Academic literature on the topic 'Chinese Australians – Interviews'

This study explored the life experiences and views on successful ageing of older Australians. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 participants consisting of 10 Chinese-Australians and 11 Anglo-Australians, aged 55 to 78 years. Data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results revealed that both groups associated successful ageing with health and personal responsibility. Anglo-Australians regarded growing old gracefully and acceptance as important aspects of successful ageing, whereas Chinese-Australians valued financial security and an active lifestyle. The research highlights that a cross-cultural perspective is imperative for service delivery and policy development to promote the health and well-being of older Australians.

This article analyses the ethno-cultural identities of Chinese Australian professionals through a postcolonial lens. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 21 participants, it explores how they engaged in self-Orientalism; casting themselves as exotic commodities for the benefit of white people and institutions. In particular, they enacted Chinese stereotypes through ‘mythtapping’ and ‘mythkeeping’ in order to secure recognition under the white gaze. As mythtappers, professionals presented themselves as custodians of an ancient and mysterious culture that offered organizational wisdoms for ‘the West.’ As mythkeepers, the professionals allayed white anxieties by surrendering themselves to white Australians as pathways into their communities. However, the professionals’ Orientalized identities are not passively determined, but are in some cases tactically and strategically resisted through ‘mythbusting.’ The article contributes to postcolonial theorizing by demonstrating how imperialist ideologies constrain the lives of people beyond the colonizer/colonized dichotomy and by illuminating the potential for their resistance against Orientalization.

This qualitative study explores how older Hong Kong Chinese Australians perceive aging and to what extent this perception affects their participation in physical activities. The main methods used were in-depth interviews with 22 participants ranging in age from 60 to 91 years. Interviews were translated from Chinese (Cantonese) and transcribed into English. Content analysis was used to find recurring themes from the interview data. The main findings indicate that the perception of aging is to some extent influenced by culture. Some participants defined aging as being measured in years, and others defined it by the state of one’s physical health, appearance, and capacity to continue fulfilling one’s social roles. These perceptions strongly influenced their preferences for and participation in physical activities. Acknowledging the fact that Chinese-speaking people are not culturally homogeneous, this article makes some recommendations to health service providers with regard to the development of appropriate physical activity programs.

This article examines the ways the Australian property market is addressed among Chinese migrants in Australia on and off WeChat, one of the most popular instant messenger apps installed on Smartphones. Specifically, we focus on how migrant media and real estate professionals’ narratives on real estate properties constitute and reproduce a transnational Chinese diasporic space between China and Australia. Although the latest wave of ‘property talk’ is relatively a new concept to the mainstream Australian societies due to the housing price boom since 2012, talking about land and property ownerships has always been integral part of Chinese diasporic culture. Yet, with the advent of digital media technologies, this cultural conversation is increasingly being delivered, processed and experienced through digital platforms such as that of WeChat. Drawing on observations on WeChat and interviews with Chinese media and real estate practitioners in Australia, we conceive that WeChat plays a vital role in forging and reproducing Chinese diasporic spaces in Australia by articulating the intersection of diasporic spatiality and mediasphere. We contend that WeChat’s affordances of the informational, interpersonal and instrumental have aided Chinese migrants and those Chinese real estate practitioners to co-constitute a social space of property talk that enables new social relations to be negotiated and social networks to be established and reinforced across China and Australia.

<p>For ethnic minority groups, speaking a heritage language signifies belonging to their country of origin and enriches the dominant culture. The acculturation of major ethnic groups in Australia – Greek, Italian, Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese – has been frequently studied, but a minor one like Indonesian has not. Through semi-structured interviews at various places and observations at cultural events, the study explores the contextual use, meaning and perceived benefits of Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language) among Indonesian families and how this practice influences the young participants’ (18-26 years old) identification with Indonesia, the origin country of their parents, and Australia, their current culture of settlement. The findings suggest that Bahasa Indonesia serves as a marker of ethnic and religious identity glued in family socialization. Parents believe that not only does the language signify their Indonesian ethnic identity, but also provides a means for socializing family values, and is beneficial for educational purposes and future career opportunities. However, parents face a dilemma whether to focus on ethnic or religious identity in socializing the use of Bahasa Indonesia. Interestingly, most young participants demonstrate a more global worldview by embracing both Indonesian and Australian values. How religious identity relates to more global worldview should be addressed more comprehensively in future studies.</p>

