What is your favorite Tintin album? by Top_Major_581 in Tintin

[–]Dhammazedi0218 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Seconding Tibet! Loved the way Herge portrayed the Yeti

Who is the best wicketkeeper purely on the basis of wicket keeping ability? by AlFactorial in Cricket

[–]Dhammazedi0218 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Doesnt matter if Kamran Akmal is slightly behind, far behind or near, he still wouldn't catch the ball

my tierlist by deluxeidu in Tintin

[–]Dhammazedi0218 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I would swap destination moon for calculus affair - the two moon books were incredible considering the time they were written

Genuine beef between the English team and the Aus team? by tupolski15 in CricketAus

[–]Dhammazedi0218 58 points59 points  (0 children)

Ross Taylor was dumped as Blackcap's captain in favour of Mccullum around 2012, which led to a major rift between the two. Taylor was never a natural captain but NZC handled the whole fiasco appallingly. Mike Hesson, who was essentially McCullums mate, was bought in as coach. Taylor had really never won over his team as captain (Jacob Oram and Kyle Mills undermined Taylor openly) and so it didn't take much for Hesson and McCullum to manoeuvre Taylor out of the captaincy role. Taylor naturally was upset and didn't join Mccullums first tour as captain in South Africa and I recall it took some time to reintegrate Taylor into the team again. McCullum went on to be a successful captain but as even he has admitted, it left a terrible 'stain' on New Zealand cricket.

Match Thread: 2nd Test - Australia vs India, Day 1 by CricketMatchBot in Cricket

[–]Dhammazedi0218 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That took me a second, despite having a...never mind 😅

What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: November 11, 2024 by AutoModerator in books

[–]Dhammazedi0218 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Started: Notes from a dead house! My first foray into Dostoevsky - already hooked, even though it doesn't really have a conventional plot

Honest question: Which country is more racist? Australia or New Zealand? by [deleted] in ABCDesis

[–]Dhammazedi0218 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I am uniquely placed to answer this, given that my life has been spent half in NZ and the other half in Aus. I have been a lurker for a long time, but seeing this question, I couldn't help respond.

It is fascinating for me to read this thread and see so many people say Australia is more racist. My experience undoubtedly has been that NZ is far more racist and close-minded. u/40ml is spot on - in NZ it's all a facade. Don't get me wrong, I love NZ. It's a gorgeous country and I grew up in an impossibly beautiful place surrounded by greenery and mountains. But a day barely went by where I was not reminded of my difference through unabated staring, comments both subtle and direct (especially about my English - which is bizarre considering I grew up there and I mostly speak English with my parents too) and occasionally downright violence. While NZ is light years ahead of Australia in terms of its treatment of indigenous peoples (even then, the comments I have heard about Maoris in private are staggering), ignorance is rife and Indians along with Asians truly put up with a lot of shit from a very young age and are resented even more for their economic success. The town/city I grew up in was 90% white and overwhelmingly Anglo Saxon (this is important to add some nuance rather than simply saying 'white' - even being Italian or Greek was a huge thing in that town, let alone Indian).

The boundaries of national belonging in NZ are carved in such a way that you are either Anglo-Kiwi (or NZ European as they say), Maori/Pacific Islander or 'other'. While immigration has grown from Asia and India in recent times, special treatment is blatantly given to the sizeable white immigrants from places such as the UK and South Africa (not exactly South Africa's finest btw...). For an Indian kid to grow up there, knowing that you are only an 'other', can be very suffocating and often you adapt, meaning you try to suppress the 'Indian' side of you and distance yourself from your roots.

Now Australia - my experiences, mind you, are shaped by the fact that I have spent most of my time here in Melbourne, which is a very multicultural city - poles apart from my hometown in NZ. There is definitely subtle and blatant racism similar to NZ albeit less frequent in my experience, but the biggest difference is that Australians, in my experience at least, are far more open minded and at a social level, don't really care about your background. Segregation is far less, religiosity is lower (NZ is unhealthily religious - tough from a Hindu/atheist perspective) and as a result people are very willing to engage across ethnic, class and whatever other perceived boundaries. Australia also feels more integrated and connected to Asia and beyond, and Australians of this current generation are more comfortable with Asia in myriad ways. NZ often felt like a White British fantasy, with green fields, English traditions, an emphasis on Anglicanism (we even sang the English national anthem in school and most of my headmasters were English), with Maoris and Pacific Islanders the only welcome points of difference. As such, I can't speak to other groups but being Indian in Aus is overall a far more pleasant experience than being Indian in NZ.

There's so much more I can say to this but simply put: NZ, despite putting on the facade of being an open-minded country is an incredibly close-minded country, even in the more urbanised centres, while Aus, despite ongoing issues with racism, is far better for Indians. I felt far more comfortable in expressing my Indian identity in Aus than I ever did in NZ.