KEY POINTS:
My biggest wish is that the All Blacks don't win the World Cup. These words from a Korean student attending a local high school shocked even a non-rugby fan like me.
Last week, while working on a story on international students and their New Zealand study experience, I spoke to this boy at an internet cafe.
"I am tired of my schoolmates telling me to go back to Korea to climb coconut trees, and putting my country down," he said. "If the All Blacks win, Kiwis won't just think they are on top of the world. They will think they are kings of the universe."
I too get such jibes from readers asking me to go back to my Third World Singapore, so I can empathise with what this boy said.
At an international education conference in the Waikato one of the speakers, Director of International Student Ministries Terry McGrath, said even after international students leave our shores they continue to play a special role as ambassadors for New Zealand.
But after listening to what this boy had to say, I looked around at the other Asian kids at the internet cafe banging away on their computers, wondering what kind of stories they were telling about New Zealand to their families and friends.
It was easy meeting students who have had terrible experiences here. Finding one who had positive stories to share was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
The conference, organised by the International Education Association, identified racism, inability to integrate with society, language barriers and bad experiences with homestay families as reasons why many foreign students did not enjoy their stay here.
One student from Taiwan told us he was made to babysit his homestay family's kids while they went out at weekends. And a Chinese student told us how he was restricted to 10-minute showers and limited cups of milk.
If these are their stories, what kind of ambassadors would they be for New Zealand?
The battle for international students is one that New Zealand is losing. Just a few years ago, 127,000 of them contributed $2 billion in foreign exchange annually. Now that's down to just 93,000 and falling.
Studies say we are losing ground to other countries like Australia, where international student arrivals increased 6 per cent and 11 per cent in the past two years, to 384,000 last year.
Auckland lawyer and former Herald journalist Raymond Huo said a big problem was New Zealand was gaining a reputation for providing "ghetto education", a term used by Chinese parents for ill-equipped schools in dilapidated buildings.
Nothing short of a law change was needed to remedy this situation, Huo said.
We also spoke to an 18-year-old Chinese language-school student who came here just six months ago but is already planning to join his twin brother in Sydney at the end of the year.
"My brother is getting more support from his school and is making friends with the locals," he said.
Students tell me making friends with Kiwis is one of the hardest things to do. A few years ago, I had a 22-year-old language student from Japan, Yuichi, staying with me in Christchurch. He wanted nothing more than to make friends with the locals.
But in a situation where his classmates were made up of students from Asia, and the homestay families listed with the schools were mainly Asian immigrant families, he found that hard.
He joined local sports clubs, but other than saying hello the Kiwis there didn't want anything to do with him, he said. The student, a Buddhist, even asked me once if I thought it was a good idea for him to become a Christian so he could meet Kiwis in church.
During the local soccer league season, Yuichi used to come with me and was ecstatic when cheering Canterbury United, a team he didn't even know but identified with through his association with me. Why can't the same be done with rugby?
The Rugby World Cup season presents a great opportunity for Kiwis to make a small gesture that could make a big difference. What if some All Blacks fans could extend their hand in friendship by inviting international students, like the Korean boy, to watch the games together?
This may come as a surprise to Kiwis, but many students and immigrants - myself included - are clueless about the game. The World Cup would be an excellent time for the locals to give those from overseas a sample of real Kiwi home life and share their sport.
It would help remove some of the mindsets, prejudices and ignorance that they may have about each other. For international students, it would also go a long way in preparing them towards their future role as our ambassadors.
* lincoln@iballmedia.co.nz
