not a good look, New Zealand
Posted by wangbo in news, tilting at windmills on February 15, 2012
Busy morning, but I finally got around to seeing what news of New Zealand Baidu wished to alert me to this morning, and what do I see? A China Youth Online (not exactly a minor news source) article titled:
Asians have become one of New Zealand’s four biggest ethnic groups, most discriminated against
Oh dear. This is not a good look. Now, CYOL’s article is attributed to China News, which traces this story back via what seems to be its NZ bureau to a report from TVNZ. It seems to be reporting on the same survey I saw reported on Weibo a few days ago (see this post, scroll down a bit) showing that 75% of undescribed respondents believe that Asians face the most discrimination in New Zealand.
However, apart from the obvious difference between a newspaper article and a Weibo post being the level of detail allowed due to the lack of a character limit, CYOL also has Race Relations Conciliator Joris de Bres explaining that Asians are now one of the four largest population groups (四大人口群之一 – a terminology I find preferable to such nonsensities as ‘race’ or any term involving ‘ethnic’ given how broad a brush ‘Asian’ is, even when in a NZ context with ‘Asian’ most likely meaning ‘East Asian’) and the Asian population is growing rapidly. However, the very same paragraph has the Human Rights Commission’s survey showing Asians have faced many serious attacks in recent years.
And here’s where it gets uncomfortable. The next paragraph lists some of these attacks, namely:
- In Nelson two Thai women were physically and verbally abused (肢体和语言上的攻击 – any better translations most welcome)
- In Christchurch a husband and wife sic’ed their dog on (让他们的狗欺负 – again, better translations, please) a Phillipine man and a Japanese student.
- In New Plymouth a man smashed up his Indian neighbour’s car with a machete (so CYOL is not limiting this to East Asians, even though ‘Asian’ in NZ usage usually refers primarily to East Asians).
- In Invercargill a Chinese student was verbally abused (受到侮辱) at a petrol station
Alright, given the paucity of details in this article, we could wiggle in some room in 3 out of 4 of those bullet points for motivating factors other than racism. But I suspect a little googling would quickly remove most, if not all that wiggle room.
The final paragraph returns to De Bres, pointing out the lack of Asian members of Regional Health Boards (地区健康委员会), the lack of Asian teachers in schools, and the lack of Asians working in other government departments. But he also points out that the organisation employing the most Asians is in fact the Police. Personally, I think the Police is a pretty good place to start, especially if we have visibly Asian uniformed cops out on the beat.
But clearly there is a hell of a lot of yet work to do and a lot of bad attitudes that need to be dumped.
2000 Kiwi cows in Taiyuan
Posted by wangbo in tilting at windmills on February 13, 2012
An item in Baidu’s email news alert for 新西兰 this morning was a report of 2000 Holstein dairy cows from New Zealand arriving in Taiyuan. It includes the sentence:
它们落户后，将为太原市民提供世界上最优质的牛奶。
After they settle in, they’ll supply the citizens of Taiyuan with the world’s finest quality milk.
But, wow, the procedure for getting in to see the new cattle… don protective clothing, stand for five minutes in a room full of UV lamps for disinfection. This farm is taking its Holsteins seriously.
And I’m thinking, now here’s a positive way New Zealand can contribute to China and make money at the same time:
2010年6月，九牛牧业投资5000万元，委托北京中地种畜进出口公司在新西兰订购荷斯坦奶牛2000头。
In June 2010, Jiuniu Group [note: that seems to be their English name, but the company seems to be based in Anhui and hasn’t updated the news section of their website for a year, so hard to tell for sure] invested 50 million yuan, entrusting Sinofarm to purchase 2000 head of Holstein cows from New Zealand.
And it’s not just about the production of quality fresh milk, as the last paragraph shows:
同时，该牧场还是一个集奶牛养殖、原奶生产、沼气发电、有机肥加工为一体的养殖产业园区，也是一个全省规模最大的奶牛产业化繁育基地。养殖产生的粪污通过 地下管网输送到沼气站，通过厌氧发酵处理，每年产生沼气146万立方米，不仅可以满足牧场用电，还能为周边2000多农户提供日常电能。沼气利用后产生的 沼渣、沼液经过深加工，每年向市场提供6.2万吨的有机肥，可覆盖15万亩农田的有机种植，达到科学养殖的良性循环。同时，还能为社会提供600多个就业 岗位。因此说，这一牧场的建成，对太原市民来说是一项重要的民生工程。
All at once, this farm is a unified breeding and production facility for breeding cows, milk production, electricity generation from methane and organic fertliser processing. It’s also one of the province’s [Shanxi] largest industrialised cow breeding bases. Sewage produced in raising the cattle will be sent through a network of underground pipes to a methane station, and through a process of anaerobic fermentation, will produce 1.46 million cubic metres of methane annually. This is not only enough to provide for the farm’s electricity needs, but also to supply electricity to the more than 2000 surrounding rural households. After further processing, the biogas residues and slurry produced after using the methane can supply the market with 62 thousand tonnes of organic fertiliser each year, which can cover 150 thousand mu of organic cultivation, forming a good scientific production cycle. At the same time, the farm provides 600 employment opportunities. Therefore it can be said the construction of this farm is an important project for the livelihoods of Taiyuan’s citizens.
Alright, it is a bit relentlessly upbeat, and the numbers can be taken with as many grains of salt as you please, but it strikes me that there are lessons here that New Zealand’s dairy farmers would benefit from learning.
Now, presumably some of that 50 million yuan (very roughly NZ$5 million) went to the New Zealand farmer(s) that bred the cattle. I certainly haven’t seen any reports of 2000 head of cattle suddenly being snatched away to China – and given the importance of dairy to New Zealand’s economy, I’m pretty sure mass uncompensated disapperance’s of dairy cows would raise more than a few headlines. And so I got to poking around the NZ news to see if this had been reported. The obvious first start being the Kiwi equivalent of the 中国农业网 that this article appeared on – Rural News. I searched for both ‘Taiyuan’ and ‘China’. ‘Taiyuan’ got me nothing. You can see what ‘China’ got. Nothing relevant to this story. NZ Herald? Again, nothing. Stuff? Again, nothing. TVNZ? Again, nothing. TV3? Again, nothing.
