Dialogue: Gullible Kiwis only too easily taken for a ride

Something in the New Zealand character makes this country susceptible to the likes of marriage-for-residency scams, writes RAYMOND JIANQIANG HUO*.

In the eyes of Asian immigrants, New Zealanders are generally kind and caring, but also stupid and gullible.

This may help to explain why a marriage-for-residency racket could have been operated openly here. And why such a scheme is only the tip of the iceberg.

The people involved would not, it seems, bother to blink when choosing to take this country for a ride.

Bigger countries such as the United States are not immune from such schemes. But they are usually treated with more caution because immigration dreams can easily turn sour there.

Perhaps this country is vulnerable because New Zealanders often listen to their hearts. Or, as some of my friends put it, they tend to maintain a mood of holidaymaking. In that mood, an awful-looking spider may be treated as something nice.

If that theory is justified, it is understandable that a fake application in the refugee or family reunification categories, particularly those accompanied by touching tears, will usually win the hearts of immigration officers. Resident status is duly granted.

Then again, New Zealanders may be vulnerable because they listen only to their heads. That may have been proven by experiences with the Immigration Service, where a genuine marriage will be excessively investigated by suspicious officers.

In the vast majority of cases, processing an application for residency in that category takes at least nine months, the period believed to be necessary to test the authenticity of the marriage.

Probably, however, it is reasonable to suggest that New Zealanders, when dealing with Asians, listen both to their heart and their head. Often, however, the two parts contaminate each other.

New Zealanders are proud, confident and trust their instinct. Thus, when they face new or unfamiliar people or issues, the reliability of a relevant piece of information is judged not on its merits but on how it is presented.

When naked truth confronts a false assertion in disguise, the false usually prevails. That is where contamination takes place. And when the presentation satisfies some of their tests, New Zealanders will stubbornly stick to what they believe.

Police officers offer a typical example. The police force is extremely interested in such words as tong, Asian gang or Triads.

When someone is hated because of a business confrontation or a family feud, the police are sometimes sent a "black letter" - a term used in Chinese to signify dobbing in people secretly. The anonymous letter usually suggests the target of hatred is recruiting youths for a gang or waging retaliation by bombing someone's house.

The letter is usually written with a medium level of difficulty, allowing the police to work out its implication. They finally put together the jigsaw puzzle and take it seriously, not realising they are being fooled. The real gang members choke with laughter, but innocent victims are hurt badly.

The second example is called "twist". Years ago, a mainstream company published a Chinese-language newspaper. When one editor who had no English and no journalism background was challenged by both his readers and his staff over his tastes and professionalism, he successfully misled the management, saying the disputes had arisen from political discord between Chinese and Taiwanese.

The simple question of his capability suddenly became a complex political issue. No New Zealander would find it easy to solve the problem. Consequently, the newspaper was closed.

A third example is even more popular in this country. It seems that a claim of human rights or racial discrimination has become a convenient tool and will normally win out.

In the immigration racket, an Auckland-based woman, who allegedly acted as a go-between with the matchmaker and her clients in China, repeatedly cited human rights when she demanded that the Herald disclose the sources for its investigation of the scheme.

I doubt she understood the notion of human rights, as defined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

But as one source close to Chinese diplomats said: "She used those words because she knew they would please the Kiwis."

The source said that he felt sympathetic to the women involved in the racket because they were at least "honest in cheating".

Other would-be immigrants claim to be repressed Falun Gong followers or victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. And, said the source, stupid New Zealanders would believe them and give them what they wanted. New Zealand has, thus, become a dumping ground.

It is sometimes impossible to stop New Zealanders from being fooled. When naked truth confronts a false assertion in disguise, a spectator will usually see most of the game. But when an Asian spectator tries to warn of the danger, the rational New Zealander is most likely to become suspicious of the motive of the spectator.

When New Zealanders are duly cheated by the false assertion, they tend to either blame all Asians or to adopt a once-bitten, twice-shy mentality, and stay away from Asians. Communication is thus frustrated.

The exposure of the immigration scandal may see many genuine applications affected. For the Immigration Service, particularly, it will take time to separate polished bad apples when they are mixed with the good.

A fundamental reason is that New Zealanders' perception of Asians and Asia lags significantly behind the reality. When they eventually meet, they are inclined to get confused.

Yet Asians are not aliens. We are all humans and susceptible to common weaknesses, including lying and cheating.

To understand other cultures should not mean an abandonment of the principles relied upon for judgment. The doctrine of fair play, for example, is a universally adoptable key.

Put the issue in a context of our health conditions. Viruses are everywhere but they target only the weak body - or perhaps the weak mind.

* Raymond Jianqiang Huo is an Auckland-based journalist.