With the number of Mandarin-speaking migrants on the rise in Australia and the centrality of Chinese social media platforms among a large majority of this cohort, it is time that we examined the role of WeChat in political communication and citizenship education among Chinese migrants. In the lead-up to the May 2019 federal election, WeChat became a political campaigning battlefield in which candidates held live WeChat sessions with Chinese Australian voters. Despite much discussion about WeChat’s impact on Australian politics, there is little understanding of its potential educational role in citizen-making: to what extent does WeChat educate new citizens about Australia’s political system, democratic values, and electoral processes? This article uses the 2019 federal election as a prism through which to explore civic education and citizen-making in the digital space of WeChat. Drawing on online surveys, sustained digital ethnographic observation, and in-depth one-on-one interviews, we ask whether and how the work of certain individuals in this digital space engenders a new form of community leadership and a more engaged form of civic behavior. We also assess WeChat’s potential in facilitating the process of political integration for new migrants from authoritarian societies.

Previous scholarly work has elaborated on challenges faced by Chinese international returnees at Chinese workplaces. However, limited research has captured to what extent such challenges have involved Chinese Australian graduates in gaining employment in China. Hence this study investigates the challenges involved in obtaining successful employment in China. Drawing on a qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 Chinese graduates who studied at one Australian university and returned to China upon graduation. The study results highlight significant barriers to employment. Challenges include limited prior working experience, graduation in Australia that is not synchronised with employment months in China and lack of guanxi. This study provides important insights into barriers of employment in China for Chinese returnees from Australia and, potentially, for graduate returnees from other countries to China. It also discusses implications for Australian universities and for Chinese international students in Australia.

Over the last 40 years, China has developed laws for the protection of intellectual property rights. Unfortunately, these laws have not been uniformly enforced, making such protection problematic for Australian and other foreign organisations wishing to do business in China. This article first scrutinises the current Chinese laws covering intellectual property protection. It then examines the outcomes of a qualitative study that addressed intellectual property protection issues faced by selected Australian organisations conducting business with Chinese counterparts located in China. Forty Australian business managers/owners from Australian companies having business relationships with Chinese firms were interviewed for this study. The findings show that protection issues are only relevant to certain types of businesses that have intellectual property to protect. Nevertheless, a number of the managers/owners interviewed believed that infringement threats were real and inevitable in China, and some had even experienced cases of copying. The study found that, despite such concerns, there was little evidence of organisations taking proactive and positive steps to adequately protect their intellectual property. In order to address this, the authors of this article have developed a protection strategy that incorporates the use of the law, together with firms’ organisational designs, so that foreign firms can protect their rights when interacting with the Chinese market.

Whenever I write an opinion piece in any online media outlet about international students in Australia, I brace myself for the responses that appear in the comments section below the article. Often, a repeated complaint is that international students refuse to engage with local culture and society and hence keep to themselves by hanging out with co-nationals and speaking their native languages. While the general public in Australia does not engage in open conflict with international students over such grievances, they will instead discuss these anonymously online and with each other. Often these grievances have public airing through the media (e.g., Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners episodes “Degrees of Deception,” 2015, and “Cash Cows,” 2019) or for political point scoring by Australian politicians (e.g., Senator Pauline Hanson of the right-wing, nationalist and anti-immigration party One Nation; Kainth, 2018). However, the reception international students receive in terms of the attitudes of the citizenry unsurprisingly does not assist in any way in helping them feel a sense of belonging to their host country Australia. In 2013 I interviewed 47 Asian international students in the Australian city of Melbourne on their self-perceived identities, social networks, and engagements with media and communication technologies, in order to understand how they create a sense of belonging for themselves while overseas (Gomes,2015, 2017). The results revealed that international students create a parallel society with other international students in order to cope with living in a foreign country without the familiarity of family or loved ones who they left behind. While this parallel society allows international students to create a sense of community in Australia, its side effect is a perceived distancing from local society. An International Student Parallel Society International students strongly identify themselves more so as international students than their nationality. A student from India, for instance, explained that while in Australia, he prefers to be identified as an international student rather than by his nationality. Taking this point further, a student from Vietnam explained that while he is proud of his nationality, he prefers not to reveal that he is from Vietnam for fear of any negative assumptions the citizenry make about Vietnamese people. These negative assumptions he felt, would then be translated into ways the citizenry might treat him. At the same time, the Asian international students also revealed that they did not consider ethnicity as significant to them. This was played out interestingly in how they viewed Asian Australians. Here the students felt that they had very little in common with Asians who were born or grew up in Australia. An international student from China explained that Australians of ethnic Chinese descent or ABCs (Australian-born Chinese) as she called them, were more Australian than they were Chinese. Meanwhile an Indian student undertaking postgraduate study vividly explained that he thought Indian-Australians were “not true Indians.” He said that while they may look like him, they were significantly different because he considered Indian-Australians culturally Australian and not culturally Indian. These responses are not surprising. In a separate study where colleagues and I surveyed 6,699 international students in Australia on who made up their friendship circles, we found that less than 1% of international students were friends with Australians who were of the same ethnicity as them (Gomes et al., 2015). International students identifying themselves according to their status as foreigners studying in Australia also provides itself to be a beacon for the development of friendships with other international students. The Asian international students interviewed revealed that their friendship circles were made up of fellow international students who were co-nationals in the first instance, which was followed by international students from the Asian region, and then, to a lesser extent, international students from elsewhere. These friendship circles contribute to the parallel society international students inhabit where they exist, occupy, and mimic Australian communities but do not integrate with them. For instance, international students may adopt and recreate Australian cultural practices that involve their friendship circles (e.g., having backyard barbeque parties) but do not integrate with Australian societies (e.g., the backyard barbeque parties are made up solely of fellow international students). In addition, forming friendships with fellow international students rather than with local communities has practical benefits. For instance, international students revealed that their local peers were unable to advise them on the everyday challenges they faced especially when they first arrive to Australia such as how to open bank accounts and where to find dependable Asian grocery shops. Clearly being friends with international students is important, if not necessary. Conclusion The significance of international student friendships during their study experience is enduring, if not complex. While international students may form a parallel society, they do so in order to feel a sense of belonging in Australia rather than to Australia. Though this is unsurprising, the challenge that emerges affects those international students wanting to stay longer through further study, work, or permanently reside. Not integrating somewhat into Australian society may have consequences for students in terms of their long-term plans (e.g., employment) primarily because they have not tapped into local networks.