Now, maybe I’m crazy, but given all the hysteria over Shanghai Pengxin’s purchase of the Crafar Farms and all the prejudiced, ignorant, nonsensical, frequently unfounded, and sometimes just barely sensical (“But Kiwis can’t buy land in China!” True, but neither can Chinese people. One can buy land use rights, even if one is foreign, although of course, just as foreign investors in NZ have to satisfy certain regulations surrounding the national security/interest (OIA), so do foreigners investing in China) commentary coverage of this saga has elicited, I would’ve thought there’d be a place in the New Zealand media for reporting on positive ways New Zealand can contribute to China and make money. Afterall, the NZ-China FTA was supposed to be a two-way street, wasn’t it? And not at all about selling NZ off to foreigners ([gasp!] Chinese foreigners, too!), as we’ve all been whingeing about since the 4th Labour Government.
So why not get a little perspective? And why not look at ways we can swing this FTA into a mutual-benefit kinda deal, like it’s supposed to be? Seems to me that the Chinese are several kilometres down the road on that than my fellow Kiwis, and NZ has a lot of catching up to do. Step 1: Drop the fear (crouch, hold). Step 2: Engage.
anti-asian discrimination in aotearoa
Posted by wangbo in tilting at windmills on February 11, 2012
I recently set up a Baidu News email alert for “新西兰” (New Zealand), suspecting there’s a bit more reporting of New Zealand in the Chinese media than I realise, there being so many newspapers, websites and TV channels to sift through, and curious about what this reporting is. Most of it’s pretty boring, and I usually just delete the email without opening any of the articles. But this morning brought quite an intriguing story, titled:
在新西兰探亲华裔女士因语言障碍 误遭警察拘捕受重伤
Chinese woman visiting relatives in New Zealand because of language barrier wrongfully arrested, seriously injured
And the first paragraph:
中国一位来新西兰旅游探亲的56岁华裔女士，因语言障碍误遭警察拘捕并受伤，该事件在新西兰华社引发热议，近日新西兰英文媒体、以及多家华人媒体的报纸。广播、网站都对此事件进行了报道和关注、不少华人华侨还在网上纷纷对此事件发出评论和热议。
A 56-year old Chinese woman visiting New Zealand for travel and to visit relatives was wrongfully arrested and injured by police because of the language barrier. This incident has become a hot topic of discussion on Chinese Services [note: googling han’t helped much – may be this site] and in recent days of English and many Chinese newspapers. Radio and websites have reported and followed this case, and many Chinese and overseas Chinese have one after the other posted comments and discussions.
And I find that paragraph strange for two reasons:
- “中国一位来新西兰旅游探亲的56岁华裔女士” The first word in that clause is ‘China’, the other bolded word means ‘person of Chinese origin’ or even ‘foreign person of Chinese origin‘.
- “新西兰英文媒体”…”多家华人媒体” Huh? ‘English language’ media then ‘Chinese people’ media?
And then I thought, I haven’t seen any such reports…. So a google.co.nz news search for Li Naijiu (why did they include her name in toneless Pinyin when they apparently knew the characters?) and up pops the Waikato Times article. Well, that’s the newspaper I would’ve expected considering the incident happened in Hamilton.
Now I read both these articles through and noticed that although they tell more or less the same story, there are a couple of differences. First up, the Renminwang version says:
李女士发现一辆拖车经过超市，驾驶员是一个毛利族裔人
Ms Li found a tow truck passing the supermarket, the driver was a Maori.
and:
只见这些白人警官
only saw these white police officers
And I’m wondering how the racial or ethnic origin or skin colour of either the tow truck driver or the police officers are relevant? After all, these are the two biggest ethnic groups in New Zealand. Ms Li’s ethnic origin may be of interest in this story, firstly because of the language barrier, but more importantly because of a claim made in both articles that at least one of the cops was apparently mocking her speaking Chinese.
Secondly, the Renminwang article seems much more highly emotive than the Waikato Times. For example, whereas the Waikato Times reports the Police tackling her rugby-style, Renminwang has her feeling as if she’d been tackled by an All Black. Well, All Black, cop, I don’t suppose it’d feel much different, but Renminwang does seem to be ratcheting up the emotive side of things here.
Thirdly, the Renminwang article seems to make as little effort as possible to present the Police side of events, whereas the Waikato Times gives much more equal play to both sides. Compare the headlines. Renminwang makes no attempt to frame the incident as an allegation of wrongful arrest, whereas Waikato Times title’s its article:
Police brutality, says woman
Because there are at least two sides to this story, and both come across as rather suspect.
First of all, both articles leave me thinking Ms Li’s conduct was highly irrational and far from an appropriate way to find out what happened to her car. I mean, jumping in to the passenger seat of the tow truck and demanding through incomprehensible gestures to be taken to her car? I would’ve called the cops. And it certainly does sound, from both articles, that she was, as the Waikato Times quotes District Commander superintendent Win van der Velde, “highly agitated”.
Secondly, did nobody think to call in an interpreter? Renminwang mention Ms Li as having first phoned a friend:
在打电话问朋友后
After phoning a friend to ask
But… payphone or cellphone? One would expect, in this day and age, cellphone. Or perhaps a kindly supermarket staffer allowed her to use a supermarket phone? But the Police, on being confronted with an agitated woman speaking a language they couldn’t understand and who could not understand them, didn’t think to call in an interpreter themselves?
And the injuries… Renminwang says an arm so badly dislocated it took the doctors 3 attempts to put it back in. Waikato Times says:
A doctor’s note reveals she has a “ligament injury/fracture to the lateral side of her right elbow” and surgery may be required.
And I’m asking, even if she did fight back and even try to bite an officer, we’re talking four [male, the Waikato Times informs us] Police officers versus one 56-year old woman. Was force enough to cause such serious injury really necessary?
And I also have to wonder what the tow truck driver saw, because neither article reports his view, or those of any other possible eyewitnesses.
