Chinese international students' narratives: from gaming to gambling

This book is concerned with how Chinese international students develop their various levels of participation in gaming/gambling activities and how they cope with that when gambling becomes problematic in a New Zealand context. It takes up an impressive challenge and opportunity to clarify the socio-cultural specifics of this important topic which in turn will benefit Chinese international students who are affected by problem gambling. A narrative design investigates the unique characteristics, self-reported thoughts, feelings and participation and cessation for some students. Such a design enables Chinese international students to tell their stories so that the stereotypes that have been imposed on them can be challenged and alternative stories can be promoted. This book is one of the first attempts nationally and internationally to reveal all the complex challenges faced by Chinese international students in dealing with gambling addiction and stress associated with studying in a foreign environment. It will contribute to the debate and add to the body of knowledge in cross-cultural studies on gambling and/or problem gambling in a global context

Shifting Selves: Home beyond the House - A Study of Ageing, Housing and Wellbeing of Older Chinese Migrants to New Zealand

Older Chinese immigrants are one of the largest ethnic ageing groups in New Zealand. However, people‘s everyday experiences of settling in a new and unfamiliar environment have been largely overlooked, particularly for older adults. This research explores the biographies, identities and everyday experiences of filial piety among older Chinese immigrants. Particular consideration is given to the role of filial piety in participants‘ housing and ageing experiences. This research is one of the first explorations of Chinese immigrant ageing in place, which also considers changing enactments of filial piety. The research is informed by a hybrid narrative approach that draws on episodic, go-along and fangtan interview techniques used with 32 older Chinese immigrants in Auckland and Hamilton. Findings support the importance of exploring positive experiences of migration and ageing. Older Chinese immigrants do often experience biographical disruptions and status-discrepancies when they move from China to New Zealand. However, in response, the participants engage in positive activities such as gardening and art as a means of cultivating a new sense of self and place in a new land that is compatible with their existing identities as older Chinese adults. The analysis explores the material-mediated basis for participant adjustment and acculturation. Through adaptive acculturation, older Chinese immigrants‘ abilities for both integrating into the host culture and maintaining their ethnic identities are realised. The analysis also demonstrates that traditional Chinese aged care models of family support with high level of intergenerational co-residence are evolving to encompass practices of filial piety at a distance and to encompass more pluralistic familial living arrangements. The analysis also demonstrates the importance of considering how ageing occurs beyond physical spaces and within cultural, social, relational and imagined landscapes. The analysis shifts away from the focus in existing literature on how older Chinese immigrants are passively transformed into minority subjects to how they are transforming themselves through migration and their efforts to age well in New Zealand

Narratives of older Chinese immigrants living in New Zealand: the meaning of home

Inspired by symbolic interactionism, this paper explores the meaning of home for older Chinese immigrants. According to symbolic interactionism, homes may exist in physical form, but for the person or the group, they are pointed out, categorised, interpreted, and given meanings through social interaction. In that regard, homes are social objects which are constantly changing as they are defined and redefined, constructed and reconstructed in social interaction. This paper investigates the meaning of home amongst a group of older Chinese immigrants interviewed from April to October 2008. The methods of data collection and analysis were informed by a narrative approach. Initial and follow-up interviews were conducted with 22 households of older Chinese immigrants, with a total of 34 individual participants who were currently resident in New Zealand with permanent residency or New Zealand citizenship, who were born overseas and entered New Zealand under an immigration programme, and who self-identified as Chinese and were 65 and over years of age. For this group, home means a process of reconstructing the disruptive and discrepant self, and a process of negotiating domestic power. The findings suggest that the participant's narrative is a quest narrative, which reframes the biographical disruption as a challenge

Understanding Chinese international students' gambling experiences in New Zealand

