Yellow Peril by Tze Ming Mok

Forget the National Front; I'm being stalked by David Cohen of the NBR. According to his perusal of 'the records' only one Mokling was born in New Zealand between 1975 and 1985 - a girl fortunate enough to be called 'Lena Mok'. According to David and subsequently a weekly gossip column, this was me.

So much for kidnapping as the pre-eminent Asian Crime. Identity fraud is where it's at. None of this is a very big deal, but hey, what's blogging for if not playing around with digital cameras and making trivial notes on ephemera? I don't know how it came to this, but I ended up emailing David a photo of my original birth-certificate.

Poor Lena Mok, where-ever she may be. I've googled her: she's either Dutch, a Hong Kong doctor, or a 41st percentile result-holder in the Canadian Mathematics Competition 2005. Other people I have been accused of being over the years: half-Balinese artist Sriwhana Spong, OG Chinese artist/animator Pippa Fay, Shortland Street actor Li-Ming Hu, television journalist Kim Webby, television journalist Bernadine Lim, and some girl called 'Ming' from the North Shore who once did theatresports. They are all nice people with no enemies; conversely I hate to think people are descending on innocent Lena Moks accusing them of being me.

And people can be really adamant about these things. I had this conversation sometime in the year 2000.
'You're Pippa, Pippa Fay.'
'No I'm not. I know her though, we have the same hairstyle right now.'
'No, you are Pippa.'
'No. I'm not.'
'Yes you are.'
'Um... do you want to see my student ID?'

Sort of like my exchange with David Cohen really.

When I was about six or seven I asked my mother why she hadn't given me or my brother an English name, not even an English middle-name. She shrugged: "Because you're not English?" She realised that I didn't have the vocabulary at that point to absorb a discourse on postcolonialism, but, being increasingly stabbed by the guilt of having burdened me with not only an unpronounceable but unspellable name, told me in a kind of pissed off way to choose an English name if I really wanted one. "But everyone already knows I'm Tze Ming!" I said, "I can't change it now!" She said that apparently, I could, people did it all the time. I had a think and quickly realised that like Anne of Green Gables who wanted to be called Cordelia one minute and Dorothea the next, I had a hyperactive imagination and would never be able to decide on one name if I had all the choice in the world. "It doesn't work like that, you have to give me the name," I said to my mother, "that's how people get names." She refused. Thanks mum. She knew she'd probably come up with something dorky, like 'Lena'.

There are several permutations of the non-English person/English name game. Something white people seem interested in, is the one of people rejecting the English name they were born with, and/or adopting a previously hidden (or entirely new) 'ethnic' or non-English name, whether they be Chinese, Maori, Samoan, Indian, African-American etc. Some of these people are making political identity statements, some are simply following culturally appropriate practice by which we adopt more formal names when careers advance into the public domain, some may be pitching their appeal to a specific market, and there are combinations of all those things. Certain white people project a level of snideness about this practice, as if they actually know something about ethnic authenticity - although really, if anyone has a right to be snide about this, they sure as hell don't.

There are also some Chinese people with English names only on their birth certificate, and whose Chinese names aren't documented in any official paperwork. In some cases this extends to their actual family name, which has been obscured by historical English-language bureaucratic systems, meaning that their entire Chinese name bears zero relation to their officially recorded name. This doesn't make their Chinese name any less their name. It's just 'secret'. Which both myself and Secret Asian Man think is pretty cool.

Then there is the newly adopted English name phenomenon, which comes in many categories. Here are just a few of them:
- your parents gave you the name on the plane over from Hong Kong. This can work out okay, right 'Keith'?
- you picked the name yourself on the plane over from Hong Kong. Lookin' at you, Candy Ho. People really shouldn't let eight-year olds choose their own names; although they do have a unique charm.
- you've adopted an English name for work purposes in your adult life because you're scared that no-one will look at your CV when you apply for jobs.
- you picked the name while taking part in your first English-language class back in China, because it was compulsory. Lookin' at you, 'Mirror', 'Black', 'Rainbow' and 'Starry'. These are my favourite kind, and I have one of my own.

