Australian International University

Hey check this out, a spoof university. www.aiu.school.tc

I did a google search and there's another called which is supposedly "real". Probably a diploma mill.AIU

 

I took a little look at the website. Rather racist. Blame it all on Asian students for what's happening to Australian higher education.

 

I don't know about that, I'm Asian and I thought it was pretty hilarious! It's really making fun of the people who are ripping off the Asian students... equal-opportunity satire, basically.

 

I find it pretty hilarious too but also think that it's some kind of subtle racism. What they wrote about Aussie students are nothing compared with what they wrote about us. The broken English in the FAQs. How about the casino section? One of the many stereotypes.

Now there is this professor, Andrew Fraser at Macquarie University making racist remarks about Asians and Africans.

It all adds up. Asian students can't help but think that Aussies are just a bunch of racists.

 

I am a GWE . . . well, perhaps just a WE (in all modesty), and I found the site humorous but undeniably racist in tone and substance.

marilynd

 

You are right. Aussies are racist even though they would like to think they are not. They think they are superior to everyone else. Who are they kidding? My experience here are so different from what I had in the US where I did my undergraduate.

 

Ha..ha...someone has a very good sense of humour. Lots of not-so-subtle messages here about 'international' Australian education!

 

Aussies superior ro everyone else? Umm ..well, unlike some Asian country, at least their racism is not built into their constitution!

 

I thought the website for the institution is shocking and to have a casino on campus even more disturbing. Pretty soon you can also have a cabaret and a night club too.

 

I want to make it clear that my comment does not imply that "Aussies are racists." I do not know who composed the Web site; nor could or should I conclude that the views of the author of the Web site are shared by the majority of Australians. What is clear, it seems to me, is that the content of the Web site contains racist ideas. I did not intend to imply anything beyond this.

marilynd

 

Oh! But I thought that the on-campus casino was designed as a revenue generator for the university.

 

A Confucian joke by distant southern barbarians

Deplorable.

But this was funny: "No respect for elders or corporations."

 

I don't know much about this particular issue in Australia, but I personally didn't jump to any conclusions. Who knows who did the site or why... maybe they were a GWE, an Australian-Asian or even a pissed-off Aborigine. But the intent doesn't strike me as such. The humor is pretty raw, that's true. But it sort of reminds me of the first reaction I've seen in some people when reading "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift, a great classic of 18th century lit... it's basically a short essay in which he proposes, in very serious and reasoned terms, to solve the problem of Irish overpopulation and famine by getting the Irish to eat their own children and sell them for meat. Read one way, it's horribly shocking and anti-Irish... but the whole point is not to denigrate the Irish, but to attack rich English landowners who thought of the Irish as less than human. Swift himself was Irish.

The effect of the AIU parody site as a whole really only has one target: unscrupulous schools. It certainly contains a lot of racism, but considering the satirical framing, it seems like it's really mocking racism itself. I'm not suggesting it's on a level with "A Modest Proposal", just that I wouldn't be so quick to judge it.

 

Not another Australian institution with a hidden agenda to it.