The World Of Jadeey: We don't know how lucky we are, mate!



We don't know how lucky we are, mate!

I recently read that New Zealand is considered, by overseas students, an unfriendly country to study in. However, it is also considered a safe country to live in so people come here anyway and then stick to groups of other overseas students rather than being friends with 'the locals'.

The article kind of annoyed me. I don't know whether it's true or not but I really don't see us as being less friendly than Australians, Americans or British. Yet, according to the article we are far less friendly. I was friends with a few international students at uni and I never saw any of them having any trouble with Kiwi students.

I will admit that I often saw, and still see, clusters of Asian students spending time together. It never occurred to me that they were spending time together due to the unfriendliness of Kiwis. I thought they were spending time together because they were friends, because they could speak their own language together, because they had a lot in common. I know that if I was in a country that didn't speak English I would naturally gravitate towards other students that did speak English. When I was in Japan it was always a happy relief to get to school and find some other Kiwis. Not because I had any problems with my Japanese friends but because it was a relief to not have to constantly concentrate really hard on the conversations I was having. I have always assumed when seeing clusters of Asian students that it is the same for them.

Since living in Auckland I have noticed more of an intolerance of Asian students. When I was in Wellington I would see the intolerance when an Asian student in class couldn't speak English very well so struggled to keep up with lectures and constantly asked questions but I rarely saw that intolerance spread to outside the lecture theatres. Here in Auckland I don't go to uni but I still see it. Not really surprising given the huge number of Asians that reside here in Auckland. I'm not sure though, I still get the feeling a lot of the intolerance and unfriendliness is due to difficulties understanding what is being said rather than based on the race itself.

I understand that it is ridiculously hard to learn a new language and that coming here is the best way to learn our language. Yet, even understanding this, I still get frustrated when I am trying to communicate with a customer, or with staff at any shop I am visiting, and their English is poor. It surprises me that the students interviewed for the article I read about us being unfriendly felt that other countries were more friendly. I would have thought frustration at not being able to understand someone was universal. That then lead me to wondering if part of the perceived unfriendliness is actually just cos Kiwi's talking quite quickly. It might seem like we are being unfriendly and not making an effort to communicate with non-English speaking people when really we are just speaking normally but because we speak quickly we are harder to understand.

I refuse to believe that Australians are more friendly than us. My refusal is partly because it hurts me whenever Australia are better than us at anything and partly because on ever foray to Australia I have ever made I have been struck by the racism towards Asians. Surely we are not just as bad without me noticing? I hope not since that will mean I am part of the problem. Boy do I hate being part of the problem!
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