And the accusation of Police mimicking the sound of her speaking Chinese is interesting, although sadly not surprising. Just after I read those two articles, this post appeared in my Weibo feed:
#新西兰微闻#【亚裔最被歧视】尽管过去的五年里对待亚裔的态度有一点改变，但是一项为人权委员会所做的调查显示，75%的受访者认为在新西兰亚裔是最被歧视的族群。而在新西兰的四大族群欧裔、毛利人、太平洋岛人及亚裔中，亚裔增长却是最快的。
#New Zealand micro news# [Asians most discriminated against] Although attitudes towards Asians have changed a little over the last five years, a survey for the Human Rights Commission shows that 75% of respondents believe that in New Zealand Asians are the ethnic group most discriminated against. And of New Zealand’s four largest ethnic groups, Europeans, Maori, Pacific Islanders and Asians, the Asian population* is growing most quickly.
*I presume it means growth in numbers of each group, i.e. population growth.
I note that three of those four named ethnic groups are virtually meaningless. In a New Zealand context, ‘Asian’ almost always means ‘East Asian’ – Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Malay, etc. Pacific Islanders are those indigenous people from other Pacific countries (but not Australia) and their descendants in New Zealand. ‘European’ I dislike being applied to my own people, but I guess it covers us Pakeha, people of European descent from places like Australia and South Africa, and people actually from Europe.
Anyways, in light of the Shanghai Pengxin/Crafar Farms saga and the above blogged reports of brutality and racist mockery on the part of Hamilton Police, and New Zealand’s history of racist, and specifically anti-Chinese immigration law, it’s not much of a surprise. And there’s not much detail – well, no detail – about the survey. If it was a survey of Asians in New Zealand, it would be all but meaningless. But if we assume that it’s a survey of a cross-section of New Zealand society, then at least it might show a certain level of honesty. The question then becomes one of how to convert that honesty into a reduction in discrimination and a more inclusive society.
I seem to remember Jim Bolger saying New Zealand’s future lay with Asia. Certainly te UK’s joining the EEC in 1973 forced a huge economic change on New Zealand and should’ve taught us about putting all our eggs in one basket. A comparison between Asia on the one hand and Europe and North America on the other suggests New Zealand really should be looking to diversify as much as possible. Certainly the Shanghai Pengxin/Crafar Farms saga, coming as it does with a nasty whiff of racism, allegations of Police brutality and racial taunting in Hamilton appearing in one of China’s bigger newspapers, and the appearance on one of China’s bigger microblogging platforms of a survey suggesting Asians are the ethnic group most discriminated against in New Zealand are not a good look.
a couple more thots
Posted by wangbo in tilting at windmills on February 4, 2012
The saga around foreign investment and Chinese investment and Pengxin doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to die down. A quick glance at the front page of today’s NZ Herald brought up 3 articles of interest.
First was Fran O’Sullivan weighing in again, in an odd piece that starts off well in a confirming my fears kind of way:
So far, I’ve found Shearer underwhelming. Too ready to scratch every political itch, including (although I am sure this did not start out deliberately) ramping up anti-Chinese sentiment as a result of his campaign against the Crafar dairy farms sales to Shanghai Pengxin.
This has deeply worried the New Zealand Chinese community as they gather round the country this weekend to celebrate their own Lantern Festival.
And after some comments on the apparently quite rude way Jiang Zhaobai, majority owner of Pengxin, has been treated:
At various functions I have been to in Auckland this week to celebrate Chinese New Year, there has been much talk of reactionary feelings towards Chinese.
Some told me they were frightened by the vehemence and the violent language used on websites and talkback radio shows as commentators damned the Crafar sale. Some Chinese said they felt this palpable racism is also aimed at them.
There is talk about this within their own Chinese language media.
Now this is worrying. Trouble is, where I thought we were going to get some analysis and an impassioned plea for cooler heads and ditching the racism, O’Sullivan suddenly takes a swing at the Maori and Mana parties for, of all things, standing up for the interests of their constituencies. I just can’t see the connection, nor can I follow the logic. It’s as if O’Sullivan had two columns planned and somehow they wound up mashed together.
So let me do it for her: Ethnic or national origin is not a valid reason to oppose foreign investment, and this told old Yellow Peril nonsense should’ve been dumped a long, long time ago. Also, considering New Zealanders are allowed to invest in other countries, subject, of course, to those other countries laws and regulations, then we must allow foreigners to invest in New Zealand subject to New Zealand laws and regulations. Chinese are allowed to buy land in New Zealand, and New Zealanders are allowed to buy property in China. The legal systems surrounding land and property ownership are different, but this is fair.
And y’know, perhaps I should go poking around some of that Chinese media she mentions and see what is being said. Although there has been some mention of the Crafar farms saga on Weibo over the last few months, I can’t say that I’ve noticed anything since the decision came through. Still, I mostly just scan quickly through Weibo. A quick flick through the Sky Kiwi Weibo group shows nothing, nor has anything showed up in my Baidu news alert for 新西兰.
*Update: No sooner do I click publish than this pops up in my Weibo feed. I note, in a very quick summary (so if I miss or misinterpret any details, please, leave a comment):
…周五还上演了戏剧性的一幕。 本周五，鹏欣集团的竞争对手、前商业银行家Michael Fay牵头的新西兰财团上诉高等法院…
…also on Friday a piece of theatre was performed. This Friday, Pengxin Group’s competitor, the consortium led by former merchant banker Michael Fay, appealed to the high court…
I initially misread 戏剧 (xìjù, theatre, drama) as 喜剧 (xǐjù, comedy). Certainly it doesn’t seem particularly appreciative of Fay’s efforts. But it does go on to report more positive commentary from John Key and the National government’s new Opening Our Doors to China policy in this, the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the PRC and New Zealand. It also mentions Fran O’Sullivan’s rather more favourable commentary, and argues that given previous food safety scandals in the Chinese dairy industry, the sheer number of babies born in China every year and the desire of middle class Chinese for safe, quality infant formula, this deal, if successful, will represent real employment opportunities for Kiwis and real economic benefits for both China and New Zealand. I’m inclined to agree.