In 2002 I taught one English class in China, where the school required all students AND teachers to adopt English names. The managers were puzzled that I didn't already have one, and were worried that the students' parents wouldn't believe that I was a 'real foreigner'. So for approximately four hours a week for three months, I adopted the name 'Zhora', after the Combat-model/exotic dancer Nexus 6 Replicant in Bladerunner. Ironically, my first time living long term in a country where everyone was able to say my name correctly, I was made to adopt an English name which my students couldn't actually pronounce.

In my initial contract discussions with Sarah Stuart, then of the SST, now of the Herald on Sunday, we discussed the meaning of 'no bagging the SST on my blog'. She said there was a difference between 'bagging' and 'respectfully disagreeing', which would be fine of course.

Right then - herewith, some respectful disagreement with the content and framing of the Sunday Star-Times article on the 'foreign criminal explosion'. Oh look, and Russell weighed in while I was off checking my legal situation.

65% increase? A predictable news-use of statistics. Here's another view: the percentage of 'foreigners' or non-citizens in prisons and on remand has increased by just over two and a half percentage points, from about 5.7% of the earlier, lower prison population, to about 8.3% of the new, higher overall prison population. Almost as if I'm a journalist for a major weekly newspaper, I don't know what the non-citizen population of the country is, and have not managed to find out in the last five minutes of googling. However, I do know that the percentage of people in New Zealand born overseas was 19.5% at the 2001 Census and is sure to have topped 20% by now. The percentage of non-citizens is undoubtedly less, but the point is that from this information we have no way of knowing whether 'non-citizens' (eg permanent residents, students, work permit holders) are being detained disproportionately to their population size.

We know about 'Asians' though. Ironically, this article came hard on the heels of Jessica Phuang - our emblematic Auckland Chinese Cop - noting on Campbell Live on Friday, that 'Asians' made up 30% of the population of Central Auckland, and 6% of its crime figures.

You can play spot the difference between the Sunday Star-Times article and the New Zealand Herald story based on the SST's, taken from NZPA.

While both the original SST story and the edited Herald version suffer from the seemingly illogical position of being about immigrants or non-citizens, but not getting any opinions from immigrants or non-citizens, the Herald managed to cut out the most ...respectfully disagreed-with parts of the SST article: Namely, the contorted attempt to angle it on some kind of Chinese crime explosion. The Star-Times managed to make its story seem rather absurd by giving para 3 prominence to this line, after noting the entire population of sentenced and remand prisoners to be standing at 7500:
"The number of Chinese prisoners almost doubled," (bloody hell!) "...from 35 to 64." (my emphasis). You had to laugh at the accumulative attempts of the next sentence. "This includes three young Chinese men charged with the kidnapping and murder of student Wan Biao."

64 out of 7500 non-citizen detainees. Making Chinese nationals 0.85% of our prison and remand population. This odd focus was compounded by the SST journalist asking Peter Chan, random Old Generation dude who is not even a Chinese Association leader at this time, what he thought about the whole thing. I guess the journalist just couldn't find any actual Chinese immigrants - or anyone who knew anything about Chinese crime (even after Jessica Phuang's star turn).

Interestingly, both articles noted that the British were at the top of the list of 'foreigners' accelerating through the crime figures. But no-one has asked British Community Advocates (sounds silly doesn't it?) why their community is the source of such problems. It seems rather unfair to smear the Brits like this but not actually ask them what they think. Journalists are probably worried they won't be able to communicate through the accent barrier.

A few examples of notes made so far on my copy of the Immigration Act Review discussion paper: "Unconvincing"; "removing accountability"; "no adequate argument for change"; "fairness??"; "Aaaargh!!!"; "oh this bit's quite good actually"; and "you bastards!"

Okay - I'm about halfway through the 263 pages. It's long. You can read sections and make submissions online here by June 14th please, and register here for the consultation sessions. Be quick - they start next week! Click on the 'play the audio' link at the top of this post for the consultation timetable (word document). The Auckland refugee interests and community interests sessions are on Tuesday 2 May, at ye olde Roskill municipal stomping grounds: the Fickling Centre at Three Kings. Refugee interests 1-3 pm, community/migrant interests 7-9 pm. If you're in the biz, please register and come along. It's important.

