Christ, where do I begin.

Hamilton is a fairly small city. That said, its not fair from NZ's largest city (1.5 million). I wouldn't exactly call Hamilton the most ideal place to live, its not got a whole lot going on compared to Wellington or Auckland. That's just my opinion though, I'm from a larger city, and others will have a different view.

safety

New Zealand on the whole is really safe. Hamilton isn't a particularly unsafe place at all. Like every city, there are rougher areas, but certainly not like anything going on in the US. To be honest, going for runs at 2am alone in most countries IMO isn't the best idea, but again, it highly depends on where you're running. Due to the fact that there's less (read: barely any) people out at night, maybe consider running at 8pm, or even 10pm. It's not because Hamilton is unsafe, its just because its not that great an idea in general I feel (male or female)

implicit or explicit racism

This is ridiculous. Hamilton has a healthy population of Asian citizens. My partner is Malaysian Chinese by ethnicity, born in NZ, with her parents being Malaysian born, and they have had no issues living and growing up in Hamilton. There are food markets and certainly you won't be the only one in the city. 11 percent of the population of the country is Asian by ethnicity, and that number jumps to 23 percent in Auckland. I mean I'm European, admittedly in Wellington, and I shop at a nearby Asian supermarket half of the time. I don't think you'd have any trouble in this department.

Unfortunately I can't give any advice on your career but /r/thetron might have more information for you around that!