Hi everyone, and welcome back to Global Village, 欢迎回来《小酒馆·大世界》. We have in our studio, our old friend Simon from New Zealand again, hi, Simon.

Hey Kia Ora. 你好。

Kia Ora. So previous time we were talking about disaster relief, obviously you guys just been through a cyclone. Then you mentioned how the community came together and then to help out people who were running out of supply in a disaster that just sounds super nice. I just thought that we can explore the topic of community a little bit more. What do you think？

Sure, sounds great.

So like I said, if you didn't listen to the previous episode, Simon is a pillar in the community, as they say in English.

Simon应该属于这个community的领袖人物, 因为既是business owner, 也是相当于等一下让Simon自己说他有各种各样的role.

First of all, before we go into the topic itself, Simon, could you give us a general background of your roles right now, like your identity, I know you own your business or businesses, you have multiple business there. But what else, what other roles do you have in the community？

Sure. So I'm a bit hyperactive when it comes to businesses.

So my main business is a consulting company. I work with New Zealand local councils, local governments. I manage their international partnerships. For example, in China like a foreign affairs office in a local government, 外办, New Zealand, local governments usually do not have 外办. So my company provides that service.

We also own a small trading company, so we export various products mostly to China, but also the wider East Asia. And we have a small school teaching migrants that live in New Zealand. And hopefully from next month onwards we will also be attracting international students.

Aside from this, wow, I don't sleep much.

Just let me quickly cut in. And 酒馆, we are hoping to build some collaborations or cooperation with Simon's business as well. So in the future, we might also connect with Simon in our live stream so that we can see more of New Zealand.

But do continue you just finished about your business roles. What are the roles you have?

So aside from the business, I am the executive director for the Korea, New Zealand business council, which is a partially government funded organization and we assist New Zealand businesses that are wanting to export, to trade with South Korea.

If I remember correctly, Simon, you speak Korean right, fluently or adequately?

Yeah, conversational Korean. It's okay, it's enough to get myself in trouble.

(Simon showing off his Korean-kidding)

Okay, all right, that's it. I don't speak any Korean. So that's impressive to me. For those of you who speak Korean, you can leave us a comment and tell us what do you think of Simon's Korean. But continue, please, sorry for interrupting you.

And then I'm also the Honorary consul for the Korean government here in Hawke’s Bay region. So the Korean government decided to set up a consular office in Hawke’s Bay because we have quite a large Korean community.

And so I am the head of that, the consular office.

Despite the fact that you are not Korean, Simon居然是韩国当地领事馆的荣誉领事, 叫做Honorary consul, right?

I mean it's an interesting role like an official ID card from the ministry of foreign affairs which possibly get me off parking fines and allows me to walk through some secure places and airports.

But apart from that, I don't know what the card does. It's an interesting role.

Very interesting sort of identities.

Obviously, you play different roles in the community. Can I ask you first and foremost when you hear the word community, what do you think it means? What does it mean to you?

It's a very difficult question to be honest. I look at it more as sort of like a network of people who actually enjoy doing things together.

We saw it recently with the disaster in my region where people who would otherwise probably not hang out. They came together, they helped each other. Some people had some supplies, some people didn't.

So those that had supplies helped the ones that didn't. And we really saw that and we saw that a lot over the last few weeks.

Sort of human connection.

Yes, people basically putting their own interests. Maybe second, after other people that need help more than them.

Actually, that's very nice that I would think that's the best of humanity.

Yeah, but that's more about an extreme situation like disaster relief. But what about on a regular basis, on a daily basis? What have you done as a pillar in a community? What have you done, for example, like outreach programs and stuff.

Yeah, my school, we try to build a community around our students. So every day we have lunches, students will cook lunches together. We do regular events which are open to our students but also any other people that want to join.

So we, for example, we will go to the beach and have a barbecue or we'll go for a hike, go bowling, lots of different things and it's just around trying to get people to come together to do things together, to socialize, so they don't feel isolated and lost.

It can be quite difficult if you don't speak the local language, if your language ability is low, can be really difficult to engage with the wider community, with local people.