ABSTRACT This research investigated Chinese international students' gambling experiences in New Zealand. It explored why some students become involved in gambling and how their gambling behaviour changes over time. Initial and follow-up interviews were conducted with nine male and three female students. Initial interviews focused on participants' gambling biographies in China and New Zealand. Cultural influences on their gambling experiences, and possible links between the development of gambling problems and their study experiences in New Zealand, were discussed. Follow-up interviews gathered further information on participants' gambling experiences, paying particular attention to their gambling activities over the six months prior to, and then after, the initial interviews. The methodology and analysis in this study were informed by a narrative approach. Findings suggest that Chinese international students rarely reported that they had problems relating to gambling in China. However, some participants in this study presented as problem gamblers in New Zealand. Study shock, acculturation stress, not feeling welcomed by the host society and achievement anxiety, all played a part in participants' problem gambling in New Zealand. These participants claimed that they usually started gambling recreationally, but then gradually shifted to self-reported problem gamblers. Problem gamblers were distinguished by prolonged gambling hours, wagering greater amounts of money, an augmented craving for winning money, and an inability to stop gambling at will in a single session. In this study, many participants who might have a gambling problem, had achieved some success in changing their gambling behaviour. Filial piety, acknowledgement of the importance of family, peer models, the experience of success, and financial hardship were some of the catalysts for stopping gambling. In addition, support from families, the community, professional services and exclusion programmes also assisted participants to address problems related to gambling. Successful re-rooting in New Zealand is significant in participants' post-change life. Positive post-change lifestyles involving aspects such as spirituality, music, study and work, supported Chinese international students to maintain change. This research demonstrates multiple levels of analysis, which adds to our knowledge about the socio-cultural meanings of gambling among Chinese international students. A number of recommendations are made for preventing and reducing the negative consequences of gambling for students

Housing, aged care and migration: the housing careers of older Chinese migrants and its implications

This paper builds on the Confucian concept of filial piety to explore housing experiences of older Chinese migrants who move to New Zealand in their later life. In the Chinese culture, filial piety refers to the traditions of respect, reverence, care, obedience, and fulfilling duty to one's parents. Traditionally, co-residence with one's parents has been paramount in practicing filial piety. Family members are expected to reside under the same roof, and adult children have obligations to share resources and look after aged parents. Using the concept of housing career which is concerned with the succession of dwellings occupied by individuals over their lives, this paper focuses on the homeownership of older Chinese migrants and their housing trajectories by investigating their living arrangements. Participants include 32 older Chinese migrants who took part in three interviews between April 2008 and September 2009. Results reveal that the participants owned their homes in China before they migrated to New Zealand. None of the participants however acquired homeownerships in New Zealand after migration, although a majority of them still retained their homeownerships in China. The findings also reveal that older Chinese migrants' housing trajectories moved from parent-adult children co-residence towards filial piety at a distance where children practiced filial piety and offered support to their ageing parents at a distance instead of co-residence. For older Chinese migrants, housing career is a process through which they tackle challenges and adapt changes, caused by migration and ageing. The findings suggest that there is a need for policy makers and service providers to understand the housing career of older Chinese migrants through the perspective of transnationalism and to place more attention to interpreting the issues of migrant housing and aged care through the cultural lenses of those concerned

Māori, Tongan and Chinese households: Medications and elder care

Research reveals that medicines are frequently not taken as intended, stockpiled for future use, discontinued when symptoms fade or passed to others. Medications are material objects with therapeutic uses that enter into and take on meaning within people’s lives. In this way they are culturally embedded phenomena that carry meanings and shape social relationships and practices. The symbolic meanings given to medications and cultural relations are important for understanding variations in medication practices. Households with elders often contain more medications and have more complex age-related medical conditions. In households where members are engaged in the reciprocation of care among two or three generations, medications within and between these relationships take on a range of dynamic meanings. In this paper, we explore how interactions between household members affect medicines-taking practices of elders and their families from three cultural groups: Māori, Tongan and Chinese. This research was funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand

