Large earthquakes hit Christchurch

Did you feel anything, rey?

Not from Perth ...

 

And not from Adelaide...

Although I feel sorry for those people having to spend Christmas after an earthquake.

Adelaide ... jeez my home town (Gladstone) is just a bit North of there.

Utterly forgetable place ... apart from the tarzan rope at three mile creek.

But it is your home town, surely you would like to visit there again one day

On the other hand, my home town of Hong Kong is utterly unforgettable.

Hong Kong? Aussie Land? Really?

I move from 1 country to another. The world is a small place after all.

Agree.

How is Oz compared to China.

OZ vs China

Spacious vs crowded, freedom vs oppression, better looking girls (more variety) vs girls kind of look all the same, I am short vs I am average height, experience open racism 3 times vs I blend in with the population, stuff is expensive vs cheap...

the list goes on, but I say about the same. Better to live in Oz and visit China as a holiday destination as oppose to living in China and visit Australia as a holiday destination.

Hey that is pretty nice of you to say that Pyree.

I think most of the racism here is pretty tied up with the older generations.

My parents for instance are pretty racist ... small town people ... while I do respect their views I've had a few blazing arguements with them that's for sure.

Mate I hope your experiences with racism diminish.

In a few hundred years with some interbreeding we will all have brown hair, a decent tan, and I'm not sure about the eyes.

Unfortunately, the racism I experienced was from an old woman in her 80's (Told me to stop speaking my language. Don't care much, she is on her way out), a group of children in their senior years of primary school (Yelling abusively at McDonalds full of people and rude gesture. Disgusting parenting (don't see their parents there), hope the kids can grow out of it) and a group of young bogan in their 20's (Only a few weeks ago. I was alone in my car driving home. They shout abusive words, notably "chink" and throwing rocks at my car at night. Both vehicle driving at 60km/h. Overtook me and do a sudden stop to block me and I change lane to avoid collision and hostile confrontation. Scare the *** out of me, didn't even think of copying their plate number and speed off for my life).

Oh wait, I forgot about the numerous call to our family restaurant ordering cats and dogs meat and speaking in imitation Chinese gibberish. Also, a well executed prank where someone called tens of Chinese restaurant and order takeaway and only find out no one ordered when we arrived at the delivery address. Yeah, ha ha, a group of Chinese delivery boy all showing up in front of your door at the same time is very funny.

As to racism, I don't think it will ever go away. There will always be some idiot who hates for the wrong reason. But they will be in the minority, so I am not too concern.

About interbreeding, I think the rest of the smart people will have cybernetic enhancement and never die, as well as advance genes manipulative medication for temporary cosmetic modification, so you can look whatever you want. On the other hand, the progeny of those idiots will be stuck living in the sewage system like savages and inbreed like rats.

Mate, come to the States. You want to witness racism...let me show you racism...

Funny, that doesn't really happen around my parts. We have Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Russian, Moroccan, among other ethnic restaurants around here. People pretty much get along with each other.

Yeah, Virginia is a cool place to live.

This is the list of people's cultural background I know just from Adelaide:

Aborigines, Australian, Kiwis, American, Canadian, Sudanese, Nigerian, Dutch, English, Scottish, Irish, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Serbian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Greek, Indian, Pakistani, Croatian, Romanian, Nepalese, Iraqi, Iranian, Korean, Afghan, Russian, Venezuelan, Brazilian, Turkish, South African, Kuwaiti, Tongan, Malaysian, Indonesian, Lebanese, Thai, Ukrainian, Yugoslav, Sri Lankan, Lao, Mongolian

Adelaide is a good place to live. Very diverse, but racism is very real.

My friend Pyree...American in a mixture of all those listed, plus Cherokee. Everyone here claims to be Cherokee for some reason.  

@gamer: Here, where I live, there is a huge Mexican,( notice I did not use Latino,) population, amongst a huge white pop. There is always racism amongst us here...even the comments we make about the homicides involving Mexican teens. Sad to see youth wasted here, no matter what race.  

Any major city in America has some sort of underlying racism that is generally stemmed from the history of the city it's self, from the civil war, or from political ideologies. Atlanta is a great example, Detroit it another, Los Angeles is it's own shining example, most southern border states and deep south places that still sport the confederate flag, cities/states with huge age gaps (Florida), etc.

But racism is just one form of discrimination here; in America, we'll take whatever discrimination you want to bring and found a movement and PAC around it, cloak it in the first amendment and call it free hate speech...  

Religious discrimination has become especially apparent (mostly out of fear in ignorance), but that encompasses homophobia and extends to xenophobia specifically post 9/11. Since the twin towers fell the implicit fear of Islam has washed over America and it affects pretty much all social classes. I have the belief that 1 act doesn't justify discriminating against the many, but the act of Jihad, how literally it is taken, and the fact that anyone who is an "outsider" is an infidel raises one's own fears of an unknown agitator, bent purely on your extermination.

Regardless, discrimination is mostly perpetrated by ignorance of another culture and it's creeping influence it may have into one's life. Change in it's raw nature gathers fear around it, because nothing is certain and if the status quo is maintained, how could things get worse?

(This was in part a philosophical rant.)