They haven't a notion how to go about sorting out crooked employers or thugs, never mind social welfare. They arrive with hard-saved cash, payvast amounts of money for college courses and work long, tough hours to save and subsist. Kathy Sheridan on a Chinese community making a go of it here.
They are different. Do Do Hou laughs now at the memory of her arrival in Dublin airport two and half years ago, though it can hardly have been amusing at the time. In her bag was $10,000, in cash, carried across several continents from Da Lian city, to live on while studying in Ireland. "Of course my family was worried about that and had told me over and over that if anyone asked, I was to say that I had no money. So when the immigration officials asked if I had money - they needed to know if I could support myself - I said no. And because my English was so bad, there was this big confusion."
Half an hour's worth of big confusion later, she got the message and the same officials were "very surprised", as she put it, when the fat $10,000 wad was retrieved from the depths of her bag.
She wasn't the only one full of surprises that day; the two students behind her were carrying $15,000 each. Even by Western standards, these are substantial amounts; in China, a reasonable salary is about $218 a month and between $20,000 and $30,000 will buy a nice suburban apartment.
So without doubt, they are different and now they are visible. Around 12,500 young Chinese people have obtained visas to study in this State since the Chinese regime began to relax and issue passports to its citizens in 1998. They are most visible around city centres because that's where the English-language schools are concentrated and where the jobs are. Six months ago, it became legal for them to work up to 20 hours a week.
They arrive with hard-saved bundles of cash, pay vast amounts of money for courses of all kinds and work tough, long hours to save and subsist. They keep to themselves - mainly because of the language barrier and an innate reserve - and often live five, six and more to a small flat, just like the Irish did in the US and England in less prosperous times. And they haven't a notion how to go about sorting out crooked employers or abusive, stone-throwing thugs, never mind how to locate the local social welfare office or operate the system.
Do Do Hou has never met a Chinese student who even looked for a bank loan.
Time and again, the "old" Chinese in Ireland - such as Dr Katherine Chan Mullen, a busy GP who has lived here for 30 years, and Albert Luk, a south Dublin restaurant owner, with 20 years behind him - emphasise this cultural difference. Though reserved almost to a fault, they've been forced to consider these differences since the killing of a 29-year-old Chinese student, Zhao Liu Tao, in the north Dublin suburb of Beaumont.
"I've never met a Chinese person who went for social welfare help," says Dr Chan Mullen. "Though I say it to them in my surgery, that if they are sick or in need, they should go to the social welfare office, they say no, no, no matter how hard a life they have, even though they have rights like everyone else. This is Chinese pride."
According to Albert Luk, "in China, the tax system is different so it isn't easy to go for social welfare. So we have to spend money in a way we can afford. You can't live above your means - anything might happen. I believe the Chinese who are here feel the very same".
Although everything Chinese people do is focused on their children - with education the priority - their responsibilities do not end there. Do Do Hou is acutely conscious that while her parents - both doctors - do everything now with her in mind, the day will come when she must support them in turn. "That is your responsibility. You have no choice. If I do not do that, in my mind I am bad."
Does this explain why so many Chinese waiters look miserable enough to catapult the food at their customers? "I hear that so much," she says, highly amused. "I think maybe it's the Chinese personality and maybe they just get bored smiling all the time. But they are not like Western people. They work really hard and have huge responsibilities and stress. All they work for is to provide a really good standard of living for their children."
From this point of view, life in the Republic has been a revelation for Do Do. "I am not used to drink and I don't really like the taste of it but I got a little drunk at the office party at Christmas and I can tell you, that was the most big fun in my life. I was so happy, just dancing and talking till six in the morning. I have learned something from the West. I learn to enjoy life, that life is short and to not be so mean to myself. But tradition always stays in my mind - I cannot be lazy, I must study, must get qualifications. If I cannot get qualifications, I would be ashamed to talk to Mom and Dad." (And don't ever tell Mom that little Do Do was drunk: "She would kill me").
Do Do continues to live a frenetic life racing between her studies and her jobs - she works at a computer training college, Moresoft, helping to ease compatriots into Irish life and she presents a half-hour Chinese language radio show on Anna Livia every Wednesday.
Her own experience lends an insight into the formidable challenges that face a typical Chinese student on arrival in the West - she (or he) will probably have little or no English and will never have been to another Chinese city, never mind another country. She will probably be an adored only child. "So they will never have cooked, or washed or done housework," says Do Do. "They are so spoilt at home where the family does everything for them. So when they arrive here, they are so shocked, so surprised. They are still like children but now they have to find accommodation, find jobs. Some are crying."
Yet these are the same young people who end up in the mean city, serving the late night clubbers, drinkers, diners and fast-food customers, washing dishes, pumping petrol, cleaning and mopping, doing the jobs that few Irish want to do but which are getting scarcer as increasing numbers of non-nationals compete for them in a contracting market.
For an average wage of about €6 an hour, many don't finish work until 3-4 a.m. Then they go home for a few hours sleep and wake up to several hours of study before setting out for classes and starting all over again.
Often, this hard-earned money represents more than food, a room and the bus fare. Vast sums sometimes must be repaid to family members who scrimped and sacrificed to fund the trip. For Fang Xi Fan, a young English-language student at the Alpha College of English in North Great George's Street, the deal is that she pays back half the course fees to her family. For the first year, these total around €2,500 to include visa assistance, living with a host family for a few weeks and 48 weeks of classes.
