cases, lack thereof, was .significant in some interviews. Some students found their home stay situations difficult. and frequently changed home-stay providers. Other students fOWld that. being in a hostel environment. they did not interact with the Kiwi students - or the Kiwi students did not interact with them - and nor did they participate to the same extent in the 'traditional' social activities of university hostels.
Returnees that have studied in New Zealand more recently have received relatively better support than those who had studied in New Zealand before them (not including Colombo Plan students) and therefore tended to provide relatively more positive responses. It is not. to be fair, that the universities provided no support at all ; it is just that they were stretched
in
the support that they could provide. Some students found their support throughdepartmental secretaries, or lecturers; and other students had, by choice, very little to do
with the International Student Office at all. Sometimes the expectations of students of
university-based support were not met; this may be both to do with unrealistic expectations by students and insufficient or inadequate delivery of support services by the University. Other times, students did not expect the university to support them; instead, they deliberately sought their support elsewhere.
One returnee expressed the problem articulately: it is not that there are a lack of support structures for international students, rather the lack of support structures for international students are indicative of an endemic problem in student support in general; this finding is supported by research (cf. Ward et
at, 200 1 ).
It's actually a question of whether there are even good support structures for students in general and the answer of course is no . . . I think that that [as] international students we have the advantage of .. . clearly articulating that we were international and point to our differences. . . . That is the basis on which we have built an advocacy group and also a support group, so I would say that in many ways an international student actually has more support than most of the other students on campus . . . . Wel.l, of course the other students on campus didn't actually have the type of issues that international students face. I think certainly when you talk to [sic: about] accommodation, international students had higher expectations regarding accommodation than local students and so for them that also tended to have a priority in terms of accommodation. . . in terms ·of places in the halls and that sort of thing we tended to have priority [pause] so you've got an infrastructure there. I mean it wasn't anything specific, but it was just an attitude . . . . I feel that it was a bit more sympathetic to international students . . . . I mean not that they were unsympathetic to local
students, but you knew that international students as an identifiable group had a bit more support; it wasn't in any way· near enough [support], but I think in that sense we had more than local students . . .I don't think international students themselves actually saw that.
[Interview 1 0, RGSGM, 080201 ]
By virtue o f their difference - a constant defIning factor - international students could demand more and expect more and those two factors
will
unquestionably affect their perceptions. However, arguably, they have every right to demand more and expect more, for they are paying substantially more than domestic students. Whether their expectations were ever clearly articulated or understood is debatable. However, negative perceptions about student support as given by the returnees in this research, such as staff not knowing which name was the last name, grouping all international students together irrespective of nationality or ethnic group, staff not having an adequate understanding of Asia, and not understanding basic needs of international students, are inexcusable, particularly if these perceptions are rooted in reality. It may be over-subscribing an ideology to these experiences to argue that they are rooted in a dominant racist discourse, but it would not be over-stating it to say that these experiences are rooted in a dominant view of reality (which may include a racist discourse) that includes a perception of these students as commodities first and people second.CONCL USION
Belonging, according to Calhoun
( 1 993),
entails recognition and recognition is informed by perception. Asian students arrive in New Zealand where they are already perceived before they act: the perceptions about Asian students today have their roots in the perceptions about Asian peoples in general of yesterday. New Zealand has always struggled with being a 'nation of many colours' and that struggle continues. It is a struggle played through dominant discourses, themselves responding to increased feelings of ontological insecurity. More than any other migrant community in New Zealand, the Chinese community have struggled for recognition; they have struggled to belong. Both public policy and the public's perceptions have discriminated and excluded Chinese migrants, often on the basis of rnis-perceptions. These discourses of difference and discrimination are played out within the broader social context of a discourse of 'race',itself a categorising tool of difference, and one that dominates public discourse and shapes and influences perceptions.
The increase of Asian students to New Zealand has paralleled, in part, the increase in Asian migrants to New Zealand; both have grown at significant rates. Nevertheless, New Zealand has still some way to go before it will be a 'meta-society' for people of all ethnicities (Bedford,
1 996).
A dominant discourse of racism, by its very nature, excludes others, those that it cannot exclude it tolerates; it would have no reason to tolerate those whom it accepts. This dominant discourse informs 'official knowledge' ; it makes certain assumptions, which in turn shape its perceptions. Perceptions work both ways and Asian students enter with their own perceptions. These perceptions inform, in part, why they choose to study overseas, and inform, to a greater extent, why they choose to study in New Zealand and in particular cities, universities and courses.Bourdieu's sociology is helpful in understanding the complex and yet dynamic relationship between structures and agents for, while these students make their individual choices, these choices are, to a certain extent, circumscribed for them by strategies, structures, and discourses over which they have no control. At one level, their study abroad is to attain cultural capital so that it may then be successfully converted into economic capital, yet both the attainment and convertibility of this capital can be restricted. This is particularly true for Malaysian-Chinese students, for whom it is extremely difficult to get into a local university, and for the Hong Kong students in this study, many of whom were permanent residents, having left Hong Kong at the time of the Chinese handover and the Asian economic crisis. These Hong Kong students tended to highlight the oft-overlooked area of the particular needs and characteristics of permanent residents.
Students arrive ill New Zealand with certain preconceptions, but many of these
preconceptions were challenged or disrupted. Many encountered, experienced and perceived an 'unofficial discourse', one which challenged their hitherto notions of 'New Zealandness' and which held certain perceptions about them. The perceptions of others about Asian students were drawn from perceptions about Asian peoples in general. However, a dominant discourse underlying these perceptions was that of racism; essentially, a discourse of difference. This discourse of difference, with its modes of exclusion, levels of assumption, and actions �f discrimination, were irnbedded rather than