Next I came across is this, Kiwis taking the right approach of building deeper and stronger relationships with China. This is what needs to happen, and not just with China, but with the rest of the developing world. Highlights:
Despite the controversy over Shanghai Pengxin’s $210 million investment in the Crafar dairy farms, Key did not shy away from welcoming more Chinese investment.
But he was less fulsome than Ethnic Affairs Minister Judith Collins who this week told an ANZ lunch to celebrate Chinese New Year that “having discussed this with the Prime Minister yesterday, we will not be stopping people from being able to buy lands just because they are Chinese”.
and:
ANZ NZ Institutional managing director David Green praised the strategy as a good centralised plan to strengthen the relationship.
But he said a “major mindset change” among many Kiwis towards China was needed if New Zealand was to genuinely take advantage of the great political relationship the two countries have.
Absolutely.
Next came this article, which stood out for two perhaps rather minor details. I guess the headline is fair warning of what was to come. But check this out:
He said he was concerned at Chinese investors buying into the New Zealand dairy industry, and pleased that 18,000ha of land and 43,400 milking cows would now be under local control.
“Of course it’s important that this stays in New Zealanders’ hands – 24.9 per cent of this was owned by Americans and it’s come back to New Zealand,” he said.
“We’ve done the opposite to what they’re doing at the Crafar farms.”
How curious. Of course, we must remember that journalists can be quite good at creatively editing conversations to emphasise some things and conceal others, but even so, it’s interesting how concern over specifically Chinese investment in NZ dairy was mentioned first, with Americans coming in later. Are people learning from Peters’ and Shearer’s “Oh know, we’re not racist, see, we’re objecting to James Cameron too!” And then, of course, straight back to the Crafar farms, bought by a Chinese company. I dunno, something just doesn’t feel right. And I know I’m not the only one who detects an ugly odour emanating from supposedly left wing opposition to the sale to Pengxin.
And then:
“Between my sons and I, we’re Australasia’s biggest in carrots, potatoes and onions. My son Mark is growing 100,000 tonnes of vegetables a year in South Australia and Victoria,” he said, referring to Parilla Premium Potatoes where Mark Pye is the managing director.
Umm… so it’s perfectly acceptable for Kiwis to invest in overseas agriculture, but we don’t want foreigners investing in Kiwi agriculture? Something doesn’t quite add up here.
And while I’m nitpicking, a post appeared on another blogtown blog recently which stated:
It is disgusting to me that people would read these results in a racial context. The land being sold to China is backed by the Chinese government which indicates that China wishes to pursue and purchase land and business here for specific business purposes and taking care of THEIR people in THEIR economy.
I’m equally disgusted at all the racism this Crafar farms/Shanghai Pengxin saga has inspired, but I can’t understand the sudden attack on the Chinese. And considering the Liberation Daily article I mentioned and partially (and badly) translated at the end of this post is headlined:
上海私企收购新西兰16座牧场 总投资超过2亿美元
Shanghai private company buys 16 New Zealand farms. Total investment over 200 million USD.
[emphasis mine]
And states clearly:
新西兰政府批准了向中国民营企业上海鹏欣集团出售16座牧场
The New Zealand government approved the sale to Chinese private enterprise Shanghai Pengxin Group of 16 farms.
[emphasis mine]
At no point in that article do I see any mention of Chinese government – whether Shanghai Municipality or central government – involvement in or backing of the deal. Nor have I seen any such suggestion in the NZ Herald’s coverage of the saga, including in the NZ Herald article Myra links to to back up her claims. So where does this idea that the Chinese government is involved come from? And considering it has been clearly reported that among other conditions imposed on this sale, Pengxin will have to set up a dairy farming school and provide a certain number of scholarships for young Kiwis looking to get into dairy, restrictions have been imposed on Pengxin’s buying of shares in milk processing company which will prevent it taking control of any such company, and Pengxin must do a deal with Landcorp for Landcorp to manage the farms, where does the idea that this sale is purely for the benefit of China and the Chinese people come from?
Although I must say Myra makes a very good point a bit further down in her post:
When you consider all the land that was stolen and confiscated from Māori, it would have shown great integrity and do much towards repatriation of past wrongs to be righted if our selfish government were to let Māori (and other local business entities) purchase at least some of the Crafar farms to help develop their own prosperity and contribution to local society. Lord knows government and the general public are always busting a gut over the “unemployment” problem. Selling major opportunities such is this offshore indicate clearly that this government does not want to support local prosperity much less reducing the unemployment lists.
I’m not convinced that this particular sale will be quite so disadvantageous to New Zealand, but that’s a very fair call. I do believe Rawiri Taonui made a similar argument in yesterday’s Herald, backed up with reference to the relevant regulations in the Overseas Investment Act.
So, I dunno, I do suspect the sale of the Crafar farms could’ve been done better, but I’m really not happy with the tone of so much of the opposition to Pengxin. Kiwis would do much better to drop those ugly old attitudes played to so well by the likes of Winston Peters and other odious blights on the New Zealand political landscape and start engaging with the reality of China.
thots on pengxin
Posted by wangbo in tilting at windmills on February 1, 2012
*Updated below.
I’ve been following the bid by Shanghai Pengxin with mild curiosity and, I’ll admit, a vague sense of horror. Not horror at the prospect of a [gasp] Chinese company investing in New Zealand, but horror at some of the Kiwi reactions to that prospect.
Well, New Zealand can be quite good at shooting itself in the foot when it comes to dealing with foreigners. For example:
The women also called the police, but were told nothing could be done.
Sheesh. Remind me, what do we have Police for? And I note two passports were stolen – hardly a trivial crime, considering how useful and valuable false passports can be to some. But when it’s Chinese, or more generally Asians, some people feel the need to shoot the whole country in both feet. But back to Pengxin and the Crafar farms, what to make of this cartoon? Is Labour being accused of good old Yellow Peril fear mongering?
And it has been interesting watching the NZ Herald happy to help the government point out the lack of vocal public opposition to European and North American purchases of farmland. The statistics at the end of this article, for example:
The 16 Crafar farms have a combined area of about 7,900 hectares.
