they did things a little bit differently. When I was at primary school here, I came to class and my teacher asked us all to set the table for dinner. So, naturally, I lay down newspaper. When she asked why, I said, 'For the fish bones.' Obviously. I was 16 years old when I moved here. When I was a small child, I read books and saw stories on TV saying about people exploring the world. And then one day, I saw this country so far away and decided, 'Yeah, I wanna know and see, explore it.' And then I came here as a student and ended up staying here for a long time. I was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan. My mother and her mother, they lived on the outskirts of the city. They had to graze lamb, beef and just live a simple life; beautiful life. And they lived in houses called yurts. A yurt is a round, circular-shaped building with a dome on the top. It's mainly made out of camel skin` wood and camel skin to keep it warm in the winter and cool in the summertime. The design of the cafe was originally created to resemble a yurt. I travelled around Auckland in search of the premises that would look something similar, and then I came to Glendene and, basically, straight away, I fell in love with this place. My goal is to make sure that New Zealanders understand our food and understand the region that it is coming from and make sure that people really enjoy it and understand the taste and the philosophy behind every dish that we make. We're making a dish called manti. It's a traditional central Asian dish that our people used to eat for centuries, and what I used to see, as a youngster, my grandmother and my mother make. When we would visit grandmother, we would always eat traditional food, as in manti, chak-chak or any broths ` traditional, and mainly lamb, and, of course, we would also eat horse. Today, we are making beef and onion and dill dumplings, which are really flavoursome ` they have a lot of juice inside ` and the dill gives it nice aroma and freshness. Manti is a type of dumpling that our people eat on an everyday basis. They are bigger than usual dumplings, and we use mostly diced meat. Originally, they come from middle Asian and Mongol and those areas, but our people took it in as well, and our traditional one is lamb and pumpkin. The dough that we use is very simple dough. It's basically water and flour. I had a look at my grandmother, how she used to make` and my mother used to make them, and I would say, 'Hey, I can do this,' and I just tried and made mistakes and threw away` I threw a lot of manti away, but eventually, I came to learn how to make them really good. And there's` It sound simple ` as in the filling and some really simple dough ` but the actual process of making the dough and making the filling come together in the dish is not that simple. You have to really know what thickness the dough has to be; what consistency, and what kind of ingredients would actually be in the filling. Both my mother and grandmother are gone now, but I reckon they would be really happy that I have achieved something that is similar to what they have done. And I'm personally quite happy with the result that I have achieved by working and testing out different formula. Now I'm taking the dish home to my kids, and they love it, and they will really enjoy it. At the moment, I have two kids ` two boys. One is 2 and 4 months and the other one is 4 months. My wife's name is Yulia, and we met when I was working in tourism. I knew that she was one of those people that I would see my children with. I feel great that I can share the food with my children, especially. It gives them experience that, um... what kind of food we have and where we come from and we explain to them. When they grow up older, they might want to know more and experience more different types of food from our country. For me, New Zealand is my second home. Of course, I will always have my country of Kazakhstan in my heart, but New Zealand, I consider it my second home, and I love it dearly, and I'm really thankful that it has accepted me and gives me all these opportunities to show what we can do. What's on the interweb? Oh, it's Pot Luck. (INHALES SHARPLY) One of my latest on-screen roles has been in Pot Luck, New Zealand's first lesbian web series. I love it because it gives a voice to a community that hardly gets to see itself on screen. Personally, I've never felt the need to define myself as anything besides an energy in a hot, brown... Zumba body. (EXHALES) I wrote a short film called Aroha, and it's a love story about two souls. I wanted to show that regardless of appearance or colour or religion that aroha has no boundaries. And it can happen to anyone; you just have to let go and allow aroha to come in. My name's Louise Purvis. I was born in Pahiatua, which is down in the northern Wairarapa. I didn't particularly fit in for a long time. I was always a real tomboy and stuff. I moved up to Auckland, partly for the art scene, but a lot of it was to be around other gay people, to, you know` to find a community. I would say that sculpture in this country is pretty` a male dominated field, definitely, if you look at the amount of public works that go in, and, you know, it should be half-half, right? But it's not half-half. I'm inspired, yeah, to push back, to push