Moving to Queensland?

What are the downsides? 
Ken: Well, bushfires for starters. Climate change is making them nastier. And then there’s the sudden flooding. One minute dry, next minute your backyard’s a lake.
Paul: See, that’s exactly what worries me. NZ feels… calmer. Not used to spiders and poisonous animals. 
Ken: I always thought NZers were mostly terrified of snakes.
Paul: Well, yes, snakes too. How often do you actually see one?
Ken: Yesterday. I was on the ride‑on mower, and a red-belly was sliding through the grass right beside me.
Paul: That’s… very close. 
Ken: Oh, that’s nothing. Last week one got inside the house.
Paul: Inside?
Ken: Under the couch. The one you’re sitting on, actually.
Paul: Right. Well. I imagine you have anti‑venom in the house? 
Ken: Oh yes. (picks up an axe lying on the hearth) This quite often stops the venom spreading. 
Paul: …I see.

___________
Voice-over
Ken is brisk, wry and laconic. Very Aussie. Brings on a writhing smile.

Multicultural Aussie Neighborhood

Chance meeting on the street…

Ray: Morning. You’re our neighbor in number 30, right?
Isamu: Yes. Nice to meet you. At last.  We travel a lot. Sorry.
Ray: So do I. Ships that pass. 
Isamu: What’s that antenna on your roof?
Ray: Ham radio. I was. Bit out of fashion now though. I was an aircraft mechanic before retirement. Like to tinker with electric gadgets. Someone in the neighborhood told me you sail.

Isamu: Yes. A yacht. I was sailing round the world in the 1970s. Got a job teaching art at the uni so made my base here in Adelaide.
Ray: We’re both migrants, then. My lot came in 1850. From Germany. Not convicts.You like Aussie, then?

Isamu: Multicultural, sometimes messy, surprising.
Ray: You should come over for tea. I make terrible tea but excellent conversation. 
____________
Voice-over
A technical tinkerer and an artist. No barriers there. In true Aussie style, Ray ups the ante to invite Isamu to a barbecue.

Offer of designing a hotel

1885 Job interview…
Lady Burdett-Coutts: I heard you picked up a building and moved it.
CT: Ah, yes. Chicago. It had its difficulties, being brick. Some fell off. But we did it. Big crane. Leverage. Steam. Lifted it up, turned it around and plonked it down on the piles prepared on the other side of the street.
LBC: My advisors were impressed. So they suggested you design a hotel for Southend on Sea. In brick. It would not need lifting.
CT: I have a year ahead of me.
LBC: You are not staying in England?
CT. It remains to be seen. There are opportunities in the Antipodes I hear.
LBC: Ah, you’ve been reading Samuel Butler?
CT: Actually the New Zealand Company prospectuses.
LBC: Well, we’d better press you into service before you leave us again.
___________
Voice-over
Who knows what other buildings CT would have designed in England? But he migrated to other shores, other stories. But before setting sail, he left this one which stood for eighty years.

Westward Ho

1847: Francis Rejoins the Family Firm

Bernard urges a thoughtful Francis…
Francis: Feels oddly familiar yet foreign. London’s hustle has its own rhythm.
Bernard: It’s in your blood. Insurance, tallying—that kind of hands-on experience is valued. Though I have to ask—what’s this tale about advising Turkish Navy captains? it sounds more like an exotic adventure than my day-to-day work.
Francis: Ah, yes. Well, there was a lot of intrigue around Trieste. But the real story is less glamorous. Mostly figuring out their cargo losses and insurance claims while learning  local languages.
Bernard: Well, even so, you’ve got the experience. The business could benefit immensely. And we’ve got our father’s legacy to consider.
Francis: Speaking of father… his passing was such a blow. Tragic circumstances. Sorry I was so far away, India… Are you sure about this? Do you really think I should join you? After all, you’ve been running it here all along.
_________
Voice-over
Bernard persuades Francis to join the family firm, to complement Bernard’s London presence with the international experience of Francis. And who would have thought that their firm would still have brothers working in shipping insurance more than a hundred years later.

Setting out from Berlin 1796

Family meeting…

Rene: Berlin has limits, but London… it’s buzzing with ships, trade, and opportunity for an underwriter.
Father: Clearly, nothing we can say will dissuade you. And this… Lloyds, you say, will be your base?
Rene: A coffee shop. It’s where all the shipping news is daily shared. 
Mother: I still worry about highwaymen.
Rene: Berlin to Hamburg by carriage, then sail across the North Sea to London. The sea journey is long but safer.
Sarah: And what if soldiers stop you, getting suspicious of travelers amid all the unrest?
Rene: I have proper papers, explaining my journey as a merchant.
Father: And lodging? London isn’t kind to newcomers without a roof over their heads.
Rene: I’ve heard of cheap rooms near the docks where many sailors and traders stay. It’s humble but close to the action.
Genevieve: It’s brave of you to try. Better a life of risks and chances than one of waiting. I wish I were a man.
Father: Just mind your pockets on the road and your wits in the city.
Rene: I’ll keep my pockets tight and my wits sharper.
__________
Voice-over
The family wishes Rene well and sister Genevieve hopes that London can change his destiny and perhaps hedge the family fortune in these troubled Napoleonic times.

Migration and alternative identity

The stories of two non-traditional Norwegians:

...

My name is Rachel. I’m 30. My father was from Morocco and my mother was Norwegian. I was born in Norway but when I was two, my parents split up, and my father took me back to Morocco. He kidnapped me actually, because my mother chased after him and tried to get me back. She had two attempts, the second time with help from the Norwegian embassy and her brother, and finally she managed to grab me while everyone was napping and escaped back to Norway. She had to change her name and her address and I grew up with her. But recently I found my family in Morocco. They are Muslim. They treated me very kindly, especially my foster mother. I stayed for three months and although it would be difficult for me to be a Muslim, I wonder now what my life would have been like growing up in that big extended Moroccan family.

My name is Nguyen. I’m 52 now. I was born in South Vietnam but my parents were killed when the North Vietnamese took over Saigon. My brother and I wanted to escape but it cost more money than we had to become boat people. Anyway, we heard there was a good chance we would drown because the boats often sank. So we learned how to build our own boat. We learned about sea-worthy design and engine repair. Finally we could escape to Hong Kong and a refugee camp and enter Norway. I work here as boat builder now, it’s good, but I sometimes like to go back to Vietnam.

__________
Voice-over

You might think that Norway is populated exclusively by Thor Heyerdahl type men and Liv Ullman type women. But Norway seems receptive to migrants. There is an intercultural museum including artifacts from immigrant groups, in fact at present, there is an exhibition of six world religions: Sikhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism, brought to Norway by migrants. Rachel feels lucky she did not grow up in Morocco but is learning Arabic and dreams of having another life. Nguyen created for himself another life and speaks Norwegian but sometimes thinks of where he came from.

...