We're a mixed race professional couple (me Indian and the wifes is Canadian Chinese) and we're considering moving to NZ (possibly Nelson/Wellington/Bay of Plenty areas) from the UK. However, we're now having serious reservations since reading recent postings about racism against Asians. We know from our own experiences that racism exists in all countries, but is NZ really as bad as has been portrayed in recent postings?

I'd appreciate any advice on areas not to live/visit and feedback from any ethnic minorities experiences in NZ.

Thanks  

I think these incidents are somewhat isolated, but I have seen more evidence of racism here than in Southern California where I grew up. NZ has always been behind the rest of the modern world in just about everything (especially outside of the cities) and I don't believe racism is any worst today than it was 20 yrs ago in the UK when I lived there.

I don't believe you will have any problems in a cosmopolitan city such as Weliington, but I would avoid rural areas. I live in Hawkes Bay (Napier, about 40k pop.) and (from my caucasion perspective) I think it would be a good choice, better than Nelson.

I think it would pay to directly contact Indian and Chinese groups in the area you are considering, or perhaps someone here can do it for you.

good luck,

-Paul  

I suppose I should have some input on this.

I off and on live in Christchurch.(haf way down the south island). And I'm sorry to say that it would not be very pleasent to be asian in Chch. It really is quite a racist city, from my perspective. Dunedin is also quite bad,and Invercargill is really bad on that behalf, not that you would want to go that far down (freezing cold most of the time).

But saying that I can't speak for the North Island as I've never lived there.

To be honest I would rather live in any of the Aussie big cities. Sydney is becoming a brilliant city (despite the recent race riots). Much more opportunities and a diverse ethnic population.  

Good luck though wherever you end up, hope all goes well for you!  

Last edited by sentient1 on Thu Aug 11, 2011 1:33 pm; edited 1 time in total

To be completely honest, I think you would have no problems at all fitting into Sydney, Australia. However, NZ will be more difficult.

The smaller the population the more "different" you will look and that of course will attract the small minded people.

As some posts have said, NZ has child poverty and there are a lot of people that don't have much money. This breeds resentment and anger towards those that do have money and those that are "different" to become targets for that anger.

My husband is from NZ originally and I'm from Australia originally. We have travelled a lot between both countries and are now in the UK (after both working in Hong Kong). So we've been around abit (globally) and our attitudes are global.

If I were in your situation, the easiest and least chance of being targetted would be to move to Sydney or Melbourne in Australia with Sydney the first choice.

Good luck. k  

Just a quick fact for you that I heard on the News the other night; Auckland's population is 30% Asian. That's about 300,000 Asians living in Auckland, a huge community, so there would be plenty of support etc.... in that area particularly? I live in Wellington and there's a large Asian community here too. It's great to have such a culturally diverse community; our little 2 year old boy can now speak a little Japanese & Mandarin even!

The other thing of course to bear in mind is that both Australians and New Zealanders have a tendency to be quite blunt in what they say. They are not particularly politically correct and can sometimes offend by just saying someting without thinking first. They generally mean well, but it can come as a bit of a shock to the system when you experience it!  

Referring to SCARFIES Sydney race riot remarks.............You have to realise that these riots concerned only Aborigines and were fuelled by alcolhol and 'chromers' . Nothing to do with Asians at all.