At real estate auctions in Sydney, Brisbane and other major cities in Australia these days, the only people doing the bidding, pushing prices higher and higher, seem to be black-haired, tawny-faced Chinese, in sharp contrast to the silent occidentals sitting beside them. Li Mei-shu, an immigrant from Ilan in Taiwan who bought her present house in just that way, says it is usually the immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong who fight it out the hardest at events of this kind.

This March, outside the government administration building in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, the R.O.C. flag appeared for the first time, along with a host of Mercedes Benzes, Volvos and luxury limos. Inside were assembled more than 1,000 immigrants from Taiwan, the men in sharply tailored suits and the women resplendent in gorgeous array. There they set up the Hwa Hsia Society of New Zealand, the largest association of Chinese in the country's history, amid convivial toasts, laughter and conversation. The next day the new term Chiwis (New Zealand Chinese) immediately began to catch on among Kiwis (New Zealanders).

Immigrants from Taiwan have made quite a splash in Australia and New Zealand during the past two years. Not only have they become the focus of broad attention at real estate auctions, but the large sums of capital they carry with them have made them prime targets for courting by banks. Almost all of them are "business migrants" who left the country in the past few years.

Shortly after the Second World War, the economies and standards of living of Australia and New Zealand were among the highest in the world. Rich in agricultural, animal husbandry and mining resources, they managed to be self-sufficient relying on exports of raw materials.

Both countries are spacious and sparsely populated. Australia has a land area approaching that of the United States, with a population of just 17 million, less than Taiwan's, while New Zealand is about seven times the size of Taiwan, with a population of just 3 million. Good social welfare systems offer lifetime security, and geographical remoteness has spared people fierce economic competition from other countries of the world. As a result, Australians and New Zealanders are leisurely and carefree, but their economic growth has been rather slow. Their leading exports are still agricultural and mining products, and they rely on imports for most industrial and manufactured products.

A well-known Australian comedian who went to the United States was asked by a television program host what he thought the difference was between Americans and Australians. "You Americans are busy all day long wracking your brains to invent new technologies," he replied, "while we're busy trying to discover a better suntan lotion."

So it's scarcely surprising that Australia now has the fourth largest foreign debt in the world, and New Zealand is still an agricultural and pastoral society. To increase their labor forces and boost their economies, Australia has been taking in 120,000 immigrants a year, and New Zealand plans to double its population by the year 2000. In 1984 Australia came up with a plan to bring in both people and resources by attracting "business migration," or investment immigrants, and New Zealand followed suit in 1987.

Under the two countries' laws, people can immigrate there as long as they have a background in business or management, draw up a complete investment plan and bring in a large sum of start-up capital (Australia requires NT$10 million, New Zealand NT$8 million). For many Taiwan businessmen, these conditions are lax and lenient, not to mention such advantageous factors as the countries' spacious living environment, their rich natural resources, temperate climate and relative proximity to Taiwan. According to a survey by the Institute of Ethnology at Academia Sinica, Australia now stands even with the United States as the most alluring land of milk and honey for potential emigrants from Taiwan, and New Zealand ranks number five.

Emigrants to other areas usually do so under the name of being reunited with relatives or accepting employment, but those to Australia and New Zealand are almost completely business migrants, owners of small or medium-sized enterprises, and their reasons for immigration include seeking a better living environment, considerations of their children's education, greater advantages for career development, concerns about the Chinese Communist threat to Taiwan and so forth.

Compared with North America, Southeast Asia and other areas listed as ideal by those intending to emigrate, Australia and New Zealand had relatively few older Chinese to begin with, and even fewer from Taiwan--not 15 families in all of New Zealand.

That situation didn't change until five years ago, when the two countries opened up to business migrants.

The premier business magazine in Australia, Australian Business, noted in an article in its July 4th issue that fully half of the business migrants to Australia during the past five years have been Chinese, six tenths of them from Hong Kong under the shadow of 1997. Although the total number of immigrants from Taiwan has been less, applications from Taiwan during the first half of this year averaged 130 a month, surpassing the figure for Hong Kong. The number of applications to New Zealand is also on the increase, exceeding 3,000 over the past three years.

Samuel Fan, who runs a motel in Auckland, says that three flights he met at the airport one day during summer vacation this July were all immigrant families from Taiwan.

Just five or six years ago it was very hard to find someone in Australia who spoke both Mandarin and Taiwanese, but now you can run into immigrants from Taiwan at famous tourist spots like Koala Park even on work days.

In seeking to attract business migrants, Australia and New Zealand naturally hope they will bring in investment capital to exploit natural resources, create employment opportunities and promote economic development. But many new immigrants from Taiwan, despite being proven veterans on the fiercely competitive economic battlefield at home and arriving with full coffers and detailed plans for investment, tend to pull up short and halt the troops when they see the business efficiency, market order, rise of labor consciousness, severe labor shortage (even worse than Taiwan's) and high operating costs they must face . . . even if they don't beat a hasty retreat.