In the last two years, 357,056 ha has been approved for sale of agricultural land to foreigners, with majority ownership by country as follows:
* United States – 25,306 hectares
* Britain – 22,600
* Switzerland – 9727 hectares
* Germany – 6834 hectares
* Australia – 3861 hectares
* Hong Kong – 759 hectares.
So in the last two years Americans and Britons have bought vastly more New Zealand agricultural land, and really, where has been the hand wringing, gnashing of teeth, and appeals to patriotism? And doesn’t the history of New Zealand’s reform and opening up demonstrate quite clearly that Americans and Britons are no more likely to care a jot for New Zealand’s economic well-being? Alright, some will say, “But Kiwis are allowed to buy land in the US and UK, but not in China. Why should Chinese be allowed to buy land in NZ when Kiwis can’t buy land in China?” And I say, “Inform thyself.” Or, as Fran O’Sullivan reports the Overseas Investment Office pointing out:
“We note nevertheless that a consequence of New Zealand’s free trade agreement with China is that both Chinese and New Zealand businesses are able to invest in property in each country.
“However, unlike New Zealand, in China both Chinese and foreign citizens may only apply for a long-term leasehold of land. Private, fee-simple ownership of land does not exist in China.”
In other words, nobody can buy land in China, but New Zealanders are allowed to buy property and land use rights. So, really, what’s so unfair about Chinese companies being allowed to buy land in New Zealand subject to New Zealand law when New Zealanders can buy property in China in accordance with Chinese law?
I also note with interest her earlier paragraph:
Second, the OIO also notes (contrary to some very ill-informed comments on radio on Monday) that New Zealand firms have also looked abroad and purchased farmland to expand their own business activities. It says restricting foreign ownership of farmland would run counter to the policy operating in other countries, which could damage both New Zealand’s reputation overseas and restrict the opportunities for New Zealand firms to expand overseas.
Indeed. And if you wish to be left with the impression that Kiwis are pig-ignorant, loud mouthed gits, scroll down to the comments (in other words, when you get to the end of that article, please stop reading).
But back to that older article I pulled those stats from: Labour, you really should be worried when National and the New Zealand Herald are doing a better job of level-headed reasonableness than you:
What concerned him was that by implication, National was labelling every New Zealand opposed to the sale as anti-Chinese and possibly racist when what they opposed was “the sale of profitable New Zealand-owned assets to foreign interests.”
In fact the Crafar farm companies were in financial distress and were placed in receivership by Westpac in October.
Yeah, I thought there was some reason why it was a receiver and not anybody surnamed Crafar doing the selling. And:
On the show Mr Williamson said that when Canadians, Americans, Germans and Swiss bought farmland there had not been a”mutter or a murmur.”
“As soon as the word Chinese was mentioned, we are opposed to it. I have to say that is bordering more on racism than xenophobia.”
Damn it, Labour, will you please stop this?! I really don’t like it when I find myself agreeing with a National Party minister!
*Update: To be fair, they are now making noise about the sale of two farms (1000 hectares) to a famous North American maker of mostly atrocious (although some good) movies. Unfortunately that article ends with a piece of what is indisputably terrible news:
Cameron is expected to start work on the first of two sequels to Avatar later this year.
Well, I suppose given how awful the first Avatar was, it’s possible the next two might actually be an improvement.
And then I got to wondering how (or more correctly ‘if’, and then ‘if so… how…’) the Chinese media was reporting this. See, it’s not often New Zealand makes it into the news here, and I would generally prefer New Zealand to be making a positive impression on the few occasions it does. And so a quick Baidu news search found me this article, and I noticed that where the NZ Herald uses terms like ‘tough’ and ‘strict’ to describe the conditions imposed on Pengxin, Liberation Daily says:
政府条件苛刻
Government’s conditions harsh
And I found that, after reporting (quite fairly) the opposition to the sale, including Michael Fay’s rival bid and promised legal action, and the conditions imposed, the last two paragraphs take quite an interesting tone:
对于当地的反对声音和政府部门的严苛条件，业内人士认为，鹏欣集团此番收购一波三折，主要是因为在新西兰奶业是支柱性产业，外资进去会引起他们的警惕。
Regarding local opposition and the OIO’s severe conditions, an industry insider believes that the main reason for all the twists and turns in the process of this purchase is that the dairy industry is a pillar industry, meaning foreign investment raises their vigilance.
复旦大学房地产研究中心地产运营研究所所长蔡为民表示，新西兰奶业在他们国家占有重要的地位，甚至是他们的命脉型产业。如果这个企业到新西兰去投资其它的方面的话，问题可能不会那么麻烦。因此，才会有这种限制存在。
Head of the Real Estate Operation Research Office of Fudan University’s Real Estate Research Centre Cai Weimin said that the dairy industry occupied an important position in New Zealand, to the point of being a lifeline industry. If this enterprise had invested in another area in New Zealand, perhaps they wouldn’t have had as much trouble. That’s why they have such restrictions.
Rough as guts translation, I know. But isn’t it interesting to see the Chinese showing more grace towards us than so many of us have shown towards them? Two Chinese looking at comments by the likes of David Shearer about selling off productive farmland to foreigners and becoming tenants in our own land, and said, “Hey, look at it from their point of view”, and then actually looked at it from a Kiwi point of view and said, “You’ve got to understand that dairy is a mainstay of their economy, so it’s natural they’ll be worried.” All I’d add to that is that dairy is a mainstay of the Kiwi diet and there’s been a lot of worrying about skyrocketing dairy prices of late. And that is a far better attitude to take than this economic nationalism with strong hints of xenophobia and Yellow Peril that Labour and others have decided to wallow in.
