Asians Not Welcome?

[ExPat]

Interesting headline here in the U.S. regarding Asian immigrants into New Zealand....

NZ MP accused of 'Hanson-like' policies - Yahoo!7 News

NZ MP accused of 'Hanson-like' policies

A New Zealand politician has been compared to Pauline Hanson for suggesting his country shut its doors to Asian immigrants.

New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown revived the race debate by saying that NZ was under threat of being "inundated" by people who did not want to integrate.

His comments came after statistics showed the number of Asians in New Zealand was tipped to rise to 790,000 by 2026, almost double its current figure.

"The rapid rise in the Asian population is driven mainly by immigration and both National and Labour (parties) are equally culpable," Brown, a British-born migrant, said in a statement.

"No other country follows blind policies of importing people and exporting jobs like New Zealand and it is time this foolishness was ended for the sake of the people who live here now," he said.

[hibiscus]

I am in US, Indian origin and was looking to move to NZ. Just last Thursday got a job offer. It was highly disconcerting to see this news on Sunday.

While I have had no issues with integrating with people of all walks of life in US, I am now apprehensive about being discriminated.

Please let me know what is the political scene like in NZ for brown skinners like me.

[molly]

From my experience as a migrant NZ is a very welcoming country and I have so far never experienced discrimination in any way. NZ is used to have people from all parts of the world coming and living here and they mostly embrace the positive sides about that fact.

However, there are some discussions about the "Asian Migrants" for the following reasons:

NZ is signing today a free trade agreement with China (as the first western country).

Not everybody is happy about that agreement, especially because nobody knows the content of the agreement (except of aunty Helen one would hope). The "public" will know more by tomorrow. The human rights issue set aside, it is rather frightening for some to hear that a country with a population of 4.26 million is signing a free trade agreement with a 1.32 billion (or 1.32 trillion in the US system) population country - knowing that somewhere in the agreement is a provision for some sort of "free movement of people".

NZ is currently exporting goods to China for $1.95 billion, whilst China is exporting to NZ for $5.59 billion. This means, China with a roughly 235,000,000,000 times bigger population than NZ, is importing only about 3 times more goods than NZ does from China. Additionally, NZ imposes currently hardly import taxes on goods imported from China (except of cloths etc.), whilst at present China imposes tariffs of 10 to 20 percent on goods imported from NZ. With the free trade agreement, these taxes should vanish. The consequences are - some think - that product prices will raise here in NZ considerably because of that (especially agricultural products). It is also anticipated that "cheap labour" will have access to NZ.

It is not the fact that there are Asian migrants, I think the anticipation of the sheer number is what frightens some of the Kiwis.

[rasin]

Hi,

I'm a Chinese (from Singapore not China though). I went to Wellington for 8 days abt 2 weeks ago and was just back. I feel that NZ pple are generally a friendly lot and life not as rush and stressful in places such as US and Europe. I've no bad experience with my skin color so far. I've been to US and Paris before and occasionally did felt some kind of 'unfriendlyness' but not in NZ :)

However as mentioned by Molly, the number of population in China is indeed quite scary when compare to a merely 4million population... I could understand that concern as Sinapore's population is only 4m too (but with a much much smaller surface area to live on than NZ).

[Dawn]

I have to say I've seen both sides of this. I'm your run of the mill white bod so no personal experiences but I have a friend who is Indian and I've been with him on a number of occasions when he's been verbally, racially abused by white kiwis. I've also had people assume, because of my white skin, that I too am racist and slag off other races expecting me to join in. Much to their dismay I just told them what pathetic, small minded, bigoted arseholes they are and to avoid being in my company in future.

There's a little place near us that grows and sells raspberries. It's owned by some Chinese people, I don't know where from. They have a table outside the field by the road with the raspberries on. You just pull your car up and buy some, sometimes there's someone there, sometimes there's just an honesty box. One day as we were driving past, we noticed an older Chinese lady picking raspberries up from the floor, the table and sun umbrella had been knocked over, stuff was everywhere and she looked quite upset. We stopped to see if she was OK. She told us that a group of young white men had driven their car straight into the table, ramming it a few times and shouting abuse at her to 'get back to her own country'. Pathetic, it made me feel ashamed.

Lauren (17) says that she has never witnessed so much racial abuse amongst young people as she does here. She says that most of the young people are very prejudiced and have very stereotypically racist opinions. She finds it scary after the open-mindedness of her friends back in UK - she challenges it all the time but has found herself the butt of abuse back. If the young people start off with this attitude, it makes for a sad future

I have also witnessed in conversation people who consider themselves 'Christians', you know, attend church every weekend and do their best to follow the 'good Lords path' and who are quick enough to righteously pull you up if they don't agree with you, making 'jokes' i.e. derogatory remarks about other races, colours, faiths and sexuality. Again, when I challenge them I need to 'get a sense of humour' because they're 'only joking'.

On the other hand, I have met an equal amount of people that are very supportive of all races, colours and creeds and who would challenge discrimination each and every time they experience it whether it's directed at them or not. The Kiwis are very outspoken, you usually know where you stand with them, so at least you know what you;re dealing with right from the start.

I strongly believe that you shouldn't make this a reason not to come here if coming here is what you want to do. Come and fight for changes. It's down to all of us to stand up for and with one another. Things won't change if people don't make them change. It's our shared responsibility

[MotherBear]

I'll post this in full as Stuff doesn't archive, so the link will become invalid after a while.

Welcome to NZ's most Asian suburb
By MICHAEL FIELD - Fairfax Media | Tuesday, 08 April 2008

New Zealand's most "Asian" place has been revealed in a study out today - it's Auckland's peaceful suburb of Blockhouse Bay.

It has the highest population density of people of Chinese and Indian cultures with a smattering of Korean.

