Yellow Peril

About two weeks ago, ABC's program MediaWatch critiqued Channel 7 report on Asian migration and its impact on Australian value. According to its report, migrants from Asia are taking over Europe and New Zealand. Well Channel 7 seems to have frequently been bias and we can take this as the fact.

The number of Asian people coming to Australia is quite large. Based on the Immigration report in 2006 around 9000 people from Southeast Asia migrated to Australia and Northeast Asia has about 7000 people. If we treat Asia as one single entity then their number will make the number of Europe migration slightly lower. However Asian can't be treated as single identity. Chinese people would not be the same as Malaysian although the latter has Chinese background. You can't make generalisation that Asians are fucking the same because they eat rice!

One concerning issue for Channel 7 was that this influx will put Australian values at peril. Evidence used to strengthen this fear is an interview with two students from China who have been living in the country for two years. They seemed to have fun with these two girls' ignorance of Pavlova and Don Bradman. "Have you listened to that, hey Aussies, these two girls don't know about Don Bradman and never heard of Pavlova! Our Nation is in a serious danger! Our Bangers and Mash soon will be replaced by rice and chicken and lemon sauce!!!" What a twat! In fact these two girls have answered some question correctly but editing process allowed them to only show the public the wrong ones. Later on, these girls sent a complaint letter to Channel 7 and have a reply explaining that they didn't mean to offend them. A second twat point for Channel 7.

I bet a number of Europeans can not understand the phrase 'flat out like a lizard drinking' or will nod surprisingly when they are told that Lamington is slang word for a kinky sex activity. How many young Australians can sing the famous song of John Farnham, 'You're the voice'? Why the expression 'awesome' are often used by young generation? Shouldn't they say 'beauty', 'ripper', or 'bonzer' to make their grandparents proud?

Have they noticed the advantages of Asian influx? Many Australians can enjoy Pad Thai as much as steak sandwich. Old bastards can play show and tell with their young Asian looking chicks when they are visiting local pubs or RSL although i find this disturbing. Mums out there will not get into trouble to find Cinderella dress for their children's dress-up collection in 2 dollars shops.

Channel 7 obviously did not take any lesson from which history offers. Fear of Asia was one of the reasons for a warmonger Robert Menzies to drag Australia into the Vietnam War. Australian values that we have now are not something invented by settlers from Briton, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. They contributed to it but migrations from Greek, Italy, and others created interconnection of cultural practices which shape what we call now Australians values. In other words, hybridity undoubtedly characterises the rich and complex of Australian cultures.