Idiot/Savant is also on the case. Here are some of his useful running observations: a general first impression, comment on the Radio NZ panel discussion (audio file no longer up unfortunately), and comment on Section 5: decision-making.

For my part, here's summary overview of my objections thus far which anyone is welcome to use for their own submission.

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The stated third objective of the Immigration Act review is to “establish fair, firm and fast decision-making processes.” This objective supports a balance between fairness, procedural integrity, and efficiency. However, numerous proposals in the discussion paper are unbalanced away from fairness and in favour of fast decision-making and ‘firmness’ of state sovereignty (rather than of procedural integrity). Key objectives of the proposals displaying this imbalance appear to be:
- to reduce the workload of the Minister by reducing the number of Ministerial appeals
- to reduce and constrict the avenues and timeframes for appeals, and reducing independent oversight of decisions.
- to increase the powers of immigration officials at the expense of independent or accountable bodies and the current rights of individuals who come into contact with the immigration system.

My main objections to the proposals can be broadly categorised as follows:

1. Using secret evidence in immigration and asylum cases

I object to proposals to use classified information against immigration and asylum applicants with no right of the applicants to respond to those allegations at first instance, nor directly at appeal level [proposals 9.1, 9.2, 9.3]. Similarly, I object to the proposal to use unclassified but potentially prejudicial information against immigration applicants without revealing it to them or giving them a chance to respond to the information. [proposal 5.2] These proposals contravene the principles of natural justice and fairness – administrative justice principles which form the basis of the immigration system and which maintain the system’s integrity.

Shifting the immigration and asylum system towards relying on secret evidence also bears significant practical risks for accurate decision-making, even though the intention of using classified information is to increase accuracy.

Classified information cannot be openly challenged, which will always cast doubt on its accuracy and robustness. The sources of classified information cannot always be assumed to be dependable. Incentivising false and malicious informing is a real risk of these proposals. Unchallenged use of intelligence of questionable credibility from foreign governments is also problematic, as is illustrated by:
a) the arguments employed by US intelligence to wage war on Iraq
b) the ongoing case of Ahmed Zaoui, in which classified information of questionable credibility and robustness may have been provided by foreign agencies actively hostile to the applicant – for example, European security forces and the Algerian government. The progress of this case has done much to publicly undermine the appearance of competency in the NZSIS, and to bring the integrity and fairness of the Section 4a procedures into disrepute, to the point where they will be the subject of a separate review. Given the example of this case, it is bewildering that the Section 4a use of classified information is referred to as a “successful” example that can be applied throughout the immigration and refugee system. [para 545].

There is a significant risk of these proposals breeding an internal culture of impunity and an external culture of malicious informing, damaging institutional credibility all round.

2. Expanding powers of immigration officials at the expense of rights of applicants

I object to proposals increasing the powers of immigration officials to search, detain and arrest suspects [proposals 10.1.2 and 10.1.3], and in general to proposals increasing the powers of immigration officials and the state apparatus at the expense of independent bodies and the rights of those who come into contact with the immigration system. The overall approach of these proposals is stated at para 544: “This approach would clearly shift the weighting of immigration legislation from the individual’s interests to New Zealand’s interests.” I dispute that it is in New Zealand’s interests to erode the rights of people who come into contact with its administrative systems. These measures will also erode public faith in the Bill of Rights and the commitment of the state to uphold civil liberties.

In practise, the expansion of these powers will instil fear and mistrust into migrant populations, and will erode faith in the fairness and integrity of the immigration system. There is a risk that cooperative relations between immigration officials and migrant communities may be damaged, in light of negative historical experiences such as the “dawn raids” of the 1970s.

Expanding search and detention powers carries a risk of conflict with Bill of Rights Act, and of misuse by officials, opening the government up to extensive litigation.