against, definitely. And, you know, I would try and encourage other women to have a go, get in there and just do it. I grew up on a farm. I got to roam around on my horse having cowboy fantasies. It was just` It was a great way to grow up. We were encouraged to make stuff. I used to make a lot of huts, at one point. Mum told me a few years ago I had, I think, six different huts on the go. I was kinda building a little suburb on the farm. (CHUCKLES) I really wanted to be a farmer. Mum, she really wanted her girls to go out into the world and do other things, so she strongly encouraged me to go to polytechnic, and I started doing an art course, and, yeah, I just loved it. My work was actually very small. I did a lot of, yeah, really small, intricate work. And, yeah, I don't really know what happened. It just kinda... grew. It just grew and grew and grew. (CHUCKLES) And a lot of them are` yeah, they are really big. Being an artist does give me that same feeling that I had as a kid ` that same freedom. Just, yeah... Just doing things, making things up as you go along. Sort of, you know, forging your own way, really. This is Seismic, down in Wellington. It's these great big discs, and each disc represents a different aspect of an earthquake. I was working a lot of stone, and it was, um` I got tired of it, cos a piece of stone can be quite small but extremely heavy. I've always had an interest in steel, so I went back to steel. That's how the cage series began. This is one of the earlier gabion works. It was at headland Sculpture on the Gulf in 2009. It was called 'Dispensary', and the funny thing was at night, all the birds came and took the pine seeds, so I hope that they didn't dispense them all over the island. (CHUCKLES) There's probably a lot of wild pine trees growing because of me. (GENTLE MUSIC) This is one of the cages that I've done, and I wanted to translate this over to a casting. So I got an inner tube, and I had to put this on and weld the inner tube in situ, so obviously I didn't pop it. And I worked out that if I pumped it up, I get more of an organic thing happening. And then I cast them in wax. And then the wax gets... lost-wax casting. And here's one I prepared earlier. So I intend to do a few of these and then fit them together. Just a progression of the cage works. It's kind of where they're going next. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) So, we're at Hobsonville Point, Launch Rd. This is my latest public sculpture. It's called 'Estuarine'. And, as you can see, it's a configuration of the cage works. They're all locked up together. And this work's describing this area. If you were flying over it in an aeroplane, looking down, this depicts all the rivers and streams coming in and running out here. It was only supposed to go, I think, to here, and I had a lot more, so I just kept going. And then I actually went around the corner as well, just a little sneaky bit to` so as you come down it, you can see the work from up there, and it kind of introduces you to the work, and then you come down and get the full-blown view of it. I haven't been back since I put it in. Whenever I put my works in, I don't generally go back and look at them. I kind of let them be in the world. But I do like seeing this work. It's a really successful work. I'm proud of it. Yeah. (CHUCKLES) (GENTLE MUSIC) So, my grandma's (WHISPERS) a bit of a hoarder, or a collector, as she likes to put it. Back in the old days, when the Samoan chiefs of the family would come around, they would sit cross-legged on the floor, and the toys would occupy the couches. Better sitting, everyone. Ma, there's more stuff in here than last time. My grandma has so many stories, which is probably where we get the gift of storytelling from. Some of her stories are quite unbelievable, which is why I decided to make a film about her called 'Ma'. A Pasifika matriarch really is a force to be reckoned with. I born in Mutalau, Niue island, and I came here in 1964. We didn't have an aeroplane. We came in the Tofua, the trade ship for the islands. I came here with my mum and my niece, because my big sister was already here, waiting for us, and my brother. I had no thinking of back home ` all I wanted to see is Auckland. Until I get here, and I thought, 'Oh, what we have done now?' (CHUCKLES) It's far away to go back home. Back home, there's a missionary came and start us how to do the knitting, but she just show it to us. But when I came here, I taught myself how from pattern, cos I like doing things like that. Back home is a flower like this, and it's my name ` a foufou. There's the thing ` a yellow one. But this one here is rosita, my daughter, you know, that's her name. So I thought it had been colour rose. This one here is like bond together. You know, like a chain, you have to stick together. I have four adult children and 14 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. So, I want my children, my grandchildren to be` always be together, you know? I love the bright colours. Even my house is bright orange. We live in Glendene for 46 years in the same place, in the same house, the same street. When I married, I never ever go to any of the island people's, you know, church or anything. I go to the mixed one. I can't talk Niuean there. There was a meeting of the Niuean community up in the school. I went and joined them, and I said, 'I want to start a knitting and crochet group,' so I start the Mata Fiafia in 2012. 