life in australia question

Hey hi!

I was quite surprised to see your email since we've been chatting so often now and then online and sorta thought it'll be an interesting conversational topic that we can share with each other. Now it sounds like an essay topic so oh well I'll just blurt out what I feel and hopefully it sounds structured after a while. :D

Hmm, have I been at the receiving end of racial discrimination when I was in Australia? Definitely! However, I felt that the experience hasn't been too awful, probably because I feel I might have overlooked some occasions where one will raise the red flag of racial discrimination as to me, I think that it is sometimes a very thin line that differentiates between what racial discrimination is and what might constitute socially accepted norms in a foreign land that an alien might mistake as discrimination when it is perfectly normal. To me, I find that it is perfectly natural, though improper on many fronts, that foreigners use metrics that carry over from their original cultures as evaluative measures when visiting a strange land and interacting with strangers that have cultures that are very different from one's own. Taking Singapore for instance - should an Australian coming from Brisbane who is used to exchanging friendly banter with the bus driver find himself affronted in Singapore where our bus captains can barely afford a smile to boarding passengers? I guess coming to a more credible conclusion about racial discrimination can only come with prolonged experience and comparison with the locals, but then it is still a thin line nevertheless isn't it?

Ok, now I'm re-reading my previous paragraph and find it a little detracted (and of course so controversial). Back to the issue of racial discrimination - yup, it is definitely there in Australia. I guess must of my experience will be only in Brisbane, and it is very important, I feel, to make a distinction between the cities in Australia which we are talking about as I noticed that the cultures are quite different between the cities. In a general sense, I find less discrimination in Brisbane as compared to Sydney and Melbourne. I might be too sensitive for example, but often a times I do not get a similarly enthusiastic response from the checkout staff at the supermarkets such as Coles and Woolsworth. After observing how customers make small talk with cashiers, I attempted to do so and got very varied replies. Some were enthusiastic and were jolly though a personal feeling of more than half were glum-faced. It doesn't help when I observed that the customers before and after me (usually white Australians) were able to strike up a conversation with the same cashier whom I have not had any success. However, I felt this is acceptable as there are more pressing areas which I am glad to say do not really factor in lots of racial discrimination. An example will be the willingness of bus drivers to wait for passengers to cough up small change for bus rides - such an 'important' service is dispensed equally to all from my observations.

However I do have 2 major racial discrimination instances to highlight. One was the time when I was walking around in Melbourne with friends - there was this young chap (white, around 16, if it matters) who walked up to me (I was a little behind my group of friends who were walking at the front) and asked for 2 bucks or so to grab a quick meal. Initially as a Singaporean (I hope it is a suitable assumption!) my alarmist bells were raised and I insistently said no. The boy persisted and with that I said more nos and tried walking faster. He suddenly broke into a tirade of curses, screaming at my apparent unwillingness to help and accused Asia of not being cooperative when Australia has done so much for the region. He wasn't representing any organization, to be clear. He was just a guy that just walked up to asked for 2 bucks. So that was really awful. I was glad nobody got hurt..

Another incident happened at the immigration checks when my friend and I were coming back to Brisbane from New Zealand after 8 days there. I'm not sure if it coincided with the Shapel Covey(can't spell her name, sorry) case, but we were the last two passengers and we were stopped at the customs for an hour while they did quite a concise check on us. Not only did they do a drugs test on the bags (they had this cotton swab device which the swiped the interior of our bags to pick up particles i believe), they kept on interviewing us and it really got to a point where I felt it was more of an interrogation as he refused to answer our questions as to why are we stoppe d for so long and we're both dead tired from the trip. Finally he let us go, though I felt that it was a racial thing that caused us to be stopped. It was even more interesting considering we were taking Garuda airways then (Indonesia). Racial discrimination? I find it hard to deny.

However, these experiences aside, I feel that the level of discrimination does not warrant avoiding the place (and hence I really loved Brisbane as compared to other more metropolitan cities like Melbourne or Sydney where racial differences are more clearly defined as compared to Brisbane in my opinion) as though discrimination exists, to me I am willing to overlook (or already have overlooked) these little nuances as they do not impinge on the more important interactions that directly impact on conducting my life. Nevertheless, many of the Singaporeans whom I have met and are studying there for their degrees (i.e. they've been there for 3 years) also raised their eyebrows about settling there as what you have pointed out. This might be due to their more informed experience I feel, as while I have only seen Australia from the perspective of an exchange student with nary a worry in the world, many of them had serious considerations of settling down there and came to back away from that idea after researching on issues that pertain more significance to life, such as finding jobs and such where they have found racial discrimination to be a factor against their favour. Hence, although I see Australia favourably, I must quantify that my experience is severely limited! :)

So that's my take on racial discrimination! It is definitely a very exciting experience and I think your upcoming trip to Japan will be an excellent field experience to see the Japanese side of it, such as the 'gaijin' concept and the uchi-soto concepts. Have fun and good luck!

NN

----Original Message Follows----
From: XXX@hotmail.com
To: "Ned Nickerson"
Subject: life in australia question

I am rather curious if you had been at the receiving end of racial discrimination when you were in australia? My friends and I were having a discussion the other day and we came upon the subject of living in Australia. Both of them said that they would not migrate there due to the discrimination that they might face in a larger extent compared to other places. IMHO, I feel that there is always a sense of discrimination anywhere you go where you are a minority. What I want to know is that how much do you feel when you were there. I know that this is a rather sensitive issue, but I am willing to hear your views on them. I think the world needs more open minded people. I need to be more open minded myself.

Take care and enjoy your well deserved holidays. =)