EDITORIAL
Not 'Art for art's sake'

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

POEMS
Invisible Things
For King and Country
On the Way Home
We 21st CenturyYouths

ESSAY
Identities on the move: society, borders and me
- a ramble in the calm before the storm Megumi Kanie

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My encounter with that worldwide phenomenon for the first time - a shock or an impression that Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, looked somewhat like an Asian metropolis had caught me and made me write essays on this subject three times - what will become of the national identity of this country? As a Japanese who had never really left Japan, I thought that at that time. It is like a threat or horror that New Zealand won't be like New Zealand...later I found the term 'Asian invasion'.

But as I inspected, I noticed that it was not possible to decide what is typical of New Zealand for a start. This country is underpinned by an unjustifiable history of colonial rule - New Zealand's indigenous Maori people have been invaded - but they also have a history of immigration to this uninhibited island. Anyway the immigrant nation was formed as a reproduction of a Britain in the South Pacific, giving the British special treatment.

It is surely unjust from an Asian's eye, and it is natural to think that the entry shouldn't be restricted by race or nationality. But in reality white immigrants can become 'Kiwis' whereas Asians cannot (it was the topic of my latest essay). Although New Zealand society is originally made up with migrants, it is contradictory to speak of opposition to migration or social problems by migrants. On the contrary, migration of white people mostly does not become a problem and instead brings the problem of brain drain.

And this first impression of mine on Auckland implies the next issue: why did these Asians come to this country 'deserting the home nations' - are they excused from contributing to their own countries? It can be said that this is a reaction which realised my conservative aspect. When I was talking about one of my essays and Asian invasion with Hilary, a Kiwi lecturer, she told me, 'you're part of it' - I got out of Japan alone to challenge myself in a foreign country, but on arrival I found myself surrounded by heaps of Japanese and Asians coming to New Zealand likewise that could change the landscape of an urban area.

For the individual, to 'move' according to their free choice shouldn't be restricted, in respect of liberalism, I would think that rationally. However, when the individual's wills form an aggregation and the migration becomes systematised, its effects on society cannot be ignored. A passage of one book says that migration is no longer a marginal issue - I realised that it talked about this meaning, long after reading it as part of an assignment.

When it comes to Japan, it would be a considerable thing - Japan has not reached the stage of admitting migrants on such a large scale, although there was the issue of Iranian groups in Tokyo and a murder case of a Brazilian boy which brought up the issue of Brazilian migrants in my home prefecture.

There should be no reason that migrants are connected with crimes or social problems, but people often talk that they are associated with them both in New Zealand and Japan. The jeers like 'Go home!' sound terrible to me as one who is away from her homeland. But from the viewpoint of the host in Japan, or that impression in Auckland, I cannot stop wondering why they go to the trouble of settling all the way overseas. Conversely it may be the same as saying going back is reasonable or the way they should be...that's my self-contradiction...

So after coming back from Auckland, except for the desperate efforts for the 'last wish' to go to a university in this country for a degree, I had been inclined to the feeling to work and contribute to the country or society I was born and raised in. I'll be darned if I, of all people, will become part of the brain drain - I had some repulsion against such an elite.

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