ABSTRACTCaring for elderly relatives has predominately been explored from the standpoint of the needs and experiences of the hegemonic culture in multicultural countries like Australia, Canada and the United States of America. Australia, in particular, has paid scant attention to cultural and linguistically diverse groups in relation to caring for the aged. In this paper we focus on Chinese-Australian families caring for elderly relatives. We explore the traditional value of filial piety which is said to underpin social norms and beliefs about caring for aged parents in Chinese cultures. Specifically we draw on four in-depth interviews with Chinese-Australian care-givers of elderly relatives to identify meanings of filial piety and practices of filial piety. Findings indicate that while filial piety is still an important value in caring for the aged, meanings about how to practise filial piety are changing and vary across families.

This thesis examines the construction of ?Chineseness? by Australian-born Chinese through their interactions with mainstream ?white? society and Chinese diasporic communities in Australia. It represents an interdisciplinary study based on qualitative research and critical analysis of forty-three in-depth interviews with Australian-born Chinese whose families have resided in Australia for three generations or more. Diasporic narratives, fraught with contentions over belonging and difference, often lead to ambiguous ramifications of identity formation. While the notion of hybridity problematises the unsettling boundaries of identities, there is still a continuing perception that ethnic identification decreases over successive generations, resulting in assimilation. However, contrary to this assumption, this study shows that subsequent generations also encounter complicated experiences involving both feelings of cultural ambivalence and enrichment. While the rewriting of identity takes place against the varying circumstances of resettlement, the experiences and transitions across the respondents? life course concurrently inscribes Chineseness onto their lives in diverse ways. Furthermore, Chineseness is continually (re)constructed through decentered connections with an imaginary homeland. Consequently, despite generational longevity, strong affinities with Australian society and longstanding national identities grounded in Australian culture, Chineseness is still a significant part of their identity, whether they willingly choose to associate with it or not. The focus on revaluating the concept of Chineseness and elucidating the sense of identity of sequential generations has important ramifications for the development of a more informed theoretical model for understanding the long-term effects of migration, especially on the process of identity formation and feelings of home and belonging.

The need to transition to low-carbon mobilities is informed by evidence of extensive car dependence. This transition will require changes to places, technologies, policies, ideas and behaviours. But these changes will not hinge solely on innovation, or ‘new’ modes of transport. Low carbon mobilities are already being practised by some social groups – even in heavily car dependent places. This case study foregrounds one such group: Chinese migrants living in Sydney, Australia. Chinese migrants own fewer cars and use them less extensively than the broader Australian population. The Chinese migrants who were interviewed in this study intentionally oriented their lives around public transport nodes. They did so based on pre-migration transport norms – developed in contexts where public transport use remains ubiquitous – rather than out of environmental concern. Nonetheless, interviewees’ ongoing use of public transport post-migration has important environmental benefits. In this case study, attention is given to understanding pre-migration norms, embodied experiences and transport habits. It considers how low carbon transport habits can be sustained and lost between different places. Greater attentiveness to the transport practices of migrants is needed, as are resources to support and sustain their lower-carbon mobilities over the longer-term.