Moreover, the argument for the need for expanded powers of short-term detention is administratively unconvincing, and supported by anecdote, but not statistics, in the discussion document. Assurances that the risk of misuse of expanded powers will be managed by intensive training of special ‘immigration detention’ officials highlights the fact that, as not all immigration officials will be ‘detention officers’, there is still the same potential for there occasionally being no official with powers to detain present at the right moment. It seems far more appropriate to invest in better coordination between immigration officers and the police so the police do their job effectively, rather than training another tier of immigration officials to carry out police work.

3. Eroding the status of permanent residents subjected to deportation and appeals proceedings</b

I object to proposals that reduce the status of permanent residency within deportation and appeals processes to the same as that of temporary permit holders [proposals 6.2 and 7.2.1]. These proposals show a disregard for the national status of permanent residents currently embodied by the differential treatment of permanent residents and temporary permit holders within the deportation/removal and appeals processes. As the discussion paper states, current differentiations are “made on the basis that a resident whose permit is revoked should have greater rights and interests in remaining in New Zealand than a temporary entrant…” [para 434]. The proposals devalue the status of permanent residents and permanent residency.

Assurances that the well-founded divisions in circumstances and status will still all be taken into account, begs the question as to why all groups should collapsed into one administrative category. If these differences are still all to be accounted for in decision-making, the argument for pressing the consideration of the different categories down one level beneath an overall umbrella category is weak.

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Next in this series: detention policy and international human rights obligations! Wicked-cool fun.

Possible last thought of Wan Biao: 'if these were real Triads they would have at least put some fucking rocks in this suitcase.'

So much for Original Gangstas. Actually I'm just a bit too sad about this to say anything else right now.

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Kept seeing mobs of unplaceable Chinese people on Courtney Place over the weekend. They didn't look like international students. Nor 1.5 Invaders, business migrants, or Southeast Asians. Who the hell were these Chinese people with their nondescriptly tasteful dress-sense and quiet conversational style?

Then it struck me. This was Wellington. They were O.Gs, gathering for the sport and cultural events of the Easter Tourney. That's right, Chinese people who like sport. When I first read about these Old Generation Chinese in Dragons on the Long White Cloud, which asserted how much Chinese people like sport I snorted in laughter and promptly forgot this impossible assertion.

Easter Monday and Jet bar was packed with O.G. yoof types. I chatted with Jason Moon as the event was winding up that evening. He had definitely enjoyed playing his character in Sione's wedding, "I got to play a real dick! I was a Chigger, man!" He added that it was a damn sight better than playing a takeaway deliveryman.

Too much of a FOB perhaps for the O.G. Jet Bar party, and true to my stripes, I ended up at Rain - the closest Wellington has to Margaritas. Not so much the 'most' Asian bar than, I think, the only Asian bar.

Perhaps it was because it was the only dance club open on Easter Monday, or perhaps because there just aren't as many east-Asian students in Wellington than in Auckland, but the crowd was in fact an interesting mix of say 50-60% East, Southeast and South Asians, with the rest whitish, and a boothful of Samoans who were laughing at all of us - a lot. They came round though. It's possible that Asians who can dance have the same status as Chinese people who like sport - no-one really believes they exist until you see them for yourself.

Funnily enough, I noticed this poster outside Jet the next day:

They should have given Jason a few of these lines in Sione's Wedding:
anyone with two cents would know
I'm a hardcore player from the streets
Rappin' bout hardcore topics
Over hardcore drum beats
a little different than the average though
Jet you thru the fast lane
Drop ya on death row

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Thanks for a lovely week Wellington. Keith and I met up with Che Tibby for the duck-into-face challenge at HK BBQ Cafe that Che has been going on about for ages in his blog. The food wasn't bad - although Keith displayed symptoms of clinical depression when faced with their version of 'Hong Kong style tea.' It is true however that no-one can really fuck up a lemon coke. I made Cha my permanent home as usual - the mala bean-thread noodle salad is soul food to me. The counterpart for that dish in Auckland can be found at my favourite little mainland joint, Huangs BBQ and Bakery (neither a BBQ place nor a bakery) at Lims Supermarket complex in Mt Albert, where it is done more mainland style, much hotter, with fat-ass rice noodles. Auckland doesn't seem to have a nice Taiwanese diner anywhere in the central city, although I assume there must be a few out Eastside - any tips people?