The adjourning suburbs of Mt Albert and Mt Roskill also benefit from the diversity.

An Asia New Zealand Foundation report, Diverse Auckland: The Face of New Zealand in the 21st Century, written by University of Auckland's Dr Wardlow Friesen, says the city will continue to absorb more migrants than the rest of the country.

Dr Friesen says the city now has a rapidly changing "ethnoscape".

"Anyone who knows the region well will identify clusters of Asian retailing and restaurants in areas such as Upper Queen Street, Dominion Road, Sandringham Road, New Lynn, Somerville and Dannemora, but nearly every part of the region has some evidence of this phenomenon," the study says.

A Chinese Directory showed 1,700 Chinese business addresses.

"One of the most conspicuous changes in Auckland ethnoscape... is the growth in 'ethnic' restaurants."

Last year there were 400 identifiable Asian restaurants and cafes as well as many more outlets in foodcourts and malls. Seventy seven were Indian, 75 Thai and 73 each Chinese and Japanese. Also on offer, but in smaller numbers, are Korean, Vietnamese, Turkish, Mongolian, Malaysian, Cambodian and Persian restaurants.

"These numbers represent, on the average, a doubling of these cuisines from a study ten years earlier."

Dr Friesen points to the ethnic media with at least 20 Chinese language newspapers, three television channels land three radio stations in Chinese and magazines and websites.

"The Indian community of New Zealand is also well served with media, including several hard copy and online newspapers and a dedicated radio station, once again mostly based in Auckland but serving the whole of New Zealand."

In the 1990s the main stream media got "considerable negative press coverage of new migrants, especially 'Asian', usually as represented by Chinese".

This has tended to become more balanced, "the issues of public perception and racism are important issues that are much wider than media coverage.

"A number of studies have identified the presence of racism against both new migrants and international students, although incidents tend to involve unknown people rather than work or school colleagues."

The study explores the growth in festivals around Chinese New Year and Diwali.

"On a physical level, the evidence of the emergence of diverse religious practices of the Asian population of Auckland is dramatic," Dr Friesen reports.

"New Hindu temples include the Bhartiya Mandir on Balmoral Road in Sandringham and the Radha Krishna Mandir, which is part of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre in Eden Terrace. The Tsu Ming temple in Greenlane is the oldest Buddhist temple in Auckland, while the recently built Chinese Mahayana Buddhist Fo Guang Shan temple in Botany is testament to the large numbers of Chinese Buddhists in South Auckland."

Cambodian, Vietnamese and Lao populations have their own Buddhist temples and a number of gurdwara or Sikh places of worship. This includes a new $8 million gurdwara in Takanini.

Many of the Koreans here are Christian so have integrated into existing Christian congregations.

Religion adds complexity to ethnic identity.

"In some cases Hinduism has been promoted as the epitome of 'Indian' culture and the prominence of the Diwali festival in Auckland is an example of this. However, significant Sikh, Muslim, Christian and other religious sectors of the Indian population are not adequately incorporated within this representation of 'Indianness', but even within the Hindu population, regional and linguistic groups are increasingly celebrating their own festivals."

These include the Bengali Durga puja, Kavadi by the Tamils, Onam and Vishnu by the Malayalees and Ganesh Chaturthi by the Marathis.

From here .

[ExPat]

It's all starting to make sense now....

Asian Kiwis 'more qualified than most' - Yahoo!7 News

Asian New Zealanders are better educated with higher qualifications, and linguistically more accomplished than the average citizen, according to a new study.

The Asia New Zealand Foundation's latest Outlook report says 28 per cent of the Asian population have a university degree - only 20 per cent of the total population does.

The multilingual abilities - three or more languages - within the Asian population were five times as great as in the general population.

[MotherBear]

There's certainly a lot of press coverage on this topic at the moment.

Message to the race bigots - we're all New Zealanders
Page 1 of 2 ......... 5:00AM Wednesday April 09, 2008
By Brian Rudman

Before New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown delivered his latest "rivers of blood" warning, he should have come to Auckland to check how scary living in a society which included 16 per cent "ethnic Asians" would be.

This was his dire prediction for New Zealand in 2026 if the flood gates weren't closed. He seemed unaware that at the 2006 census, Auckland had long crossed that line - 18.93 per cent of its residents identified themselves as "Asian".

What he's wetting himself over I have no idea. As a long-time down-country migrant myself, Auckland's a much livelier and cosmopolitan city than it ever was when the only migrants in town were pasty-faced Euros like himself.

Spluttering through his crocodile tears, Mr Brown said he was "particularly concerned that the Asian population threatened to eventually outnumber Maori", and warned of the "real danger we will be inundated with people who have no intention of integrating into our own society. They will form their own mini-societies to the detriment of integration and that will lead to division, friction and resentment".

More here .

[alan&moyra]

Lauren (17) says that she has never witnessed so much racial abuse amongst young people as she does here. She says that most of the young people are very prejudiced and have very stereotypically racist opinions. She finds it scary after the open-mindedness of her friends back in UK - she challenges it all the time but has found herself the butt of abuse back. If the young people start off with this attitude, it makes for a sad future

I find it almost impossibe to believe that a 17year old coming from the UK has the thinking that there is more racist abuse heer than in the uk.......... utter tosh !!! where i was in the uk (glasgow) there was a massive number of racist attacks physical and verbal on a almost daily basis so for her to not have seen it in the UK she must have been wearing blinkers ......... or lived in a very affluent area.

[Taffy]

Originally Posted by alan&moyra

where i was in the uk (glasgow) there was a massive number of racist attacks physical and verbal on a almost daily basis so for her to not have seen it in the UK she must have been wearing blinkers ......... or lived in a very affluent area.

Or maybe just lived in an area that was more racially accepting?