Tuesday, August 19, 2008

There are too many fucking Asians in this country

India is no paradise, but it does have (some) porous borders and the willingness to open its arms to asylum seekers and refugees, who squeeze into a country bursting at the seams with a population of 1.1 billion people. That's right, 1.1 billion. As opposed to New Zealand's 4.1 million.

That reminded me of how New Zealand's attitude towards immigrants and asylum seekers (unless they happen to be minted) is tighter than a virgin's vajeen. Despite the fact that we have land to boot, more sheep than people, and love to ham up our carefully constructed image as clean, green and nice on the world stage.

I was discussing how selfish NZ/Western immigration policy can be with a German fellow in India when a baked, balding, 50-year old kiwi with a seemingly liberal demeanour and an "Asian" girlfriend (nowhere to be seen), piped up from his hammock.

"Yeah, but I can see why the NZ government would close its borders. There are too many fucking Asians in the country."

The entire group stopped in its tracks with the usual thoughts in such instances of "I didn't realise that New Zealand was racist. I thought that it was a really nice place," hanging in the air.

"What do you mean too many Asians?" I asked, slanting my eyes. "Have you checked the 2006 census results lately? About 68 percent of kiwis identify themselves as European, and about 9 percent as Asian."

"Yeah, well, have you walked around Auckland lately?! That place is crawling with Asians! I feel like a minority in my own country as a white guy."

Sigh. Kiwi male, with his (obviously trophy) generically "Asian" girlfriend, is addressing a NZ-born Chinese person with his concerns about how NZ is crawling with Asians. The rest of the international audience looked tense and positively mortified at his un-kosherness. Little did they know that this is the typical attitude of so many in NZ. And coming from a so-called kiwi hippie guy living in India with an "Asian" girlfriend. It made me depressed about going back to encounter Cantabrian rugbyheads who worship Richie McCaw as god and can sink heaps of piss, eh.

I wanted to loudly thank him for reminding me of the general climate in PC paradise that I had so blissfully forgotten abot in India's cultural melting pot. And such a boring reminder as well, not a shred of anything more original than the usual argument that has been doing the rounds since the poll tax was introduced.

Instead, I said, "Well, yes, actually I live in Auckland, and many of these "Asians" are temporary students who are actively encouraged to come to NZ by the government as part of the export education industry and pour billions of dollars into the economy. Most of them will go home afterwards, often cos they've had bad experiences integrating here, or cos NZ employers won't give them a chance. So you're safe, mi amigo."

I wasn't sure where this argument was going...I was talking about how shameful NZ's policy towards asylum seekers is in light of India's welcoming stance, which had little to do with the "Asians". But it did remind me that the NZ government lures Asian students to NZ in the tens of thousands, sucks them and their families of their moolah (often precious savings), with minimal support once they arrive, and minimal education to the NZ public (who obviously need it) about why these students are here, what benefits they are providing to the NZ economy, and that a smile and "hello, welcome to our country" wouldn't go astray either.

And that's just the fee-paying Asian students, never mind the asylum seekers. I dread to think what would happen if kiwi immigration policy ever grew a heart...then there'd be calls that there are "too many fucking asylum seekers in this country." And how damaging would that be to the trembling psyche of that minority group, the kiwi European?

9 comments:

coco said...

It always blows my mind how many letters to the editor (usually from the right wing pakeha, the racist and the elderly) appear in the newspaper and lament how many Asians there are in NZ, not to mention their NON-IRONIC sense of dislocation, being overtaken and culturally invaded.

Many Maori (indigenous) Pacific and Pakeha people (like myself a 3-way combo) feel more affinity with cultural, social and economic contributions from the Asian community at the moment then they do with these 'shocked and disgusted, Beach Haven' types, or with satanic political parties promising to oust them.

Yet my SIX responses to these letters has NEVER been printed, gee I wonder why. Cos the myth that Asians are less welcome then the Pakeha were in the 1800's must be perpetuated, and many closed-minded New Zealanders are happy to do that. The papers can't afford one letter contradicting the stereotype obviously. These people have the nerve to voice outrage that they feel like a minority, culturally threatened in their own country? Gee I wonder how that feels.

