An immigrant finds a blessedlife in Godzone (New Zealand), & wants it for others

Erin writes:

I would like to describe the beautiful, ugly and the sublime of my experience in New Zealand.

The beautiful one first:
I have come to see my identity as blessedlife –because I have finally realized that I do have a blessed life. Blessed because ever since arriving in New Zealand (albeit a little hiccup in the early days), I have learnt to “smell the flowers, feel the wind on my face, taste the rain, eat tomatoes fresh from the garden, watch re-runs of Friends and Grey’s Anatomy, bake for my daughter, watch her run on Sports Day” – things I took for granted back home in comfy Malaysia.

The ugly?
Why do some people take on Justice of the Peace (JP) duties when they are obviously never free or not too happy doing them? Maybe they enjoy making people feel like a burden. I experienced that last year when i had to get some documents certified for Immigration purposes and today again when I accompanied a Korean course-mate to see a JP. He is sponsoring his wife and child’s stay in New Zealand and was required to sign off in front of a JP that everything he had declared in the forms are true to his best knowledge. Having trained for Korean military service and being also a government scholar, he felt so humiliated by the way he was made to feel just to get a signature he almost wanted to cancel everything.

The sublime?
Thank God we finally met a most courteous and kind JP after going from one place to another. My experiences make me want to call up the local MP and volunteer myself for nomination for JP duties. Having only willing, accessible and helpful JPs really would save lots of people feeling hurt and humiliated.

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