The Long March:  A dream comes true

With Rangitoto as a background rather than the polluted cityscape of their former home, Sean Wang and Susan Ma take a very positive approach to their new life. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

After a year of waiting, Sean Wang and Susan Ma, both 33, are getting worried about the long silence that has followed their application for New Zealand residency.

The paperwork has been relatively painless. They have been helped by a friend who works for an immigration agency, but even though he reckons they will be shoo-ins they are very anxious.

The waiting is hard, Sean says, and they can't plan anything - and the time when they must make some decisions is fast approaching.

Finally, one October morning, Sean is unable to contain his curiosity and rings the New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) case manager in Beijing, who has always been encouraging. "Congratulations," says the manager, a New Zealand-born Chinese, "you're in." His office just hasn't yet sent the letter.

Sean, who has a bouncy, outgoing personality, doesn't wait for the mail. Hardly able to believe the good news, he catches the first train to the Chinese capital to read the letter, still a little disbelieving.

He watches with excitement as visa stickers are put in their passports. "I can't describe the feeling," he says. "Finally the dream comes true."

As soon as he gets home, he brandishes the passports at Susan.

Any special celebrations? "No, too much to prepare," Susan says.

Sean's parents are encouraging, "although traditionally Chinese parents do not want their children to migrate".

But Susan's parents are appalled and say the pair are crazy to abandon lifetime jobs for the unknown.

Sean goes back to his 55-hour-a-week grind at China Telecom, where he and Susan both work in accounts. But he feels more relaxed than he has for years - the escape hatch is open.

Sean and Susan have six months to get to New Zealand or the visas will lapse. As they pack, their research continues. They watch NZ films such as Jane Campion's bleak tale The Piano and read Maori legends.

Sean, a soccer player, researches rugby ("love it", he says) and cricket ("very complicated").

To ensure they keep looking forward rather than backwards, they cut all their financial ties with China, selling their apartment and closing their bank accounts. They don't even pack photos.

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, Emilly Ji is feeling impatient. She has been going through the immigration process for 16 months when she gets an answer.

From the bottom of a letter, the word is a capital-letter shout: DECLINE.

She is, it explains, 10 points short of the 100 she needs as principal applicant to get her and husband, Guang Min Liu, to New Zealand.

"I feel so bad," she sighs, "and Guang Min feels angry."

The letter gives reasons. Emilly has not been allowed to claim points for her work experience in China as the NZIS does not consider the country to have a comparable labour market - despite the fact she went straight into high-level IT there after doing a programming masters degree in Britain.

In her application, Emilly had been forced to rely on part-time IT work in Britain to cobble together 10 more points, but the letter explains that it doesn't add up to the two years' full-time equivalent needed. And, it adds, while on a student visa Emilly didn't have the right to work that many hours.

One encouraging line at the bottom of the letter offers a little cheer.

"Like you," it says, "we believe that you and your husband would make excellent potential migrants."

Emilly considers appealing. But the advice comes back that appeals only check whether policy has been followed - and it has, to the letter.

There is only one thing for it. Guang Ming has had his degree in chemistry turned down for points because he hasn't passed the English exam which NZIS says is necessary to claim those credits. His English is basic and hesitant.

The couple decide that Guang Ming will have to earn the extra points by cramming to pass it - and they will then have to reapply. Guang Min gets to work.

Then two things happen, one good, one terrible. In September, NZIS announces that points will now be granted for those working for a commercial multinational based in a comparable labour market - two years earns 10 points, and 12 years a valuable 30. Guang Min can finally contribute to his wife's application.

But at Christmas - before Guang Min has sat the English test, enabling the pair to resubmit their paperwork - NZIS announces the points threshold for skilled migrants has moved up to 140 after sitting at 100 for 15 months.

Emilly feels a crushing sense of defeat.

"That level is impossible for me to meet," she says, adding that the policies seem to conspire against Chinese who want to better themselves. Guang Min snorts that New Zealand's immigration policy is unstable and contradictory. Indeed it does sound baffling. Emilly's top-end skills are on the shortage list in New Zealand - she got points for that.

But using those same skills in China doesn't count in the eyes of NZIS because China, and India too, are not considered to be "comparable labour markets" even though common sense suggests that parts of those countries would be comparable.

Why is discretion not invoked when people are so close to the bar and their skills so needed?

And why, if the NZIS can work out labour market equivalence in other countries, can it not do the same for China, or individuals from China?

In Wellington, Mary Anne Thompson, the Department of Labour's deputy secretary for the workforce, says that between 90 and 100 points "there isn't a lot in it, but essentially you do have a bottom line and it is really important to keep that".

"It is regrettable that they didn't come through. I've asked our managers to get in touch to ask, "What more can we do for you?"

