Staying to live after study

My name is Aiko, I'm from Japan. I've been in New Zealand for six years. I was studying at Victoria University, in Wellington.

I liked studying at Victoria because I could meet people from different countries studying really different subjects. My first degree was Bachelor of Arts in Development Studies. So I chose that subject because that was very flexible subject, I got to go to archaeological sites and I met people who I usually don't have in my classroom - lots of Maori speakers, and that was very good experience for me. 

I decided to stay in New Zealand, when I, maybe second year of my study and over time while studying I changed a lot. What I see and what I value, what I'm interest in changed a lot and I realized that I'll be happier here. So I decided to stay here and get residency. My biggest change that happened to me in life here is when I graduated and then started working here. 

When I was still studying, my friends were almost all international students and they're all gone now and I've stayed here. Now I work with Kiwi people and outside the work, I started doing a lot of activities. I do dance, I do music, and these things, mostly with local people so I think over time that what changed the most is the community that I belong to, so I'm still adjusting to that but I am enjoying that. So it's great. 

When I first came to New Zealand, I had a lot of cultural shock. It's not something written on the book, you have to come here and experience this difference, and that even having been here for six years now I still feel a lot of cultural difference. It started from what Kiwi people eat and what we eat back home is very different and also some cultural shock between even between friends, sometimes I can't understand why this person behaved like this and that's very stressful for me.

To overcome this misunderstanding with people, you need to be patient and also you have to try to talk to people. You have to be very, very patient to deal with this person. Kiwi people have very different value from Japanese people and that's good for me now, because I quite adjusted to here but I had a long process to adjust to this culture here. The most positive experience I have in New Zealand as the people I met here since I've been here and when I was back home I didn't have any single friend from overseas and now here I've a lot of friends from very different country and I really like learning about their cultures and that brought me my map in my head. My world is now constructed by these people stories, so now my most fun thing to do is visiting these places.