"Auckland is crawling with Asians". And every other fucking nationality that somehow still manages to be the 'minority' in the eyes of these faux liberated types... hippy styles and ethnic Mrs aside these revealing unqualified outbursts from people like you described Lisa always show someones true nature in the end huh.

"Shogged and Tee-gusdid
Tamaki Makaurau"

Hayley J. said...

kia ora to you lisa, and kia ora to you Coco...
i have nothing to add to this other than i whole heartedly tautoko your sentiments...
and that my 'letters to the editor' ain't ever been published on this topic either...
nice one Herald.

PEACE

Colour Me Fiji said...

South Auckland is a beautiful haven of people marginalised by NZ's dominant Pakeha culture - here, the script is flipped and the margins become the centre... it is here where I seek refuge...

Good brain food, ladies...

Love from Otara xxx

Lisa Loves Life said...

Kia ora ladies

The fat cat corporations and the newspapers have long held hands...Joe and Josephine Public must be the audience, but never the speakers.

Minorities are made to feel different, and, in turn, we embrace our differences (Asians have been slower on the uptake in this regard for various reasons). We share similar but unique experiences of discrimination in New Zealand, and are able to empathise with each other as a result. Why would mainstreamers try to understand people who they fear will threaten their status quo?

kinakoJam said...

Ugh. this makes me glad that i live in a weird bubble and never encounter 'normal' people. I'm sure there must be mu'fuckers in Germany bitching about the Turkish, but I tune out of the half-understood ambient noise of public transport so I'd never know.

was is Oscar Kightley who said that NZ would never accept Asians until there was a Chinese rugby player?

I remember how pissed one of my 3rd gen kiwi-born chinese friends was when the first wave of students arrived; suddenly shop keepers would assume he was from abroad and slow down their speech to infantile syllables.
he's always telling me about the insanely racist anti-immigrant bullshit at his computer job from an English guy - where he would be sitting there thinking hallo, you're also an immigrant mate!

I was really depressed when I found out Morrissey is an anti-asylum seeker racist English patriot by the way.

The American-born chinese I know also still face all kinds of discrimination,

this will sound weird but Toronto is the one place I've been where it seemed like an accepting place that actually lived up to its multi-cultural claims,
(don't you love how Melburnites are always saying how multi-cultural it is there yet you never see a brown face in the clubs?)

Toronto didn't have that raw tension and palpable disenfranchisement of big cities in the states (at least on the surface. I'm totally sure there's racism there too similar to when you scratch NZ's PC surface).

maybe one day a half-Uygur kiwi raised on the Chatham Islands will end up running for prime minister. and that will change everything.
not.

kinakoJam said...

OH MY GOD. crazy ironic timing. Just as I finished that comment there was a ring on the doorbell and it was two heavies from the immigration department come to hassle me and tell me I'm an illegal immigrant! if a police officer bumps into me before i can go beg official forgiveness tomorrow I could be deported.

those two were scary. tough and intense as only germans can be. short blonde hair, the chick with loads of piercings and silver skull jewellery, if I was an African or Turkish person I would think the german National Front had shown up!!

Fuck I am feeling very shaky

now i understand why my Serbian friend Vladimir is renouncing his Serbian nationality to become fully German. if you look at all Southern or Eastern I am sure the authorities would be even tougher

kinakoJam said...

what's really weird is that the marriage bureau did a background check on me before allowing us to get married...
i guess they have more money and resources to look into when I've entered and exited the country than the immigration department....

why don't I ever stop being lazy and follow the fucking protocol in the first place, sigh

I'm curious if NZ also has heavies from e.g. the tax department and the immigration department that they just send around to frighten people, like in Germany?

coco said...

OMG!!!! Kinako in a Jam! a crazy cross-cultural debate has morphed into you playing fugitive in Germany; keep the whanau posted!!

Anonymous said...

Auckland is swiftly becoming a Yellow Sea of beady eyed communists. It's hard to recognise my own people among the inevitable parasitic eastern plague. How can we allow this identity crippling invasion to persist.

I was at the west Auckland Pak n save last night and I couldn't help noticing that every single teller was Asian, I mean EVERY one of them. where are the lower level jobs for our kiwi sons and daughters. This is a disgrace, is this what our forefathers fraught for?

When people like Winston Peters speak the truth they get scorned by pc, anti free speech, sensitive hippies. When this man is gone there will be no hope for our country. Better study Chinese now folks.