Thompson says that Emilly does have skills that New Zealand clearly could do with but "it's just the job experience component of it that is an issue. The question is: How can we have a win-win?"

Thompson concedes that the top ends of China's labour market must be comparable to those of New Zealand as the growing middle class improves its education and performance.

"As a totality China might not be a comparable labour market but in certain areas, like IT, you might find there is comparability, and those are the things I've got my people looking at all the time."

It's debatable whether Sean Wang and Susan Ma would have got through under the present system. But they had their residence approved under the former skilled-migrant policy which gave them points for Chinese work experience.

Sean and Susan arrive in New Zealand on March 15, 2003. "My whole life I will remember this day," says Susan, smiling broadly. They are collected at Auckland Airport by friends and as they are driven around the city they feel a sort of on-holiday lightness.

First impressions are that Auckland is smaller than expected, says Sean, with a village feel. "Beautiful scenery," remarks Susan.

Sean asks if he can walk into a park and is surprised to hear it will cost him nothing. Their friends, who live on the North Shore, suggest the pair settle nearby. The shock of the new is initially intense, and at times disorienting and frustrating. And very tiring. The "theoretical English" they have learned in China isn't always enough to enable them to cope with Kiwi accents and idioms.

They know from their research that without local experience and qualifications they will not reclaim their careers immediately. So they go straight into an English course, where they learn that the phrase "culture shock" encapsulates the strange dislocation they feel doing the most ordinary tasks.

Sean and Susan then do a one-year graduate accountancy diploma at Massey University's Albany campus which teaches them local accounting standards. They both find part-time work in an Albany plant tissue culture lab, which, they say, suits their precise accountants' natures.

Three years later, home for Sean and Susan is a new but sparsely decorated townhouse perched on an Albany hillside, with sweeping views to the faux-Spanish buildings of the Massey campus.

Sean now works as a part-time accountant for a North Shore training company. He has another part-time job maintaining databases at Migrant Services North Shore.

To polish his already good English, he is doing a 16-week advanced course in English at Auckland University of Technology.

Both are doing a Massey paper this year and Susan is doing a job-search course while working 20 hours a week as a Postie Plus sales assistant. But she doesn't resent the drop in status. "A career," she says, "is not as important as we thought it was."

Susan loves the contact with people that she gets in the shop, where her colleagues are friendly and have taught her about customer service. And her culture has been a conversation starter, not the barrier she first feared.

Susan has taught some Mandarin to one colleague, and a Chinese breathing exercise called qi gong ('chee gong") to another. She quotes a phrase from Confucius which has developed new meaning: "When you find a job you love, you never work a day in your life."

One of the biggest surprises for both has been realising that in New Zealand trying out different jobs, changing direction or having time out for travel or study aren't necessarily penalised. "Here we have many choices, not just one like in China," Sean says. "In China you work for one company - it's like a big family and you have to show loyalty. In New Zealand it's very different."

Lifestyle has greater importance. "Relaxation and freedom have been the best things for me," Sean says. "Now I can do the things I choose to do, instead of what other people say."

They are still learning about life in New Zealand. For example, says Sean, they realised that New Zealanders think Chinese people talk too loudly. Back home, to speak loudly and clearly to someone denotes respect - and in crammed and noisy places a raised voice is a necessity. Still, he's turned the volume down.

He has also found that "please" and "thank you" are essential. They are, he says, infrequently heard in China.

So what has lived up to expectations?

"Nice people. When I ask stupid questions they answer very kindly without laughing at me," Sean says.

"Beautiful views, clean environment, barbecues, rugby and cricket, and do-it-yourself culture."

The pleasures to come include a bichon frise dog, children and voting. "I know nothing about political systems but I'd like to take part," says Susan.

Both are amused by the astonishment of friends and family at home that they own a late-model car - each. When you're living in a country of 1.3 billion where only 3 per cent own a vehicle, that is unimaginable.

Was there anything that did not live up to expectations? Nothing, says Sean. "No regrets, no worries. We have a new life - and it's so exciting."

Pressed, he classes as "annoying" things many Aucklanders might agree with: "The cold wet winter, terrible traffic and increasing house prices for the first-time buyer."

But, says Susan, "No pain, no gain. If you want to grow you have to experience things. We should have come earlier." Sean adds, with a beaming smile, "I think we are Kiwis now."

Back in Shanghai, Emilly and Guang Min go to see King Kong, Emilly concentrating on the special effects and wondering what might have been. And what might still be. She hasn't yet heard from immigration officials.

But Emilly hopes the dream she once had will one day take form - the dream in which she is standing on a sunny beach in New Zealand.

She dreams she has lost Guang Min - but no, there he is, smiling and bringing her an icecream.

* Julie Middleton and Kenny Rodger travelled to China with the support of the Asia-New Zealand Foundation.