Dear Aidan

Most of the millions of Chinese in Australia are bi-lingual, speaking Chinese and English, but they prefer to speak Chinese because they regard Chinese culture as superior to Australian culture.

Across Sydney the Chinese are posting billboards etc completely in Chinese because Australia is now bi-lingual. Those who cannot use Chinese can use English. I think Chinese will become the dominant of the bi-linguals as Chinese culture replaces Australian culture as the main culture within the multicultural complex.

Dear Suseonline,

'all immigrants need to try to learn the main language of their chosen country, and abide by the national and local laws, and attempt to understand and join in with local customs and activities.'

Really! What a hypocrite you are!

In Multicultural Australia the people of other cultures do not have to do any of these things, outside of law and order. Your idea of multiculturalism seems to be that of everybody becoming Aussies. But that's not what multiculturalism is all about. You, along with most of the people on the Forum, are under the delusion that immigrants want to adopt Aussie culture. How wrong you are!

Poor Suseonline, I think you suffer from a deluded sense of patriotism. I think you need to get a grip on yourself and start to realise that it is you who has to adopt a new culture. And in your case it will have to be Chinese.

Mr Opinion,

When you become bi-lingual which of the Chinese languages are you going to pair with English?

There are millions of Chinese who are bi, tri and even further who don' speak any English at all.

Mr Opinion, you are entitled to your opinion but you are not entitled to your own invention of 'facts'. There are not millions of Chinese in Australia. In the 2011 census there were about 840,000 people with some Chinese ancestry, many going back to the gold rushes. This was just 4% of the population. I went to school with some of these, and more recently have been involved in the history of a family whose Chinese ancestry goes back to 1850. You would not recognise them as Chinese, they have spoken English for generations, yet they are included in that 4%.
In 2011 there were just over 300,000 people born in mainland China, and there's about 100,000 more now. This is not 'millions'. It's under 2%. Chinese appear to be one the larger ethnic groups in the statistics because many have immigrated recently. By comparison, people born in Italy are about half the number of Chinese born in China, but there are much higher numbers with Italian ancestry as a result of the peak of post-war Italian migration.
Chinese and Italians have always intermarried with other groups, and this will continue.

Mr. Opinion, how on earth do you know what all the migrants and descendents of migrants in this country know or practice in Australia? By the sound of all the rubbish you write about your dreaded Chinese, you don't actually 'know' any of them at all?

What I think is that you make it up as you go, so that it suits your racist agenda.
It is quite sad really.
As I have already said, I would be quite happy to see a more multicultural slant for any new National Anthem for Australia, and I have no doubt that this will happen.

Your comment on Chinese billboards reminded me of Melbourne in the 1970s. I caught a train out to Clayton, then a bus to Monash, for a visit. At Clayton I did a double-take. Every shopfront sign, in fact every printed item I could see, was in Italian. The Mildura / Sunraysia area, where I now live, has a huge Italian-Australian population (making some great wine). Yet Australia hasn't become an Italian-English bilingual country. The Italians became Australians (after some rough treatment as 'wogs' etc), but retained their language and introduced new and invigorating elements into Australian culture. In fact the Chinese have already been doing that for over 150 years.