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Yeah. Hardcore topics.

The sheer scale of incipient fascism within the Immigration Act Review discussion document has bowled me for now. Maybe it's all my friends' fault for not being entertaining enough for The Man, or entertaining too much but in their own languages.

I'm going to Wellington tomorrow for a week or so, to catch up with some chilly friends in their lovely, conveniently-sized town. The specific impetus is to catch the brilliant Katlyn Wong Tsz Hung's solo show Mui which is on now at Bats. The show just had a great review from John Smythe at the NBR.

The most striking thing about Wong's performance is that by recreating the states of being some eight or nine people, many talking in Cantonese or bringing Cantonese cadences to their limited English, she offers brief yet penetrating insights that achieve an almost mystical coherence.

Is this the first time I've ever linked to NBR on this blog or what? You Wellingtonians should go check the show - closing night is this Thursday.

Kat's a 1.5er, and so are the DMP guys, who returned from their summers away in Korea and Japan for a triumphant Esteelo night in downtown Auckland the other week. The boys have been away for a bit, making a splash in the Korean and Japanese hip-hop scenes. Apparently Microdot is now huge. Both small and huge. The crew packed out float bar with Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese 1.5ers, and interestingly, a fair smattering of South Asians.

By now you're probably seen Jason Moon from Asian Downunder in Sione's Wedding, as the token Chinese in D-Rizzle's fia-Samoa Glenfield whiteboy crew. Here's something about DMP. They're not fia. This brilliant site 'Indians are Asian' points out that having a Western Diaspora Asian identity isn't about skin colour gradation or language; it's about acting like a thug when you're actually a rich kid from the suburbs. DMP know they're rich kids from the Eastern Suburbs and the North Shore. Even Dato, the Japanese teenager who homestayed in Mt Wellington from age ten and almost grew up into a Tongan Crip - well, even he has rich parents in Japan. I think that it's because of this obvious defining characteristic of the 1.5er Asian Invasion generation, that the kind of materialistic performative bragging California clubtrack style typical of bigthinking ghetto boys is not so apparent. It would be obnoxious to brag about being privileged already. But they're smart enough to know it would be dishonest to represent themselves as gangstas. Their DJ Jae-Whee spins it trueschool - even breaking out the Amerie mix is an identity statement (Amerie being half Korean and all). Dato, the standout performer of the evening, whipped up the crowd with articulations of our localised migrant identities. At times it's almost like DMP are conscious community-lovin' hiphoppers dressed as buff chigger blingboys. What more could you need?

My answer (as always): more Mandarin! The Float show confirmed my suspicion that the Taiwanese/Korean/Japanese 1.5er over-18 hip-hop scene has solidified. We'll be treated to regular Esteelo shows for the next few months at least. But DMP would do well to break out their Taiwanese affiliate David Tsai a little more, to not only give the ample Taiwanese in the audience a little more language to chew on, but also to extend the arms of local Asian hip-hop to the Mainland Chinese international students. Because, as me, David and Dato were bemoaning to a Metro reporter at the show, those international students are really really bored.

Another lesson for the evening: the only girls who can pull off the 'formal-shorts' craze of the last fashion season are tiny little East Asian hiphop chicks. And even then, yeah, they're pushing it.

More entertaining Immigrant news: a New Zealand Asian sketch comedy show is in development - A Thousand Apologies. Oh yes, Samoans aren't the only funny people around. Hopefully.

Well, Asians in America aren't bad:

John Cho helps Bobby Lee prepare for an audition. This had me cracking up my Chinese actor friend continually over the last week with exhortations to "Fur-REEEE-ZZHUH! ERRHL-AY-pee-DEEE!" (via poplicks)

Hapa documentary-maker Kip Fulbeck waxes predictable about his identity for a bit, but nails it three fifths of the way through with his 'Top 10 ethnically ambiguous Disney Characters who look like me!' list. Brilliant! (via Jeff Yang/Asian Pop)

18 Mighty Mountain Men do Memoirs of a Chinese Geisha: the sketch quickly tails off into Jap vs Chink slapstick, but deserves immortality for the introductory minute alone. (via angryasianman)