The impact of coping and resilience on anxiety among older Australians

Objective: This study aims to explore the relationships between various coping types, resilience, and anxiety among older Australians. Particular attention is paid to whether resilience moderates coping’s effect on anxiety. Method: A total of 324 Australians aged between 55 and 90 (M = 66.7, SD = 8.6) were surveyed as part of the study. Moderation was assessed using structural equation modelling and plots of simple slopes. Results: Significant negative correlations were detected between anxiety and both proactive coping and preventive coping. Higher levels of resilience were associated with lower levels of anxiety. Age moderated both proactive coping and reflective coping's effects on anxiety and gender moderated avoidance coping’s effect on anxiety. Resilience was found to moderate the relationships between proactive coping and anxiety, and instrumental support seeking and anxiety. For those high in resilience, there was little association between anxiety and proactive coping or anxiety and instrumental support seeking. Among low resilience individuals, there was a negative association between proactive coping and anxiety, but a positive association between instrumental support seeking and anxiety. Conclusion: Resilience, proactive coping, and preventive coping are all important predictors of anxiety among older people. Among those who are low in resilience, proactively coping with stress may be particularly important for good mental health. The results of the study highlight the complexity of the relationship between resilience, coping, and anxiety among older people

The effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on the mental health, HbA1C, and mindfulness of diabetes patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

The clinically standardised mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has been utilised as an intervention for improving mental health among diabetes patients The present study aimed to assess the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on the mental health, haemoglobin A1c (HbA1C) and mindfulness of diabetes patients. A systematic review and meta-analysis approach was employed to review randomised controlled trials published in the English language between the inception of eight databases to July 2022. Eleven articles from 10 studies, with a combined sample size of 718 participants were included in the systematic review and nine studies were included in the meta-analysis. In the meta-analysis, outcomes at post-intervention and follow-up were compared between the MBSR intervention and control groups with an adjustment of the baseline values. The results showed that MBSR demonstrated effects at post-intervention and follow-up (in a period between one to 12 months with a mean length of 4.3 months) in reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms, and enhancing mindfulness, with large effect sizes. However, the effect of MBSR on reducing stress was observed at follow-up, but not at post-intervention. Effects of MBSR on HbA1C were not detected at post-intervention and follow-up. The findings suggest that MBSR appears to be an effective treatment for improving mental health conditions and mindfulness in people with diabetes. The measurement of cortisol is recommended to be used as a biological measure to evaluate the effectiveness of MBSR in diabetes patients in future research

Māori women and intimate partner violence: Some sociocultural influences

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has recently been acknowledged as a worldwide phenomenon, with approximately one in four intimate relationships containing some form of violence. This study explores the interaction between relationship dynamics, IPV and whānau and community influences. We completed narrative interviews with two Māori women in December 2010. Our findings confirm the results of earlier studies which have found that childhood experiences of violence, actual or witnessed, have a powerful effect that reverberate within adult lives and into the formation of intimate relationships. Our interviews show that Māori whānau and women are textured by the same patriarchal expectations that privilege men in the Pākehā world. We also found that seeking help from whānau to escape a violent relationship may not be the most welcomed course of action. We conclude with a discussion of future research directions

Asia-Pacific Perspectives on Intercultural Psychology

Today's world is more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. Within the context of globalisation and the associated increased contact between diverse groups of people, the psychology of culture is more relevant than ever. Asia-Pacific Perspectives on Intercultural Psychology brings together leading researchers from 11 countries to showcase the innovative, evolving and diverse approaches that epitomise the development of the psychology of culture across the Asia-Pacific region. The contributors provide a range of examples of how different psychologies of culture can inform engagements with a range of psychological issues. Central to each chapter is the relationship between local cultures and ways of being, and knowledge production practices, imported theories and methods from the global discipline. It is the resulting tensions and opportunities for dialogue that are central to the further development of intercultural psychology as a diverse scholarly arena. This important work argues the case for a combination of etic and emic approaches to theory, research, and practice in psychology, that this is foundational to the development of intercultural perspectives and more comprehensive understandings of both the universal and local elements of human experience and psychological phenomena today