Culture and identity play a significant role in the education of Indigenous and non-Western doctoral students. While a substantial body of literature explores interpersonal communication in doctoral supervision, it remains largely silent about how history impacts on doctoral students' identities and their potential for unique knowledge creation. This book chapter draws upon postcolonial/decolonial theories and life history methodologies in order to more effectively contextualise Indigenous and non-Western doctoral students' identities in Australia. These life histories include those outlined by the Indigenous and Chinese members of this team of authors as well as one life history interview with a migrant Asian student. Through careful theorisation of the interconnections between the life histories of our participants and their supervision experience, an inventory of supervision strategies will be distilled to improve intercultural supervision.

Culture and identity play a significant role in the education of Indigenous and non-Western doctoral students. While a substantial body of literature explores interpersonal communication in doctoral supervision, it remains largely silent about how history impacts on doctoral students' identities and their potential for unique knowledge creation. This book chapter draws upon postcolonial/decolonial theories and life history methodologies in order to more effectively contextualise Indigenous and non-Western doctoral students' identities in Australia. These life histories include those outlined by the Indigenous and Chinese members of this team of authors as well as one life history interview with a migrant Asian student. Through careful theorisation of the interconnections between the life histories of our participants and their supervision experience, an inventory of supervision strategies will be distilled to improve intercultural supervision.

This chapter examines the business strategies adopted by transnational digital entrepreneurship (TDE) through the lens of immigrant, transnational, digital entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial ecosystem theories and practices. The chapter focuses on how transnational digital entrepreneurs deploy integrated strategies in the TDE process. The chapter argues proactive growth strategies and ecosystem strategies play critical structural roles in the TDE. This case study interviewed 12 Chinese transnational digital entrepreneurs in New Zealand and Australia. The results of qualitative data analysis show that transnational digital entrepreneurs rely on the resources and opportunities provided by both host and home country entrepreneurial ecosystems, and digital entrepreneurial ecosystem plays a transnational bridging role for these entrepreneurs. The results also demonstrate that the traditional immigrant entrepreneurial strategies, transnational strategies, and digital strategies have been integrated and adopted by these transnational digital entrepreneurs.

This chapter examines factors impacting L2 WTC among Chinese ELLs studying in an EAP program in Australia. Adopting both quantitative and qualitative methods, three questionnaires were used to measure L2 WTC, English learning motivation, and self-rated English proficiency; and semi-structured interviews were used to triangulate and complement questionnaire data. The main results were (1) L2 WTC with friends was higher than L2 WTC with acquaintance and with strangers and (2) L2 WTC with strangers and acquaintances were positively related to integrativeness and attitude toward the learning situation, but not with motivation intensity. L2 WTC with friends did not correlate with any of the scales in the English learning motivation; thus, (3) L2 WTC with strangers and acquaintances but not with friends had positive association with self-rated English proficiency, and (4) factors such as teaching methods, teachers' attitude, learning style, and personality all impacted on L2 WTC. The results are discussed and practical implications are articulated.

In recent years, urban environmental quality and urban vitality have attracted more scholars’ attention than ever as Chinese cities experienced a rapid development stage. To test the influence of urban built environment on walkability in residential areas, this study developed a questionnaire to perceive the users’ perception of walkability around their neighbourhood in residential areas, which was based on the Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale for Mainland China (NEWS-MC). The original Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS) are developed for use in USA to measure residents’ perceptions of the environment attributes, and has been applied in many countries, such as US, Australia, Korea and Hong Kong, and be modify to be Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale for Mainland China (NEWS-MC) and been applied in Chinese cities. NEWS-MC has been found have moderate to high rest-retest reliabilities and good criterion The evidence illustrated high-walkable neighbourhoods be found with higher density, land-use mix, street connectivity, more safety and have more aesthetics elements. In this study, we modified NEWS-MC to reflect the characteristics of cold region Chinese built environment and people’s behaviour mode. To perceive the final version of Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale for cold region Chinese cities (NEWSCRC), We made a pilot study which include 50 samples, then interview 800 residents from 6 selected residential districts in Harbin (the capital city with highest latitude in China) which were different in walkability attributes and economic status. The final version of the NEWS-CRC included 8 subscales and 3 single items (76 items in total). Test-retest reliability showed moderate to high except 4 items . In total, the NEWS-CRC could illustrate residents’ perceptions of walkability attributes in cold region Chinese cities and could be use in other Chinese urban attributes studies related to walking