Some factors inherent in the immigrants themselves also slow their pace in attacking. The most common problem is language. English is the official language of both Australia and New Zealand, and even though the immigrants include top-level executives, university graduates and exporters with years and years of experience in foreign trade, "their English is generally not very good," says Bess Chiang, a consultant at the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, the largest in Sydney. "They aren't like business migrants from Hong Kong and Singapore, who can pick up their briefcases and go off to find business or work as soon as they settle down."

"Very few immigrants from Taiwan actively make use of local business consulting agencies," says Ted Lin, an accountant in Auckland, "and they aren't used to going to official agencies and paying money to obtain information."

The main goal of the Australian and New Zealand governments in accepting business migrants is to bring in capital. They take no follow-up actions in actively guiding immigrants with investments and thus have no cause to demand that their investment plans are carried out within a certain period of time.

Well-heeled new Chinese immigrants, with no short-term financial pressures, can afford to sit back and watch. Most of them put their money in the bank (interest in Australia and New Zealand is high) and poke fun at themselves for "going into banking." Li Mei-shu laughs and says that her "salary" is a little higher than a bank employee's.

Older Chinese emigrants who arrived penniless in a foreign land with five or six mouths to feed would settle down anyplace they could find, roll up their sleeves and set to work.

But for newer immigrants, in no hurry to start up a business, settling down is a big operation. The first step is still finding a nest, but they choose a big house, buy a nice car and wait for their container of furniture to be shipped from Taiwan. They shell out handsomely in search of the good life, for a big estate with a lawn in front and pool in back. All Chinese have the thinking that real estate is a good way to maintain savings, and some of them buy two or three houses for renting out.

In recent years, as their numbers have steadily increased, most immigrants from Taiwan, through the help of friends or emigration companies, have congregated near the larger cities. In Australia most of them are located in Sydney, Portsmouth, Brisbane and Melbourne. In New Zealand almost all of them are in Auckland, with a few in Wellington, the capital, and Christchurch, on the South Island.

They prefer to live in the highest-class areas, and four or five good friends will often get together to go fishing or have a barbecue. This New Year's at Sydney, which currently has the largest Chinese community, two full busloads of immigrants from Taiwan went on an outing together and rented a luxury cruiser to enjoy the night scenery on the ocean.

When Koo Chen-fu, chairman of Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, went to New Zealand earlier this year, he was driven about in a Rolls Royce provided by an immigrant living in Auckland. Once new immigrants have bought a second or a third car, they go on to buy a farm or a ranch. Those with especially thick wallets buy a yacht. The next goal of Roy Ko, director of the Taiwan Fellow Provincials Association in Sydney, and his family is to buy a private airplane.

In their spare time they go off with their friends or family to learn English. The Australian and New Zealand governments offer free English classes to new immigrants, and in families from Taiwan often every member is a student. "In one family that's been here a year, the children think their mother's English sounds awful," says Chiang Ming-fan, who lives in Auckland. "Children are quick learners, husbands have to hit the books to prepare for doing business, and so many mothers are afraid they'll be the ones left behind in the family and study very hard too."

Just like overseas Chinese elsewhere, the new immigrants pay a great deal of attention to their children's education. They pick the best school districts and the most expensive private schools, and they keep in close touch with principals and teachers, being greatly concerned about how their children adapt and react and everything they do.

Their economies may be flagging, but the political and social stability, thoroughgoing environmental protection, multifarious outdoor activities and first-rate quality of life that Australia and New Zealand offer mean that the new immigrants, freed of the stresses of daily life, are getting by quite comfortably.

Homesickness doesn't figure into it for many of them. Although most of them still have relatives in Taiwan, "If you miss them, just give them a call!" says Dr. Front Liang, who used to be a major shareholder in the Jen Ai General Hospital in Ilan and whose wife rings her relatives in Taiwan almost every other day. Steep telephone bills are trifles for these business migrants.

Wu Ming-ta, who also lives in Auckland, recalls how his father used to leave home early in the morning and get home late at night when he went on business trips from Taipei to Kaohsiung, and now, "It's the same, isn't it? I catch the 10 A.M. flight from Taipei, change planes and arrive in New Zealand by 10 P.M."

If they can be said to have any dissatisfactions, it would probably be that workers are so hard to find. Wages in Australia and New Zealand are high, and their efficiency is not up to Taiwan's. You often have to wait days and days for a plumber or electrician, and sometimes just one workman shows up and you have to lend him a hand.

Just for that reason, many people who only knew how to do business or practice their own specialty have now become "all-purpose handymen." Dr. Liang, who used to wield a scalpel in the past, put in the doorbell in his home himself, and many executive's wives have become expert cooks. "A lot of us used to have someone cook for us!" Li Mei-shu says. But now they often bring food they've cooked themselves to potluck dinners at each others' homes.

Having emigrated in search of a better living environment, they have achieved their initial aim, but beyond that, the age of most of these carefully screened immigrants is between 35 and 50, the peak time for running a business, and while they certainly don't have to worry about food and clothing, none of them wants to live just on interest or rent.

And although banks in Australia and New Zealand may offer high interest rates, taxes are heavy there too. Chris Chiu, of Chew
Chiu Chartered Accountants in Sydney, says that without the help of an accountant, immigrants from Taiwan, even if they aren't working, may well be assessed in the top 49-percent bracket for their income from interest.

