Ser Chung | Birkdale
“My name’s Ser Chung and I live in Birkdale. There’s not really many things that keep me up at night. I’m pretty easy-going, but I think for a lot of Aucklanders, mainly their future savings, in terms of the way that they’re going to retire.
Everyone worries a lot about housing and the price of housing, and all that sort of stuff. So I feel like Auckland houses are pretty over-priced, compared to a lot of places around the world, and you know, just trying to service that debt, because that’s basically like a life-long servitude. You’re indebted to the bank. So I think that’s probably one thing that does keep people up at night.
I grew up in Auckland. So I’m Kiwi-as. I guess for me what I value is just family and friends and being able to live an enjoyable life. I think that’s probably the most important thing for me, and just being able to grow old with my family, and with my friends and to be happy.
I try and earn a decent amount, grow my career enough to the point where I can get a house and then buy a house, eventually. That’s sort of the plan because New Zealand is a good place to live. I guess for a lot of people the grass is greener on the other side, a lot of people leave New Zealand, and they don’t realise how quite well off it is.
Originally I’m from Malaysia, and so parts of Malaysia are quite Third World, and there’s a lot more poverty over there than here in New Zealand, and I feel like what poverty is in New Zealand doesn’t really compare to a lot of places around the world. That’s why I’m keen to raise a family here, all my family’s here, and all my friends are here. So I enjoy New Zealand. Personally, for me, a lot of things happen around the world, and I feel like New Zealand doesn’t really get affected that much. We’re sort of in the corner of the world. It’s nice, quiet and you usually don’t really have any trouble. The biggest headline in the News is someone’s car got stolen or something.
I’m just renting at the moment, I just live by myself. I guess my situation is a bit special. I’m renting off someone I know and so they’re generally pretty good because they know that I take care of their place anyway.”
