(no subject)
I've just had it up to here.
When white Australians panic about the 'Asian invasion' and accuse Asians (many of whom would call themselves Australian) of 'stealing their jobs', at least in some way that's understandable.
True, there are a significant amount of people who live in Australia from an Asian background, whether immigrant or born and bred in Australia, and many of them are employed. Although there are many Asians who have professional jobs, there are also a great number of Asian people in Australia who are employed in the least skilled, least paid and least desired jobs. But yeah, okay, at least the perception of "Asians stealing our best jobs" might be something to be angry about (if it were, say, true)*.
THIS, however, is just outrageous to me.
I am referring to the headline that reads "Chinese firms invade Aussie Fashion Week" that I read when my MSN opened up. I just can't get over it.
I don't know about you, but the word "invasion" to me implies something along these lines: lots of hostile people doing things that impose on what's rightfully yours (and the OED pretty much backs me up on this point). Under this kind of headline I would then expect the article to outline how Chinese fashion houses are sending a flood of their collections to Australia's Fashion Week and thus stealing market share away from Australia, when in fact the article pointed out how a large share of buyers this year were coming from China.
So let me get this straight: these people are actually investing in and buying Australian fashion and thus stimulating a pretty stagnant Australian industry. The effect of this is, obviously, that money is brought into our country and thus contributes to our gross domestic product. Hmm, and what noun shall Nine MSN use to characterise this kind of event? Invasion. Yes, that seems quite fitting.
The only explanation I have for this headline is that when the Australian mainstream media mention the word "Asian" or "Chinese" (which is effectively interchangeable with "Asian" here in Australia), the word "invasion" just slips out next. It's like some messed up, terribly xenophobic word association that the media have been conditioned to.
There are a million and one ways in which our media do not reflect the multicultural society we so often describe ourselves as, but this particular headline has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've seen this week, at least.
* EDIT: on this topic, today I was getting some food with Ed at Betty's Soup Kitchen. The white people out the front of the place were taking their jobs in an extremely laid back manner, kind of hanging around and chatting amongst each other. By the time we left, there were at least 4 or 5 tables that had been eaten at and vacated but not yet cleaned up - beer bottles, half eaten some plates, the whole works. Behind the scenes, the dirty non-loungey jobs were of course powered by cheap Asian labour.
I commented to Ed "this country would be on its knees if not for the hoards of underpaid Asians doing the crap jobs".
When white Australians panic about the 'Asian invasion' and accuse Asians (many of whom would call themselves Australian) of 'stealing their jobs', at least in some way that's understandable.
True, there are a significant amount of people who live in Australia from an Asian background, whether immigrant or born and bred in Australia, and many of them are employed. Although there are many Asians who have professional jobs, there are also a great number of Asian people in Australia who are employed in the least skilled, least paid and least desired jobs. But yeah, okay, at least the perception of "Asians stealing our best jobs" might be something to be angry about (if it were, say, true)*.
THIS, however, is just outrageous to me.
I am referring to the headline that reads "Chinese firms invade Aussie Fashion Week" that I read when my MSN opened up. I just can't get over it.
I don't know about you, but the word "invasion" to me implies something along these lines: lots of hostile people doing things that impose on what's rightfully yours (and the OED pretty much backs me up on this point). Under this kind of headline I would then expect the article to outline how Chinese fashion houses are sending a flood of their collections to Australia's Fashion Week and thus stealing market share away from Australia, when in fact the article pointed out how a large share of buyers this year were coming from China.
So let me get this straight: these people are actually investing in and buying Australian fashion and thus stimulating a pretty stagnant Australian industry. The effect of this is, obviously, that money is brought into our country and thus contributes to our gross domestic product. Hmm, and what noun shall Nine MSN use to characterise this kind of event? Invasion. Yes, that seems quite fitting.
The only explanation I have for this headline is that when the Australian mainstream media mention the word "Asian" or "Chinese" (which is effectively interchangeable with "Asian" here in Australia), the word "invasion" just slips out next. It's like some messed up, terribly xenophobic word association that the media have been conditioned to.
There are a million and one ways in which our media do not reflect the multicultural society we so often describe ourselves as, but this particular headline has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've seen this week, at least.
* EDIT: on this topic, today I was getting some food with Ed at Betty's Soup Kitchen. The white people out the front of the place were taking their jobs in an extremely laid back manner, kind of hanging around and chatting amongst each other. By the time we left, there were at least 4 or 5 tables that had been eaten at and vacated but not yet cleaned up - beer bottles, half eaten some plates, the whole works. Behind the scenes, the dirty non-loungey jobs were of course powered by cheap Asian labour.
I commented to Ed "this country would be on its knees if not for the hoards of underpaid Asians doing the crap jobs".