Posts Tagged ‘Ethnic Relations’

Rebiya in NZ

I went to Rebiya Kadeer's speech in Auckland.  Her visit was organised by the Green Party and Amnsty Internaional in NZ, two well-kown "anti-chinese" organisation among politically minded Chinese students here. However, I was there to hear another side of the story, not to protest, and I did gain some knowledge on her story and position on a range of issues.

But I was more interested in the role of Chinese government in regard to leaders like the Dalai Lama and Mrs Kadeer.  Kadeer was not a well-known figure before the unrest in Xinjiang in July this year, before that if you refer that name to a Chinese, he or she is more likely to have very little or no knowledge on who she is.

People sometimes joke that Chinese government regularly award two awards that are even more important than the Nobel, namely GFW's Web Choice award and Chinese Government Recommended Award - if you know a website is blocked by the Great Firewall of China, you know it's a website worth to visit. Similarily, if Chinese government blames someone, you know he or she is worth to listen to.

A state like China needs enemies - if you go back in history, at any point of time, Chinese government always propoganda at least one enemy of the state to its people - the Dalai Lama, oversea chinese democracy movement, "oversea anti-chinese forces" and so on.  This is a bit like Bush administration, it's the only way to divert people's attention.

However, for the speech itself, I was in fact quite disappointed. It was a good introduction for her positions on some issues, but nothing else was there but more of a blame game.  I still think that her popularity is largely due to the help for the communist government, in real life, she's no way near the Dalai Lama.

Employing "foreigners"

Many Asians cannot be more familiar with the following situation: they are well or over qualified for a job, but were still turned down by employers because they either lack local experience or their qualification was attained from a university in their country of origin.

This has happened to generations of immigrants, even if they are already a proud NZ citizen - this is one of the things that makes you feel not that proud of your choice.

I don't really want to label it racism, but look at what happens when the tide is turned:  The new "Kiwi first" employment policy means a Japanese restaurant owner cannot recruit chefs from Japan because there already are people with "appropriate" skills available in NZ.  According to the report,  people with "appropriate skills" meaning they need to learn the difference between sushi and sashimi on job.

And yet many "Kiwis" are moaning in the discussion forum, saying people deserve a chance to learn, asking why don't they train kiwis on job?

The rumours that Asian people only employ Asian employees are totally untrue, at least in the Chinese community I know of. There is golden rule for any Chinese entrepreneur who wants to start a business here - a Kiwi receptionist is a must.  This is not because Chinese entrepreneurs cannot pass NCEA leavel 1 English, but people out there just don't want to deal with businesses that are not owned by "one of them".

Any employer would prefer people with local experience and knowledge while having suitable skills, however, if they cannot find any here, they ought to be allowed to employ from oversea. If my memory serves me right, it was this government which wants NZ to increase its productivity and become a global economy - not.