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What Is The Difference Between Race And Ethnicity?
Race and ethnicity are terms used to group and categorise people. While these two terms are often used interchangeably and have similar overlapping ideals, they have distinct meanings. At some point in our lives, we might get asked, ‘Where are you from?’. Or ‘What is your ethnic background? What is your race?’ That’s when we…
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Why Mental Illness Is Stigmatised in Asian Cultures
Metal illness is usually a taboo topic many Asian cultures. It’s an unspoken topic that is stigmatised, shunned and hushed among many of stereotypical Asian background. I was born in Australia to Chinese-Malaysian parents. No one in my family brought up the subject of mental health when I grew up. At some point in my…
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What Is The Difference Between “Mother Tongue” And “First Language”?
Talking about language is confusing. Mother tongue, first language, native language and so on, we all define these phrases differently. And each of these definitions aren’t wrong at all since each phrase holds different meanings for each of us. The other weekend I thought about this as I walked through the shopping centre near my…
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Why Are We Afraid Of Standing Up Against Racism?
I’m no stranger to racism in Melbourne. As an Asian Australian, racist encounters have been a part of my life here for as long as I can remember. But I don’t remember doing much about this. Over the years, I learned there are different types of racism. I’ve had insults about my non-Aussie accent and…
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Picking Up An Asian Girl. Being Asian Australian
As an Asian Australian girl who has lived Melbourne for nearly a decade, I’ve had quite a few local Caucasian guys hit on me. These encounters are amusing and annoying. They give me the impression some Caucasian guys are attracted to me because of my ethnicity (maybe some have yellow fever). These moments also remind…
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What Is “Asian”? How Do We Define “Asian”?
Asian. It is a word we see and hear a lot in Australia when someone refers to a person with black hair, small eyes and yellow skin and their Chinese/Malay/Indian/Indonesian etc. heritage. Asian. It is also a word that has segregational connotations. A word that means different things to different people as well. When I…
Mabel Kwong 