'Mata fiafia' ` it means 'happy face'. Everybody has a happy face. (INDISTINCT CHATTER) So many people want to join us, but we didn't advertise it. All we want is, you know, only the island people ` the Niuean people ` so we can use our language. (WOMAN SING IN NIUEAN) We're all Niueans, and we all love each other, and we all chat each other. (CHUCKLES) And we all laugh each other. (SPEAKS NIUEAN) I was inspired by my friend. She gave me a scarf, and I just wanted to learn how` how she made it, so that's why I had to come along and join the group. We always give away our` for the family, like slippers, they give away and scarves, they give away. And we've got three different church people in our group, and that's where they give it to older people. But I gave mine to those older people, like beanies and hot water bottles cover. That's` Yeah, that's what we do. (SPEAKS NIUEAN) What I like, you know, mostly with us is the friendship, and sometimes we help each other. Like, for instance, if somebody's sick or some family's sick or if there's a funeral, we gather together and give money, you know, collection, and give it to the person. At the moment, we still enjoy getting together. I don't think I would stop the group for anything else. (SLOW POP MUSIC) My uncle Wera passed away when I was at intermediate, and he was the youngest of my uncles and aunties, and the real rebel of the family. He used to do some crazy things, man. Like, he'd come over, and we'd play cricket, and the ball would go into the back of the house. My grandma would be shouting out the window. At Guy Fawkes, he'd put double happys into all the fruit trees. He'd park his ARA bus out the front ` wasn't very amusing for the people who were on the Grey Lynn route. And these are just the kind of memories that really made life special, at that time. When you're a kid growing up in the '80s and you've got a big backyard, a bike and a big imagination, that's all you need, really. And that's something that I try and pass on to the kids in my family. I'm a really big advocate for putting away the technology and getting outside and mucking in. In my expert opinion, family rules. They really shape the person you become. My name is Minette Tan, and I born in Shanghai, China. My father is a music fan, so in my family, we always have music at home. Just listen to different music. That's made me like music from early childhood. Hulusi is traditional instrument of Yunnan province in China. The sound is like a pipe, I think, and also very soft feeling music, which I really like. (PLAYS GENTLE TUNE) My father got a very simple flute. He can play a little bit, and I found that instrument and just tried to play along, and I can simply play a very short music, so make me very happy. When I was a primary school student, about the first year or second year, because I liked music a lot, the music teacher thought I was very good and invited me to be a member of the performance group. And my mother refused to let me to do this because she thought that a good girl should not be on the stage. So, then I just give up. And then I feel afraid of going on to stage. One day, I passed a kiosk and found a book. At the end of the book, it has how to play mouth organ. I saved every cents ` every cent. Like, if I buy a biscuit for 5c, I bought a smaller one for 3c ` like that, and save all the money for a long time. This is the mouth organ I saved up my pocket money to buy it when I was a child. (PLAYS 'TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STAR') I came to New Zealand in 1997. I joined a lot of music or art groups. I joined one dance group, and then I joined a band group. Yeah, I, um` In New Zealand, actually, I have more chance to have music things because there are a lot of associations, groups, here. Now I participate two choir groups. One is Music of Auckland Association. We're mainly Chinese people here and also welcome Western people. (WOMAN PLAYS UPBEAT PIANO TUNE) (CHOIR SINGS IN CHINESE) (INSPIRING MUSIC) A lot of good things can come out of music if you really love it. It's a good thing to make my life happy and feel vivid, and can never be` feel lonely. My father feel very proud of me, and he is very happy that I carried on his music interest. And my mother, she changed her mind, and she is quite proud of me now. That is a good thing. (SLOW HIP-HOP MUSIC) When you drive back into your old hood, you see things that you don't see anywhere else. In Glendene in West Auckland, all of a sudden, you're sitting at the lights next to a Holden, there's guys with Jim Beam T-shirts walking around, and there's such a mix of ethnicities. I was away from home for about 20 years. I couldn't wait to get out of Glendene as soon as I could. I've lived all over Auckland. I did an OE in London, and I've travelled the world. But I realised when I moved back to Glendene a few years ago that this spot right here is one of the sweetest in the world, and that there are so many people who would give their right arm to live here, and that there really is no place like home. Captions by Julie Taylor. Edited by Desney Shaw. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017