And all through this Crafar farms saga I’ve been looking at these figures and thinking, wow, one man owned 16 farms. How does one man neeed 16 farms, let alone run them all? And I’m thinking, if Labour is really so concerned about ordinary Kiwis being priced out of the market and becoming tenants in their own land, then perhaps they need to drop the xenophobia and look at limiting the number of farms any individual or company, whether Kiwi or foreign, can own? After all, this saga shows that Kiwis are just as capable of scarfing up all the land and keeping it for themselves as foreigners. If only a few Kiwis get to monopolise the land, then those few Kiwis are doing just as good a job of locking ordinary Kiwis out of the market as any foreign investor. Crazy idea, I know. After all, as Winnie Peters’ long, distinguished career shows, it’s far easier to shout, “Foreigners!”, particularly when those foreigners are Asian, and play on people’s irrational fears of the Other than to think up policies that actually make sense.
one more Huailaihua word
Posted by wangbo in Chinese study on January 31, 2012
bēi. That’s what my mother in law just asked for. My quizzical look reminded her to speak either Putonghua or Yanqinghua, and she asked for a 笔/bǐ. I had a quick flip through a dictionary, and found no alternative pronunciations, so asked her, and she said, “就是咱们的河北口音” – that’s our [inclusive] Hebei accent. Hence the title labelling it Huailaihua – modern Hebei, after all, is made up of most of the late Qing and/or RoC Zhili, Chahar and Rehe, with Chahar (modern northwest Hebei, parts of Inner Mongolia and Beijing’s Yanqing County) being historically Mongolian (Chahar being the name of the Mongolian tribe that dominated the area) and Rehe (modern northeast Hebei and neighbouring regions of Beijing, Inner Mongolia and Liaoning) Manchu and before that Khitan (Jehol). As Mr Ji suggests in this comment, it would certainly seem that both geography (in Hebei, as in Beijing, the west and north are mountainous, the south and east plains) and ethnic mixing certainly seem to have had quite an impact on local accents and dialects. Given that, I think it fair to interpret my mother in law’s “Hebei accent” as meaning “Huailai accent”.
Update: My wife says Yanqingren also pronounce 笔 as bēi. I’m surprised, but then again, the Yanqingren I know don’t often use pens or pencils, at least, not when I’m around or not when they’re speaking Yanqinghua.
gah
So outside I have a car with a flat battery that stubbornly refused to crash start earlier this afternoon. There’s a wee shop round the corner that may be able to help, but they’re still closed for the holiday. And now my laptop screen has decided to misbehave. I really don’t like disobedient technology. Here’s what I have:
The laptop monitor, on start up, bounces the image up and down like the vertical hold is out of whack on on old fashioned TV set, has a line of odd, bright, occasionally flickering colour across the top, and another similar line at the bottom below which everything is constantly flickering. After a few minutes, it gradually starts to settle down until eventually the screen becomes useable, but those two lines of odd bright colour at the top and bottom remain, and still occasionally bounces slightly. If I let it go to sleep, when I wake it up the image bounces just as it does on starting up, but shows no sign of settling down, leaving it unuseable and forcing me to restart and wait for it to settle. But, as you can see, I get a perfect picture on an external monitor, although the laptop monitor continues its naughtiness. I don’t understand what’s going on here.
Now, I have occasionally worried that perhaps my Lenovo R400 ThinkPad is perhaps not quite new enough to work perfectly with Windows 7, but it shipped with Vista, so it should be ok, right? Still, this isn’t the first time I’ve had issues with the monitor, although it is the first time the issues have been severe enough to render the computer unuseable and force me to restart the computer or to even think of plugging in an external monitor.
And in any case, what would cause the laptop monitor to misbehave while allowing a perfect image on an external monitor?
So tech wise this is not proving to be the best of days.
adventures in Huailaihua
Posted by wangbo in Chinese study on January 27, 2012
As in every year, we spent Spring Festival up in the village eating jiaozi, visiting relatives and blowing things up. Well, as family fuselighter in chief (i.e. the only one dumb enough to approach explosives of dubious origin with a naked flame (or lit cigarette, usually – ciggies don’t blow out in the wind). I have noticed my father in law is quite happy to lay fireworks out for me, but retreats quite a conspicuous distance when I light the fuse) while my wife, daugther, mother in law, brother in law and his wife, stayed inside, safe. And the fact my brother in law got married last year meant he had to visit absolutely all his relatives to introduce his wife. This meant a lot of squeezing our car through narrow village lanes, divided into two separate trips, with a boot-load of large, heavy gifts, the first trip with the car and an electric scooter filled to capacity, the second trip only the car as it wasn’t essential for my wife and daughter to visit everybody.
On the second trip we got to the house of a great uncle and great aunt. He’d had a firework explode next to him, deafening him in at least one ear, and was feeling poorly, so he sat on the kang and didn’t say much. Great aunt did most of the talking, and was in quite a nostalgic, teary mood. Now, I’d always had trouble understanding these two, but I’d always put it down to their advancing age and the trouble that can wreak with clear speech combined with the much stronger accents one seems to encounter in older, less educated people. Turns out there was more, and I should’ve recognised certain aspects of great aunt’s speech. Well, in my defence, I only see them once a year at Spring Festival, maybe also when there’s some big family event. So great aunt turned to me and said, “你还喝x吗？”, the x being a word I didn’t catch. Except what she said came out as “nǐ hái hā x ma?” I turned to my mother in law, who translated into standard Yanqinghua. Great aunt’s mood of weepy nostalgia meant I understood even less of the ensuing conversation, which seemed to be largely a review of her life and the people she’d known. Not being familiar with the history of her branch of the family didn’t help either. And it could’ve actually been a fascinating discussion to listen to. But a couple of phrases here and there stood out, for example, “不是这个的” came out as something like “basì jǐgede” and “是这个的” as “sì jǐgede”, with the ‘a’ in ‘ba’ being short and somewhat rounded, about halfway between a regular Pinyin ‘a’ and ‘o’ and somewhat schwa like, and the ‘i’ in sì being pronounced as if it were preceded by ‘x’ or ‘j’ rather than ‘s’.
I asked my mother in law as we left, and she said, “Oh, she’s from out west, Huailai County,” and I allowed myself a Homer Simpson moment. Her pronunciations of 喝 and 不 were Huailaihua pronunciations I’ve been familiar with for years now. I don’t know why I missed the x in “你还喝x吗？”, considering I was drinking tea it would most likely have been either 茶 or 水, both of which would’ve been pronounced pretty close to standard Putonghua, and which I must’ve heard in Huailaihua plenty of times before. I don’t know which part of Huailai she was from or why her accent seemed so much stronger or somehow subtly different from those of other Huailaihua speakers I’ve heard – all of whom come from one village in northeastern Huailai (ah, the perils of using your family for research) very close to the border and our village, and most of whom moved to Yanqing in their youth, as great aunt did.