So we're trying to create our own little community within the wider community.

It's like a sense of belonging as well.

I lived in China for 7 years, 8 years and there's not very many New Zealanders. In general there's not many New Zealanders, but living in China, is very few New Zealanders. So it was poor Kiwis, New Zealand is living in China. We had this instant sense of community as soon as we would find another Kiwi we would grab them, and hold on to them, not let them go.

To be honest that's...Chinese do the same. Some countries don’t, I don't think British people do that very often, but some countries do, but more on your China experience later and I am going to ask you about that.

But based on what I know about your life trajectory, you have lived in different parts of New Zealand, for example, you've lived and worked in Auckland, your biggest metropolis, and you lived in real countryside like 5,000 people a town that sort of thing, you also lived in obviously small medium towns or cities.

So comparing all of these experiences, how is the sense of community different in countryside in small medium town and also in major city?

Yeah, so during a disaster, I think be at Auckland, medium sized cities or countryside, you tend to see the best of humanity, the community does sort of stand together. When we're not talking about a disaster to sort of normal daily life, the countryside, rural areas, they seem to have a much greater sense of community, people coming together every week, cooking together, hanging out.

Also, bartering is another one that I noticed.

So bartering just means you exchange things rather than purchasing things, right?

就是”以物易物”这个意思就是I have something, you have something, if you want my food, I want your...let's say petrol, and we sort of trade off, that's bartering.

Exactly. So in the countryside when I was living there, that was quite common, I was personally quite a keen hunter, I like to go hunting as we talked about my last episode; and so it would be quite common where I would perhaps have some venison, deer meat. I would know someone else that lives by the coast and they would have crayfish or lobster.

We would swap, I don't have to eat venison every night and I can sometimes have lobster.

所以你是用鹿肉换了小龙虾. Interesting. All right. But in big city I'm assuming it's like living in any major cities in the world. People are perhaps they will have more boundaries. They probably keep to themselves a bit more.

So certainly that's the case in Auckland. When I lived in Auckland, I felt quite miserable. I didn't feel like Auckland was my New Zealand. It didn't feel like the country that I knew, because it was quite cold. It was quite... felt quite unfriendly to me compared to regional New Zealand, small towns, countryside.

I think for every country people say that, for example, when I was living in London and people just say that's London, that's not all British people, just go up North, you will feel very different. Obviously and people say that's just Paris, it’s not French people in general.

Every country they say that, it's not... the big cities in the world they tend to be quite similar I think in that, people are more guarded.

Yeah, and I saw that in China I lived in Beijing obviously for a number of years, I went to university there I worked there. I love Beijing, it's a fantastic place. But I then spent time I went to Nanchang in Jiangxi province and travelling around Jiangxi. I found the people there were just so incredibly hospitable engaging, wanting me to be involved in their communities.

Once again, it's the big urban metropolis versus a second, third tier city and as well as smaller towns. Much greater sense of community.

Yes, but probably there's also the thing that if you don't mind me saying, is it because that you are, for lack a better word foreign; so that in Beijing perhaps it's because they see foreigners on regular basis, but in smaller second third tier cities, it's... do you feel like that sort of community that hospitality is in general or is it more towards you?

I don't know to be honest, so because usually when I’m with my Chinese friends, we speak Chinese, I certainly when I first moved to China around 2000, I had a number of Chinese people that would gravitate me, to me because I was a foreigner. They wanted to practice their English or they just wanted to know a foreigner.

But in more recent years, particularly as my Chinese became more fluent, usually when I would hang out with people, we would speak only Chinese. They, most of my Chinese friends, don't speak much English. We would do your normal sort of Chinese activities. We would complain about the normal Chinese things.

I'm not entirely sure because I think a lot of my friends genuinely don't see me as a foreigner, might sound a bit strange.

No, it doesn't at all, because I think for a lot of more homogeneous cultures like in China in other Northeast Asian countries, it's more like we probably will warm up to you a bit more if you truly make the effort to learn the language, to understand the culture instead of just be a foreigner, or like being that role. I think that is a reciprocal thing.