It seems like whether we are in Europe, North America or here in Australia, Asia has not just been knocking on our door, it has actually already come to our living room.
Asia, especially China has actually entered our daily lives here in Australia quite decisively, and a lot of the "locals" are not liking it. Recently, there have been some opportunities for the China-bashers to voice their dissent with China's role here in Australia.
Stern Hu, an Australian-Chinese working for an Australian mining company has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Chinese authorities for stealing commercial secrets and receiving bribes. Australians were outraged. A large Chinese oil tanker has just recently been stranded just near the Great Barrier Reef and is now slowly losing its oil. The Australians are outraged.
And this last example really goes to the heart of the Australian psyche. Chinese buyers are increasingly buying property here in Australia. Often, the properties concerned are very up-market and perhaps just used by the buyer's children, studying or going to high school in Australia.
In Australia, more than perhaps in any other country of the world, the land and your property defines you and your life. As a young professional, you are taught to aim to own your own house as soon as you can. Currently, this is getting harder and harder as the housing supply is not catching up with the demand. This means, prices are going up!
That is good for the ones who own, but not so good for the ones who aspire to own. Young families and singles are forced to move to the outer suburbs, where cheaper patches can be had. It is of course very easy to blame immigration for this "crowding out" of low income earners...
About 100 years ago, the picture was much different. Chinese workers, often well-educated, literate and humble people were discriminated and humiliated. They were simply mistreated for the colour of their skin. If a white woman would do the unthinkable and fall in love with a Chinese man, the couple would be banished, curses would be thrown and them and sometimes even eggs too.
Then came the White Australia Policy. This was the ultimate racist policy, where Asiatics were not allowed into Australia anymore.
Now however, the tables are turning. So much so, that the Chinese are now starting to be hated for being rich. I am reading that Chinese buyers are not very welcome at auctions. I wonder if Australians would show the same reaction if a British or an American person would snap the property away before their eyes...?
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I think you have over-simplified a terribly complex situation. What exactly are Australians "outraged" about? As you point out Stern Hu is a China born naturalised Australian. So are they outraged that he is being unfairly treated as an Australian, or that the legal procedures are questionable or that he is ethnic chinese. I recall, a few years ago, there was similar "outrage" when an asian born Australian was executed in Singapore for drug offences. Similarly a vietnamese-Australian woman was give a long term gaol sentance in Vietnam for drug offences.
ReplyDeleteWas the "outrage" a demonstration of racism, nationlism, xenophobia, media hype or a bit of all of them?.
I think if you scratch the surface you will find a bit of racism in all of us, regards of which country we belong to.
I have experienced "racist" behaviour against me here by "hi-so" Laos who look down on farang, not to mention the way they look down on some of the ethnic groups.
I just tuned into Asia-pacific on Radio Australia and caught the end of an interview with an academic from Flinders University. I missed the first part of the interview but I became more alert when I heard him say that "even the chinese Singaporeans are resenting the significant influx of citizens from the PRC who are buying up all the prime real estate". He went on to say that the Singaporean govt has been very active in promoting "investment from the PRC". Notwithstanding, they have been sensitive to the build up of resentment by ordinary Singaporeansnand have been actively promoting the "benefits" of foreign investment.
ReplyDeleteHe went on to say that it it is necessary for immigrants from India to have a high education level and minimum finances to invest in Singapore while there are no such limits on people from the PRC.
I am old enough to remember that it was about 40 years ago that Singapore ceeded from the Malaysian Federation and became independent because the Malaysian govt was opposed to the high level of political influence by the chinese majority in Singapore.
After that the Malay government had a policy of positive discrimination in favour of ethnic Malays. They are only now having some debate about relaxing the policy.
Here, in the one party state of Laos PDR there is no organised political opposition, but the govt does have good "ears" and is sensitive to any mutterings of political dissent.
Before the ASEAN Games the govt announced with great fanfare that the their great fraternal friend, the PRC, had provided the funds to help them build the main stadium. In return the govt had given Chinese developers rights for a "new city" for 250 000 chinese immigrants on the outskirts of the city. In all my years here I had never heard the Laos people so openly start to voice opposition. The Govt has gone into damage control and justifying it in a way they have never bothered to before.
Your reflection on Australian "outrage" at Asia's recent dominance in some real estate markets is just one example of something that has been going on all throughout Asia and I assume many other places around the world since the Chinese Dragon has woken from its slumber and is spreading its wings.
So are we seeing a form of neo-racism?. If we are it it is not exclusively an Australian phenomenon.
have u heard of schapelle corby....u r much more handsome than elton john when he was your age,,,,i knew him then...didnt like him at all..he wasnt a good person..he might b now
ReplyDeleteironbark and lance. thanks for your comments. it's good to have a discussion. sorry for coming back to you so late...i had a busy weekend.
ReplyDeletefirstly, I have not over-simplyfied. I was very much aware of the oddity, that one chinese aussie could be a real aussie worth defending and risking business and trade ties over and other chinese-aussies are accused of snatching property from "real" aussies.
that's an awkward situation but I think in the stern hu case, hu was the underdog and the chinese central government the evil big guy. aussies love helping an underdog and love to bash big evil things, be it their own government or in that case the chinese. however if stern hu were to come to an auction at vaucluse or another leafy suburb in australia, I suspect he wouldnt get the same treatment...cause then HE would be the big and rich player in the game...
and yes. there is a lot of racism everywhere I think. but I live in Australia and am interested in Asia (hence the title of the blog), so that's what I write about.