Anyways, the next day my brother in law and his wife needed transport out to his mother’s home village – the aforementioned “one village in northeastern Huailai very close to the border and our village” – to visit her younger brother, uncle and aunt, the last of her family to still live in the village that bears their surname.
So I got the car warmed up (winter mornings out there can make it very hard to get the car started, and when it’s started it can take quite a few minutes before the oil in the gearbox is warmed up enough for me to move the gear lever easily or get it properly into gear, and I need to drive a long way before the wiper fluid is warm enough that it will squirt far enough to hit the windscreen, although it is supposed to be good down to minus 25 degrees and Yanqing is not supposed to get that cold – get a bucket of hot water? Done that, it freezes as soon as it hits the glass. But I digress), we loaded up, and off we went northwestwards up the G110. As we passed Xiaying, the Last Village in Beijing (at least, as you travel that road in that direction. Turn around and it’s the First), only 6 kilometres from our own village, the commentary turned to how Xiaying’s accent is quite distinct from that of our village’s. On the one hand, that makes sense, Xiaying is on the border with Huailai, logically speaking it’s accent should sit somewhere between those of Huailai and Yanqing. But it’s only six kilometres up the road.
A couple more kilometres took us winding under the G7 expressway and the Datong-Qinhuangdao Railway (which seems, so far as I can tell, to transport only coal in kilometres-long trains down to the port and the empty coal cars back to Datong for refilling. Fortunately the locomotives are all electric), then up to the border. We entered Hebei with a thud. Literally. There was a sign by the road proclaiming the Hebei border and a line level with that sign right across the road where the smooth G110 leading back into Yanqing dropped into a series of potholes, lumps, bumps, judders, shudders and shakes covered in the most cracked up tarseal you can imagine. The car went thud as it fell from smooth road to once-was-road. All road markings – lane markings, crossings, arrows, speed limits, whatever, disappeared, and with them went any attempt by the drivers to drive where they should’ve been. My brother in law’s talk went from the differences in different villages’ accents to, “Wow, this place hasn’t changed a bit! It’s exactly the same as last time I was here 10 years ago!” I’d been out there once before, the New Year after we got married when we had to do the same tour around absolutely all the relative’s houses, and my reaction was pretty similar, except I’m sure that after so many years of thousands of heavy trucks and no repairs, the road is in even worse state than the first time I was out there.
My brother in law, his wife, and myself where the only ones there who did not speak Huailaihua. Well, I’m not the most talkative type, and was there as driver only, so I kept to myself for the most part and just listened. My brother in law and his wife, both Yanqinghua speakers, took part in conversations, but his wife is even less talkative than me and he was deferential to his elders, so we were pretty much in a sea of Huailaihua. 喝 and 不 pronounced as the hā and ba described above, ‘h’s disappearing from ‘sh’ (hardly unique to Huailai, I know), generally the same pronunciations and rhythm patterns I know from when my mother in law code switches into Huailaihua.
My mother in law generally speaks Yanqinghua, sometimes to other natives from Huailai, like her sister or niece, who now live in Yanqing, but generally speaking, when she is talking to another Huailairen she switches to Huailaihua. Sometimes she code mixes and speaks to us in a mash up of Yanqinghua and Huailaihua, which can draw quite an amusing command to speak proper Yanqinghua from my wife. She can speak standard Putonghua when she wants to, but rarely wants to. What was amusing this time, though, was that she turned to me and forgot to switch back to either Yanqinghua or Putonghua, saying, “nǐ hái hā suì ma?” (你还喝水吗？). But two of the people there were a great uncle and great aunt of roughly a similar age as the great aunt in our village in Yanqing whose accent had given me so much trouble, and yet I understood them perfectly. Sure, there was no weepy nostalgia this time. But nor did I hear 这 pronounced jǐ. As I said, I don’t know which part of Huailai the great aunt in our village was from, but it felt like I’d had enough exposure to the Huailaihua of my mother in law’s home village that it no longer gives me any trouble.
And I left my cellphone in Yanqing, so I couldn’t get any surreptitious recordings. Sorry. You’ll just have to trust my transcriptions of the above remembered snippets of conversation. Oh, sure, I’ve never added any recordings before, but I might start doing that in the future if I get my recording act together.
But I do have to wonder, considering the huge amount of intermarriage between Yanqing and Huailai, how a series of three villages strung along the G110 separated by distances of only 6 to 7 kilometres can maintain distinct accents.
And as I was writing this, Firefox again ate the language bar. Language bars are kinda necessary for polyglot computer users, and having to close and reopen Firefox and rewrite the beginning of this post is a pain in the arse. I hope Firefox isn’t planning on making a habit of this.
three notes
1: I just had Firefox eat my language bar. That was weird. I’m pretty sure it was a Firefox problem, because I opened up Maxthon, logged in to Weibo, and the language bar worked. But in Firefox, the language bar vanished and I could not switch to Chinese. Well, I could type all I liked, but only in English-style diacritical free Latin script. I closed Firefox, reopened, problem gone, language bar back and functional, proper toned pīnyīn and 汉字 allowed again.
2: Via Language Log, the benefits of being bilingual. There’s lots of goodness there, but I must admit this paragraph had me a little concerned:
In one recent study, Anat Prior and Tamar Gollan compared Mandarin-English bilinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals, and monolingual English speakers living in San Diego. As you might expect, the Spanish-English speakers flipped between their languages on a daily basis. Mandarin-English speakers, on the other hand, kept their language use more compartmentalized. (Incidentally, Asian immigrants to the U.S. are among the fastest to lose their heritage languages.) All three groups were given a test in which they had to switch between sorting visual images either by their color or by their shape. Only the Spanish-English bilinguals showed a relative advantage when confronted with a sudden category shift; the Mandarin-English speakers were no different on this score than the monolinguals.
