He alluded to changing the regulations to keep smaller retail operations for Samoan business people only.

He acknowledged there was growing resentment among local business owners over overseas operators, but he encouraged them to learn from the Chinese about operating profitable businesses.

Earlier in the month Moata'a village had joined a growing list of Samoan villages that have banned Asian-owned businesses from opening.

James Zhuang has been in Samoa for more than five years and working at his father's store in Apia.

He planned to expand his business by opening a shop in Moata'a.

"However, the day the store was supposed to open, the Moata'a village council stepped in and that's when everything changed," said Zhuang.

Zhuang claims he is the victim of racism. "I know I am a Chinese man, and that is why the village does not allow me to open my store, yet other Samoans have opened up new shop in Moata'a."

"I will bring no harm to the village; I will abide by the rules and regulations of the village council."

Paramount chief, Asi Blakelock told the Sunday Samoan the landlord is one of his chiefs.

He said the landlord should have consulted the Village Council first before he made a deal with Zhuang.

"The Village Council was informed the night before the store was to open.'

"This new business came as a shock to us when we were informed that it would be operated by an Asian man."

Asi said a long standing rule in Moata'a bans Asians from opening a business there.

"It's not just Asians, the village also bans the selling of alcohol in the village stores."

Source

• Samoa Observer
• RNZ
• RNZ
• Image: Amau Appartments

Chinese woman Bevan Chuang said she had received information that the Right Wing Resistance was planning to distribute leaflets in Titirangi, Manurewa and Onehunga attacking Chinese immigration.

"Safety is the most important thing, so please don't confront the white power people with your bare hands," Miss Chuang said in an email circulated to leading members of Auckland's Chinese.

Source

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Static.stuff.co.nz

The advertisement for online electricity store Powershop shows the Chinese former dictator surrounded by Chinese people and soldiers posing with guns, and carries the slogan 'Same Power Different Attitude'.

Powershop is the same business that produced an advertisement depicting the Pope at the time, Pope Benedict XVI, officiating at a same sex wedding.

Auckland Transport communications manager Sharon Hunter said as a general rule they did not want to have adverts on shelters that were designed to "shock, offend or be controversial".

"Something which may be funny to one person can easily be offensive to another.

"On this occasion we believed Powershop's advertisement may potentially cause offence to Auckland's Chinese population".

A Blogger on the New Zealand Conservative Website remarks:

"Strange, how potentially offending the Chinese Government (I mean, come on, this is not poking fun at Chinese people - Chairman Mao represents the Chinese Government, not the people!) immediately creates a proactive reaction from the Council-owned company, while as an ad poking fun at the Pope Emeritis (supposedly marrying two men when the Catholic Church is totally against same-sex marriage) who represents almost as many Catholics as Chinese people (1.1 billion vs 1.2 billion) does not result in a ban on that other ad!"

Powershop chief executive Ari Sargent said he was not aware of any official complaints about the advertisement, which has appeared online and on billboards in Auckland and Wellington.

He said previous campaigns had been more likely to cause offence than the Chairman Mao advert. Powershop had received only one complaint through its call centre, and would be asking Auckland Transport to review the decision.

Source

• New Zealand Conservative
• New Zealand Herald

His father had migrated to New Zealand from China in the late 30s and ran a fruit shop with Barry's grandfather. He brought his wife and an infant Barry over from Hong Kong in the 1950s.

They rejected Sue out of fear for their grandchildren. What would Asian-Jewish-European children look like? And where would they fit in?

Sue's Jewish grandfather had fled Europe before World War II to the corner of earth farthest from Hitler's Germany. She understood what it meant to be different.

She liked all the things that made Barry Chinese: the language, the food and the culture.

"I had awareness of difference, so it was shocking to be road-blocked with our relationship like that. It was about cultural difference," Sue said.

Then, one day, before the couple left for their OE, Barry's mother told him that when they returned they would accept Sue into the family.

But with more than 10 per cent of New Zealand identifying with more than one ethnic group, the grandparents were right. Sue and Barry's children have had to negotiate difficult issues of identity growing up in New Zealand.

Their eldest daughter, Nicky, who is "very obviously Eurasian", has struggled with her ethnic identity.

"She has never managed to not be Chinese. She has wanted to be white, but she can't get away from looking and feeling Chinese," said Barry.

Nicky is engaged to the son of Taiwanese migrants.

Sue and Barry's youngest son, Richard, has taken a very traditional Chinese girlfriend - a real surprise to his parents.

"It speaks of the era that a 21-year-old grew up in and what was his playing field at primary school and his immersion with other cultures," Sue said. Continue reading

Sources

• Simon Day in The Dominion Post
• Image: Stuff

Simon Day is a reporter for Fairfax NZ

One figure in the history of Sino-Western relations that offers a tantalising alternative to this cycle is Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, the 400th anniversary of whose death was celebrated from Beijing to Rome two years ago. As the revered leader of the first Jesuit mission in China, established in 1583, Ricci still commands widespread respect and admiration.

Viewed as a rare exception to the bellicose and bigoted European culture of the day, Ricci represents for many a beacon of early toleration. He openly admired the Chinese: 'though they have a well-equipped army and navy that could easily conquer the neighbouring nations, neither the King nor his people ever think of waging a war of aggression ... while the nations of the West seem to be entirely consumed with the idea of supreme domination'.

For modern observers, yearning to make sense of our rapidly globalising world, Ricci stands as an irresistibly compelling bridge between the East and West.

The reality was more complicated. Ricci was desperately homesick, missing his friends and teachers, and feeling on the fringes of the vast Jesuit enterprise, with its heart in the exciting Baroque Rome that he left behind. Far from demonstrating a comprehensive respect for Chinese culture, he vilified Confucianism in some of his letters.

Even the much-admired 'sweet method' of conversion pioneered by Ricci, involving the cultural accommodation of missionaries to local customs and mores, in many ways was a pragmatic response to the problem that Jesuits encountered in lands such as China and Japan. Missionaries were unsupported by the trappings of Empire and so were forced to accommodate themselves to the dominant culture in which they found themselves. Continue reading

Sources

• Camilla Russell in Eureka Street
• Image: Mary Cosplay, Deviant Art