Topic: The advantages of a multi-cultural society outweigh the disadvantages
Teacher’s Name: Helen Howarth & Kristen Shann
Date: 11st August, 2011
Word Count: 766
Mutil-cultural society has been described as a “salad bowl” rather than a “melting pot”. Multicultural is defined in various ways, but the following definition would be acceptable to many people: for or including people of several different races, religions, languages and traditions. [Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary] The term “transculturation” coined by Cuban anthropologist fernando Ortiz in 1940, indicates a transaction of one culture with another. Mary Louise Pratt coined the phrase “the contact zone” to describe cultural clashes and operations.[Multiculturalism from Wikipedia] I think those two different views to display people opinion. Some people think the advantages of a mutlicultural society outweigh the disadvantages, while many others argue that the disadvantages of a mutlicultural society outweigh the advantages. Personally, I am agree with former view. In my opinion, the most western countries are mutlicultural countries for the following two reasons. First, mutlicultural society focuses on interaction and communication bewteen different cultures. Second, multicultural promote national economic growth.
The first and most important reason supporting my viewpoint is that mutlicultural society focuses on interaction and communication bewteen different cultures. This means that we use own culture touch to another cultures. For instance, Chinese New Year festival in New Zealand. People might have different backgrounds and cultural traditions but most New Zealanders accept this multicultural New Zealand idea in the last quarter of the 20th century. Multiculturalism allowed the Chinese, some of whose families had been in New Zealand for over a century, to become more open in the display of their culture. [Chinese New Year festival from TeaRa] Chinese community usually celebrates Chinese New Year’s Eve, because we think the first day of the whole year is can influence next year luckiness. New Year in Western cultures can be a lively celebration that lasts from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day, but the Chinese New Year Festival can last from five days to three weeks, as a results the importance of Chinese New Year in China equal to Christmas Day in western countries. Decorations are an important part of Chinese New Year. People hang ‘couplets’ on walls and in doorways at home and these are good-luck sayings written on pieces of red paper like put gifts under the Christmas tree. Another interesting example is most kiwis like to visit an Asian restaurant, because New Zealand has absorbed the new culinary tastes of the other countries and combined them with more raditional ones to produce a unique New Zealand identity [New Zealand tourism guide].
The second reason is that multicultural can promote national economic growth. Immigrant play an important role in one country, because most immigrants are skills immigrant. This means that they need hard work to maintain their life. Multicultural society accept new immigrant find a job to get better life like to inject fresh blood in the body and the function is keeping the one country has energy. This state usually happened in developed country, such as Australia, Canada, United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand. [Multiculturalism from Wikipedia] According to a The New Zealand Herald editorial opinion, (April 16, 2011) , Chinese immigrantion was a powerful contributor to the housing boom in the five years to 2007 and China’s growing appetite for Australian and New Zealand export commodities has largely sustained our economies through the global financial crisis [NZherald, 2011]. This situation shows why Chinese focus on house,because they believe house is symbol of family. It is good practice to give this information followed by an example illustrating the point. Another example is Mark Engler (2010) claims that immigrant workers play an important role in building our economy and bolstering institutions such as social security in the US [Mark Engler, 2010].
Some people argue that multicultural society is a behaviour of native culture erosion. For example, the Right Wing Resistance, led by former National Front leader Kyle Chapman is planning an Anti-Asian rally to protest against mass Asian immigrantion, which he claimed “stole jobs” and “destroyed white New Zealand culture and heritage”. [Lincoin Tan, 2011] While it is ture that multicultural makes minority culture gradnally disappear. However, I believe that it is important for multicultural to make people is aware of uniqueness of minority culture , because people will focus on protecting the diversity of culture. Furthermore , multicultural combine with minority culture become a special culture in the future. This means that the new special culture have double cultural status – minority culture and multicultural.
Even though multicultural society make minority culture gradually disappear, overall I believe the advantages of a multicultural society outweigh the disadvantages. I would advise the government makers establish multicultural community and protect minority culture policy. I believe it is essential to bulid a international metropolis. If this is not done, achieved international metropolis is impossible.
References:
- the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary[Online].Retrieved August 11 , 2011, from
http://www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/dictionary/multicultural - the Wikipedia[Online].Retrieved August 11 , 2011, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism - Chinese New Year festival[Online].Retrieved August 11 , 2011, from
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/the-new-zealanders/13/3 - Jan Anderson.Changing Cultures . National Geographic reprinted in Thomson Heinle
- New Zealand tourism guide[Online].Retrieved August 11 ,2011 , from
http://www.tourism.net.nz/new-zealand/about-new-zealand/people.html - NZherald.(April 16,2011)Editorial : China migrants changing us for the better[Online].Retrieved August 11 ,2011 ,from
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10719634 - Mark Engler(September 4,2010).Labor Day : Immigrants help build our economy[Online].Retrieved August 11 ,2011 ,from
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/09/04/labor-day-immigrants-help-build-our-economy/ - Lincoin Tan(May 14,2011) Fears of violence if far-right group marches against Asians[Online].Retrieved August 11 ,2011 ,from
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10725505