If we take “flipped between their languages on a daily basis” to mean frequent code switching and “kept their language use more compartmentalized” to mean less frequent code switching, which is what the linked abstract seems to suggest (“By contrast, Mandarin–English bilinguals, who reported switching languages less frequently than Spanish–English bilinguals”), and assume there’s some social reason for Spanish-English bilinguals in San Diego to code switch more often than Mandarin-English bilinguals (proximity to Mexico? larger hispanophone community?), then it would seem on the face of it to make sense that that particular Mandarin-English community shows no advantage over monolinguals. Now, my daughter gets English from me and Mandarin from her mum, so when she learns to speak, will that frequency of code switching be enough for my daughter to reap the benefits of growing up bilingual? I passed that article on to my wife, whose response was:
09:40那要是我们回新西兰，你跟我还说中文
09:40呵呵
“When we go back to New Zealand, you’ll still speak Chinese with me, hehe.” But of course. Our relationship has always happened almost exclusively in Chinese. And it’s not just climate that has us aiming at Auckland, but also the large Chinese community.
[tangent, but yes, that does mean one day the ‘ex’ in this blog’s title will have to be replaced with a ‘re’]
3: Omniglot found a good article in the NY Times questioning the USA’s reputation for monolingualism – and also the rest of the world’s assumed multilingualism. It throws out some interesting stats. 20% of Americans speak a language other than English at home – and yes, it does point out that that’s the wrong questions:
But a moment’s reflection reveals that the bureau’s question about what you speak at home is not equivalent to asking whether you speak more than one language. I have some proficiency in Spanish and was fluent in Mandarin 20 years ago. But when the American Community Survey (an ongoing survey from the Census Bureau) arrived in my mailbox last month, posing that question, I had to answer no, because we speak only English in my home.
And is Europe really so fabulously multilingual when only 56% of Europeans say they can carry on a conversation in a second language? But wait, I see a red flag here: Self-reporting, which is not the most reliable evidence when it comes to matters linguistic. For example, in Norway I knew a guy who could carry on a conversation in English, but only when he was drunk. When he was sober he was too nervous to attempt any more than the most basic communication in English, and then only when necessary (i.e. no translator to help). But perhaps the stats in this paragraph help firm things up:
But the statistics tell a murkier story. Recently, the Stockholm University linguist Mikael Parkvall sought out data on global bilingualism and ran into problems. The reliable numbers that do exist cover only 15 percent of the world’s 190-odd countries, and less than one-third of the world’s population. In those countries, Mr. Parkvall calculated (in a study not yet published), the average number of languages spoken either natively or non-natively per person is 1.58. Piecing together the available data for the rest of the world as best he could, he estimated that 80 percent of people on the planet speak 1.69 languages — not high enough to conclude that the average person is bilingual.
Given the world’s massive linguistic diversity and the sheer number of countries where more than one language is in common use – particularly in Europe, Asia, Africa and Melanesia – it just seems so obvious that most of the world’s kids grow up bilingual. I remember never being able to understand why Southeast Asian friends were surprised at me studying three languages at university when they’d all grown up with at least two, if not three or even four languages. But then again, what’s obvious is not necessarily true.
And it reminds me: I’ve met plenty of bilingual Americans. Mandarin-English is a pretty common mix where I live, Spanish-English also seems common, both for reasons that should be obvious (what did i just say about obvious?). On the other hand, the only people I’ve ever met who’ve boasted about how long they’ve lived in China without learning a word of Chinese (apart from the names of places they often go and their favourite beer and cigarette brands, of course) have been my fellow Kiwis. And yes, I do mean ‘boasted’, as in their tone of voice suggested they found their stubborn monolingualism in a country whose official language is not English and where English is only commonly used in the expat community and their hangouts was somehow a source of pride.
rou
Posted by wangbo in Chinese study on January 19, 2012
Another word I’ve heard a lot since my daughter’s birth – well, no, since she learnt to throw, sounds to me like ròu and it’s very clear from context that it means ‘throw’ (hence me hearing it a lot since she learnt to throw). I mention it now because I heard it the other day from a woman working in a photo studio in the 718 art and media park. Now, I have no idea where she was from, but she was speaking very standard Putonghua and there was no comment on my mother in law’s accent, which normally happens when people from Yanqing and Huailai meet, so I’m going to assume she’s from Neither Yanqing Nor Huailai, which narrows the range of possible hometowns down drastically.
I just checked three dictionaries* and none give either any alternative pronunciation for 扔 (rēng) or any character pronounced rou in any tone with a meaning even remotely close to ‘throw’. Nor does nciku’s entry for ‘throw’ throw up anything similar to what I’m hearing. Now, experience with Yanqinghua means I can think of plenty of words that have no written form**, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across such a word used by a non-Yanqinghua speaker before, certainly not such a word in Putonghua. So this leaves me wondering – is this one of the words common across northern and northeastern Chinese dialects? If so, why doesn’t it have a character? I ask about the lack of a character because in my experience those words common across northern and northeastern dialects can usually be written.
I’m also wondering if this word specifically refers to a throwing action by a baby because I never heard such a word until my daughter discovered she can throw things (and now I hear it a lot because she loves to throw things around). Update: Just before lunch my mother in law used ròu in reference to her throwing out rubbish, so perhaps it’s not limited to babies.
Has anyone else come across this ròu meaning ‘throw’? Is it specifically about babies or young kids throwing things? Sinophone parents, I’m looking at you lot specifically…
*A Chinese-English Dictionary (Revised Edition), Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1997.
《现代汉语词典（第5版）》商务印书馆，2005.
《新华字典汉英双解 Xinhua Dictionary with English Translation》商务印书馆国际有限公司，2000.
**At the risk of starting a fight: Sure, I can write ròu in pinyin, and doubtless in the myriad other phonetic and phonemic schemes devised for Chinese, as well as IPA, but I say “no written form” because real world written Chinese exists in Chinese characters. The existence of words with no character (and there’s no shortage of them once you get into non-standard dialects) may be an argument for full time Romanisation of everyday written Chinese, but that’s not what I want to explore here.