Budgets are so tight that the smallest glitch can cause consternation. The house Fan shares with other Chinese students in a north Dublin suburb costs them €50 a week each. They clearly understood that this included gas - until the landlord lately demanded another €5 a week from each of them. "This wasn't in the plan," she says worriedly. But how do you argue with a brusque, dismissive landlord when you have only a couple of months of English at your disposal? Meanwhile, though her Irish colleagues are appalled at the risk involved, she saves the €6 taxi fare by walking the dark, half-hour journey home from the isolated pub where she works.
For most, the plan is to master the language, then move on to third-level. And this is where the costs become fairly staggering. Want to do a computer science degree course in Trinity? That will be €12,600 please. Per year. Film production in DCU? €8,600, thanks.
Suddenly, the €6,350 annual fee for the computer course at Moresoft, where Do Do works, looks reasonable. And Do Do fully respects the Moresoft ethos. "Some colleges take your money and don't care if you never turn up. This one takes responsibility for its students. For example, if someone is absent, my manager will ask me to ring and see if they're all right".
A HITHERTO unsuspected challenge for the Chinese third-level student emerges as Do Do - whose doctor parents stumped up the €8,600 for her film production course at DCU - explains how she managed to flunk nearly all her subjects during her first term. "You have two problems: the language and the system and you cannot imagine how different and difficult this can be. First, you have to learn your English totally. Then you have to deal with the system. In China, you prepare for exams by learning from the books. And the books are always correct and that is what you write." But in the Irish college system, says Do Do ruefully, this is seen as plagiarism. "The teacher says all it does for you is train your memory. Here you must come up with your own ideas, cite your sources and things like that. I didn't know that. But now that I do, I think it is very good. The Chinese don't have their own ideas. All they know comes from the books."
It is this among other things that causes Albert Luk, the restaurant owner (and who holds a Canadian economics degree), to value the Irish education system beyond everything. "In Hong Kong, it would be very difficult for a child to attend a good school that is organised in a way that makes the child like to go to that school. There is a lot of pressure and that produces good results, yes. But that is only academic results and it doesn't mean you will do well in a company. There is never enough time to develop the mind and the mentality, personality are also important."
Recalling his own shy and monosyllabic younger days, he relishes a system that, by contrast, produces children "full of confidence and who are never afraid to talk to strangers. I think that is fantastic".
Albert Luk will never say so, but his daughters may need every bit of that confidence as they grow older in a country where racial abuse is increasingly rearing its ugly head. The killing of Zhao Liu Tao has exposed divisions within their community about attitudes and experiences.
Many "old" and new Chinese fear that incautious, premature comment and demonstrations could escalate the tension and permanently damage a largely good Irish-Chinese relationship. So people such as Dr Katherine Chan Mullen and Albert Luk try to downplay suggestions of a racist motivation and emphasise the youth of the alleged attackers. Do Do Hou also counsels caution: "On my radio show, I say that we should wait. These boys are very young and it doesn't seem seriously racist to me. That kind of thing could happen in China. We were shocked and so shamed to hear of the Chinese couple who were killed in Dublin last year and that our own people have been charged with that."
Where views seriously diverge however, is in relation to casual racism. While Dr Chan Mullen insists that in her 30 years in Ireland, she has never seen any racism between Irish and Chinese, students tell a different story. As Do Do Hou points out, increased numbers are bound to bring more problems; "more people, more problems".
For many, the command to "f**k off back to China" - shouted from cars, or by drunks but mostly by young teenagers - has become part of the daily soundtrack. It occurs occasionally on the streets of Bray, where students attend the Pace Language Institute, but all the time to those who work and study in Dublin city.
The Immigration office - where people are often obliged to queue outdoors, all night for basic services - can be risky. Fang Xi Fan and a friend from the Alpha college were waiting there one night at around 1 a.m. when a drunk casually approached, spat at them, then urinated on the spot where they had been sitting.
Six of an eight-strong group Chinese group who talked to The Irish Times have had large stones thrown at them.
An Alpha teacher, Stephen Kelly, who walked a Chinese girl home to Fairview one evening because she had been harassed before, witnessed a stone whizz within inches of her face; seconds later, he was hit by two eggs. Girls who work late must have a boyfriend to see them safely home, says a Chinese boy. The legion of stories have one thing in common: the youth of their attackers. "It is always young people, maybe 12 to 15, who treat us like this," says one. "The Irish are very friendly but the young are not educated to treat foreigners well. You seem to have no laws for children; they seem to be able to do anything they like, even if they know it is wrong." Interestingly, it was a 16-year-old who presented himself at Coolock Garda station and made a statement after the death of Zhao Liu Tao.
PAT Shortt, the managing director of Alpha, has been reluctant to fan the flames by shouting "racism", mainly in the belief that only a "a very, very few" young perpetrators have been involved. "But I would be worried about this event. The key is to be seen to be taking this seriously. The way it is handled must have lots of exposure. The guards must be seen to be talking to lots of people, be seen to be bringing charges, to be dealing with this in an open way . . The outcome is less relevant than how it is seen to be treated."
But the students also have concerns about abuse at another level. One boy claims that a south city pub manager dismissed four of his compatriots simply because the chef said she disliked Chinese people. Another boy leaving a job after six months was refused any holiday pay.
Another Chinese youth who, after complaining about getting all the heavy lifting jobs in a fast-food premises where he worked, was thrown out, though still owed three weeks wages. Significantly, not one of these vulnerable young people knows where to turn for legal advice or information.
The lack of such an advice centre is something Dr Chan Mullen feels strongly about. Her community has been self-sufficient in every conceivable way.
But now with their numbers expanding by the month - there may be as many as 30,000-40,000 Chinese people in the State - they feel it is time for the Government to acknowledge that by offering a properly resourced advice centre, complete with translators. "I say it to every politician I meet," says Dr Chan Mullen. "I say it is not money we are looking for but advice and information. Help me to help the people."