在新西兰
近日,一名17岁的华裔女生在一封公开信中倾吐心声,她认为由于不少本地人对华裔存在偏见,认为房价居高不下的罪魁祸首是华人,所以觉得自己不再受欢迎。该女生出生成长在新西兰,她表示一些Kiwi认为她“仅仅是另一个到新西兰抢他们房子的外国人”。一名社区负责人表示,很多年轻中国人也有同感
网5月4日报道 援引nzherald消息 近日,一名17岁的华裔女生在一封公开信中倾吐心声,她认为由于不少本地人对华裔存在偏见,认为房价居高不下的罪魁祸首是华人,所以觉得自己不再受欢迎。
该女生出生成长在新西兰,她表示一些Kiwi认为她“仅仅是另一个到新西兰抢他们房子的外国人”。一名社区负责人表示,很多年轻中国人也有同感。
“最近,我感到不再受这个生我养我的国家所欢迎。每天,我都被视作抢夺新西兰房子的外国人。尽管我深爱这片土地,但因为我的中国同胞们到新西兰买房,让我备受歧视。”
她表示很自豪自己是一名Kiwi并且能够在新西兰接受教育,也希望有一天能对社会做出贡献。但与人们所想的不同,她并非来自一个富庶的家庭。父母最初移民到新西兰时几乎是白手起家,也是靠着辛勤劳作才努力打拼下了今天的一切。
在信结尾,这位女生坦言,“这就是我所生活的世界,我是少数族裔,但却被视作外来者。我没有被一视同仁地对待,他们只是认为我抢走了原本属于他们的机会。”
奥克兰华人社区中心主席Kai Luey称,“很多年轻中国人也有同感,于是他们就成为环境的牺牲品。每当有什么事情,人们将矛头对准中国人时,这样的情况就会发生。”
Kai Luey表示,尽管中国人合理地被新西兰所接受,但还是存在歧视现象。“如果你在学校说话像一个本地人,那么你就会更平等地被对待。但只要有大量中国人出现,他们就会被贴上相同的标签。其他少数族裔也会遇到类似的问题。这是很自然的事情,当出现问题时,人们总是会找替罪羊,而我们中国人容易成为目标。”
他认为,尽管新西兰在包容接受方面已经迈出了很大一步,但仍然有很长的路要走。
下面是该华裔女生的完整公开信:
My story as an Asian Kiwi in our changing house market.
Recently, there has been an extreme influx of foreign buyers in the housing market. As a last year high school student, this isn't something that's the centre of conversation, but something that hangs on my mind, behind the piles of school work to get through.
Being a Chinese youth who grew up in New Zealand, I am proud of who I am. I am proud of my heritage and of my culture. I am proud to have been born a New Zealander. I am proud that I have grown up in the New Zealand schooling system. I am proud of my parents who worked day and night to give me the life I have now. I hope to contribute to society as much as I can when I can. However, just recently, I no longer feel like I am welcome in the country I have lived in for my whole life. I am viewed daily as "just another foreigner" who is here to take houses away from local New Zealanders. Despite how much I love the land I spent my childhood in, I get annoyed glances because people who share the same blood as me are taking away opportunities that rightfully belonged in our society. Except these opportunities are taken from me too. I do not have extremely wealthy parents who can support me when I want to buy a house. I do not have any advantage over any other young high school student. I have no one to count on but myself
When my parents immigrated, they gave up many opportunities and came with nothing. However, instead of living on the great public benefits that New Zealand provides, my parents hustled extremely hard. Starting with just minimum wage jobs, every dollar was saved where we could to pay for the mortgage of our first home. This meant my brother and I were never able to get the newest clothes and toys we wanted, and we learnt to settle with what we had.
The road to where we are now has been a hard grueling one. Since we were young, my brother and I learnt that if we wanted to be wealthy, to be able to afford our dream houses and dream cars, we have to work hard. Like many other high school students, I try my very best in all my subjects, and have many goals I am working towards regarding university and beyond. After almost 18 years, our once extremely poor family can now be considered well off, and I am almost going to start the journey for myself.However, after becoming aware of the significantly increase of house prices in Auckland, I felt a strong need to go look at it for myself. From the perspective of many foreign buyers I have talked to, New Zealand is like a haven compared with many other countries. Our society is mature and well developed. Our environment is to be envied. Our house prices are comparatively low. It's a great investment to diversify wealth, to many different countries. Unlike other options such as Sydney, there are no constraints. However, whilst New Zealand seems like a great place to invest in, this influx of money is not purely positive.
House owners are delighted, as significant increase in demand has resulted in house values skyrocketing. My parents were lucky to be able to benefit from this, and thus increase our living standard through their hard work. However, as a young student, this is terrifying news to me. This increase in housing price is just increasing the seemingly unreachable wealth gap. I have first handedly experienced the difference throughout the years. The cost of our first family home was just under $400,000 when we purchased it around 10 years ago, but now it has a market price of over double. However, the amount my parents earned around then were not that different from how much I hope to earn out of university. Something that used to be attainable through hard work is no longer something we can achieve through hard work. Our unnatural increase in housing price is making it impossible for our generation to purchase our first home without significant funding from our parent. This is means that even if you work your hardest, without prior wealth, it is almost impossible to take the first step into the house market anymore.
This is the world that I live in. I am a minority, who identifies with the majority, but is identified as outsider. I am not considered to be on the same side as everyone else. I am considered as one of the people taking opportunities away, even though the very same opportunities have been taken away from me.
By Anonymous (Age 17) 02 May 2016