Inflation has been very high in Australia over the past three years, about 50 percent. Liu Kuo-hsing, sent by the R.O.C. Ministry of Foreign Affairs to serve as director of the Far East Trading Co. in Sydney, says from personal experience that you can clearly tell that prices are rising from the shopping cart you push out of the supermarket one month to the next.

That being the case, the capital that new immigrants have brought in with them naturally won't grow. Chinese are used to building up savings, and if the money doesn't accumulate, they feel like they must be loafing and start to panic.

In addition, while most of them have savings, they aren't all magnates and tycoons, and their money was earned the hard way, so once the honeymoon of the first two or three years is over, people who haven't been able to find a chance to start up a business can hardly help turning anxious and complaining: "The natural surroundings here are fine all right, but once you've seen so much of the scenery, that's that!" and "You get embarrassed tending flowers in the garden every day!"

There's a joke going around among immigrants: Take a walk on the north shore in Sydney and you'll find that the anglers all have black hair. If you go over to say hi and can speak some Mandarin, they'll tell you with a wry grin, "We can't make any money, but at least we can save on fish!"

Chinese can often be seen sauntering down the main streets in Auckland with nothing to do. When New Zealanders ask Lee Chu-chien, director of the East Asia Trade Center there for many years, why they don't look for work, he tells them, "They're doing market studies."

Just how much investment has been going on so far? Lee Chu-chien says it's impossible to run a solid operation in a completely unfamiliar environment in a short period of time anyway. These people have been there for five or six years at the most, and in a place where they have no foundation to begin with at all, "If one out of ten has invested in a business, that wouldn't be bad."

A report in the Australian media recently on business migrants pointed out that they have already begun winning some spoils. According to estimates by Taiwan emigrants themselves, at least 30 percent of the business migrants to Australia and New Zealand have begun operating businesses of one size or another.

Over the entire history of Chinese emigration, there has never been a group of immigrants that have been as "screened and selected" as the business migrants. More than 90 percent of them have experience in running a business or a factory, and all of them are worth at least NT$10 million, with quite a bit of self-confidence as a result. "The history of the Chinese laborer written in blood and tears" is remote from their case indeed.

Although they call themselves just "saplings" in Australia and New Zealand for now, a person can't sit idle for years on end. Once they hone their language skills and collect enough information, they'll be ready to make their move. They are well aware that many of their compatriots are watching them with open eyes, waiting to see what kind of world they can forge for themselves abroad!

[Picture Caption]

Huan Cheng-sheng, who engages in the construction industry, is building his third set of homes in Sydney.

Business migrants bringing large sums of capital to Australia and New Zealand have gradually been carrying out investment there. Shown here is a large piece of real estate in downtown Auckland, the capital of New Zealand, that has been bought by immigrants from Taiwan.

Australia and New Zealand have spacious surroundings, and many immigrants live in detached houses with swimming pools.

Ko Wei-hsin, who has already begun setting up a plastics factory, takes his family out for a cruise on the ocean in their private yacht.

Many mothers study English hard so they don't fall behind the rest of the family.

Several immigrants who live in Sydney rent a time slot together at the neighboring tennis court.

New Zealand's acute labor shortage means that owners who have just start ed up a business sometimes have to work in the kitchen themselves.

The Sun Farm Asian Foods Centre in Auckland is run jointly by three families. Partnerships are a common approach for many business migrants.

Samuel Fan, who is confident that his English is pretty good, poses with his wife for a picture in front of their motel in Auckland.

Most of the business migrants are full of confidence about starting up n ew firms in a foreign land. This commercial building in downtown Sydney already has a number of stores in it run by Chinese.

Lee Chu-chien, director of the East Asia Trade Center in Auckland, discussed questions about investment at a meeting of immigrants in June.

Business migrants bringing large sums of capital to Australia and New Zealand have gradually been carrying out investment there. Shown here is a large piece of real estate in downtown Auckland, the capital of New Zealand, that has been bought by immigrants from Taiwan.

Australia and New Zealand have spacious surroundings, and many immigrants live in detached houses with swimming pools.

Australia and New Zealand have spacious surroundings, and many immigrants live in detached houses with swimming pools.

Ko Wei-hsin, who has already begun setting up a plastics factory, takes his family out for a cruise on the ocean in their private yacht.

Many mothers study English hard so they don't fall behind the rest of the family.

Several immigrants who live in Sydney rent a time slot together at the neighboring tennis court.

New Zealand's acute labor shortage means that owners who have just start ed up a business sometimes have to work in the kitchen themselves.

The Sun Farm Asian Foods Centre in Auckland is run jointly by three families. Partnerships are a common approach for many business migrants.

Samuel Fan, who is confident that his English is pretty good, poses with his wife for a picture in front of their motel in Auckland.

Most of the business migrants are full of confidence about starting up n ew firms in a foreign land. This commercial building in downtown Sydney already has a number of stores in it run by Chinese.

Lee Chu-chien, director of the East Asia Trade Center in Auckland, discussed questions about investment at a meeting of immigrants in June.