Luke with his son Jayden in the cab of a firetruck
For Luke Qin’s four-year-old son, open day at the Seaview fire station where dad volunteers is a highlight of the year.
The Wellington pre-schooler gets to scramble up into the cab of a bright-red fire truck and it’s as good as Christmas.
Luke, a member of the Foundation’s Leadership Network, has spent seven years fighting both fires and stereotypes as a volunteer firefighter.
He admits he had something of a hero-complex when he first put his name forward, a vivid image of Peter Parker saving a young girl from a burning building in the first Spiderman movie etched in his mind.
But, for him, it was also about representation. He remembers pointing out to his superiors in his induction interview they didn’t have any Chinese firefighters, and he’d be the one to change that.
Now, his presence is simply woven into the fabric of the local firefighting community.
“I do feel proud that you don’t have many Asian [working as fire fighters] and I’m one of them,” he says.
“But, you don’t think about that much after you’ve been a part of the crew for a while, right? You don’t have a loudspeaker every night saying ‘I’m the only Chinese and Asian fella in here’. You don’t do that. You just become part of the team.”
In February, Luke became an ambassador for White Ribbon New Zealand, a campaign encouraging men to challenge each other on attitudes and behaviours that are abusive.
Family violence is rarely talked about in the context of Chinese communities, but it’s there, Luke says.
“We need to raise awareness, help people know where to get support and be visible.”
Luke says his involvement in the leadership network has helped grow his confidence to be a cultural ambassador.
For one, it has connected him with globally-minded young Kiwi leaders, many of them immigrants, and there is strength that comes from that community, he says.
“If you’re not born here, if you speak English as your second language, you may feel like the odds are stacked against you.
“But, if you have a support network, if you have people you look up to who can show you what they’ve achieved; if you can build a family in New Zealand, build a career, there’s hope for a lot of people, and New Zealand can definitely harness that advantage from its diverse communities.”
Secondly, he says opportunities embraced during his tenure with the network have challenged some of his own held assumptions and helped him gain a deeper understanding of Asia.
Luke was a participant on the Leadership Network’s Japan Hui late last year.
It was his first time on the ground, and he says he arrived with a mishmash of ideas of what it would be like based on childhood Dragon Ball Z fandom, ingrained cultural prejudices – immunity from which was impossible growing up in China, with its fractious history with Japan – and his own deductions.
Visiting Japan for the first time, Luke was surprised that his surroundings felt both very familiar and very foreign
It felt surreal to walk the bustling streets of Shinjuku in Tokyo, where things were at once familiar and foreign, he says.
“The vibe and cultural symbols were all too familiar.
“I could pretty much understand all the signs, as I can read and write Chinese, but I felt ‘crippled’ as I couldn’t speak much.”
Being in-country, able to “shake hands with people and have a yarn”, offered a window to Japanese culture, he says.
“As we say in Chinese, seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times.
“I am grateful to the Foundation for the opportunity to experience Japan and for continuing to challenge my assumptions and expand my horizons.
“The experience also further strengthened my resolve to contribute my two cents to helping advance the mutual understanding, friendship and goodwill between Kiwis and people around the world, and between our multicultural communities in a vibrant and inclusive Aotearoa.”