I have also encountered it the other way around in Thailand, but it's different. In SEAsia we are the big rich guys, we are higher in the hierarchy of mankind, so we get some sneering, mean and jealous remarks once in a while. Plus, in countries like Thailand you get scathing nationalism...ever heard about the myth of "thai blood" or "thai race"?
very interesting your observation on Singapore and Malaysia. The singaporeans, and especially their leading dynasty have always tried to look like a Western country, but their minds have stayed tied to China. malaysia in the meantime is a stranded ship...I dont see that this country has a bright future with such poisonous racial relations...
interesting anyhow to see that the Singaporeans also start turning against mainland chinese influence. I am not surprised....from my personal contacts, I always felt that they are very closely connected with Hong Kong, but see the mainlanders as a horde of savages...they dont feel comfortable with them...
lance. I have indeed. how could I not have heard of her...and thanks for your compliments:)
Hello! So you're here now- I've been a loyal reader of your Bangkok blog for a few years. Right in our backyard, too, eh?
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Sydney's North Shore, or Asianland as I like to call it. Hope you like it here, too.
I am glad you're out of Bangkok and out of the situation you were in.
Here's to new beginnings!
I'll be on the lookout for an Elton John lookalike- and you be on the lookout for a Eurasian woman with a bugaboo stroller. ;)
I've just recently starting blogging and I couldn't believe it when I stumbled upon your old Bangkok blog.
ReplyDeleteHaving lived in the City of Angels for 7 years I found it incredibly interesting.
All the best in Australia.
I also agree that you have over simplified a complex situation. However I won't go into specifics, I will comment on your overall message and tone.
ReplyDeleteYes there is racism in Australia. Is Australia racist? No. Is there racism in America? Yes. Is America racist? No. Is there racism in the UK? Yes. Is the UK racist? No. Is there racism in China/Singapore/Indonesia/Japan etc? Yes. Are they all racist countries? No. Saying Australia is racist quiets the voices and thoughts of every non-racist. Don't generalise so much mate.
The White Australia policy. Does it display a history of racism? Yes. Is Australia racist? No. That was a generation ago. Did Nazi Germany institute genocide against Jews and Gypsies etc and display a dispicable act of racism? Yes. Is Germany a racist country today? No. Leave the past in the past.
Chris
Out of all the developed economies Australia is second only to Canada in per capita immigration intake numbers. Australia has been taking more than a hundred thousand new immigrants every year for the last 15 years, and during some years has taken around 250,000 in a single year. Australia only has a population of 22 million to begin with. The bulk of those immigrants choose to set up home in Sydney or Melbourne (Australia's two biggest cities). If you consider Sydney is currently around 7 million people and then consider more than 50,000 new people a year coming to call it home, I think you can understand how dynamic a city like Sydney, and likewise, Melbourne is, and how much the demographic has changed in recent memory. It has really transformed and many areas are still retransforming themselves, in terms of the makeup of their populations, cultures and so on.
ReplyDeleteIn amongst all this there are some racist Australians. We have seen some signs of this racism in the News Media, such as the Cronulla Riots a few years back. But at the end of the day, given the level of change I am impressed with Aussies. If Korea (where I currently reside) had even a tenth of the kind of demographic change we had in Aus, their heads would explode. These Koreans have no immigration except through marriage and a small additional amount via refugees, but they have been criticised on the latter for their reluctance to take people incidentally anyhow. They have foreign workers (on temporary visas) but nothing like the percentage per capita we have in Sydney. They are amazingly racist by my standards. I think, wake up... give Aussies a break. Given all changes that have been happening and the little noise they make about it, I think it's clear, Aussies are relatively tolerant, as judged by human standards.
I also want to point out that Cronulla is a white ghetto and incidents like the Cronulla riots needs to be placed in this context. They don't represent every Sydney-sider. By the standards of many in Sydney, the people in Cronulla are a little backwards and living in the past. Living 20 mins from Cronulla when I was growing up, I know I felt this. What the Cronulla riots do reveal is an interesting pattern worth note though. It's in those areas where there is the least mix that Australia has seen the most racist people; and yes, I accept this is a complete generalisation. Sydney-sider’s often consider Queenslanders racist for example, despite the fact that Queensland has, until recently, been whiter than New South Wales (and Sydney). For example, in the Ninetees’ Paulin Hanson essentially used Queensland seats to win some minor power in the Australian government. She was ridiculed as a backward racist by the major parties in Australia and the majority of the voting population and eventually prosecuted on some charge or other; People who live in the country are often considered more racist, even though they have very few foreigners in many cases; My grandparents are more racist than my parents or me (which is common). Even though these people don't mix or live with foreigners in their normal daily lives, but we, the younger generation do. In other words, the people that are living in the mix are quite often the most open to the change. And many Sydney-siders indeed are relatively tolerant, having lived in such environments for quite a while and in some cases, for their whole lives.
ReplyDeleteIn conclusion, my opinion. Get off your high horse. Your living in Sydney now, as I can tell from your photo. Accept that you are surrounded by Aussies and they are the dominant population there, even if that is slowly changing. Accept that they have their imperfections, and be grateful that you can work and live in their country in relative comfort and peace. I know in Korea I try to do the same. The people aren’t perfect, but I am a guest in their country and I just try to be polite, even turn the other cheek if I have to (not that I am saying you should do the latter in Aus). Australians could be a lot worse. To me, frankly, you sound like an outsider with little inside and in-depth knowledge of Australia making statements, which unsurprisingly, are off the mark, and moreover, clichéd. Because trust me, if I had a dollar for every time I heard the ‘Aussies are racist thing’… well I would be a millionaire, let’s put it that way. These days, when I hear a Korean tell me this (and I sometimes do), I can’t help but be offended by the irony. I mean, talk about hypocrisy or otherwise, ignorance. Have they looked at how racist many countries in Asia are!