ABSTRACT
In New Zealand, Chinese students comprise the main source of international students, with around 20,000 students from China studying in New Zealand each year from 2006 to 2012. Specifically, each year nearly 6,000 Chinese students enroll at university level in New Zealand. Much research has paid attention to East Asian students in New Zealand, especially to Chinese students as being the main component of international students in New Zealand. Chinese national identity and the Chinese political system may be a sensitive topic for overseas Chinese students. Current research on Chinese students in the New Zealand context is mainly limited to solving academic problems. This chapter makes a major breakthrough in reaching the respondents' private thoughts and feelings, as ones that they sometimes had not articulated even to themselves. The focus-group data reveals that students surprised themselves with how open and critical they could be.
