On the beach, you'll find them there

This photo by Ross Thomson, appears under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license.

This is the final part of my first interview with Jack. I have presented it in its original format, with Crystal's translation of my original questions left intact. Jack articulates some interesting ideas on how international students might be able to learn more about the lives of Melbourne locals and also offers some advice to newly arrived students.

Many international students find life in Melbourne to be quite boring, with not many social activities of interest. We’d like to hear your opinion on this matter?

In some ways this is true because we find it very difficult to become a part of the local social scene. What appears on the surface to be a friendly exchange of amenities does not necessarily signal that you have successfully integrated with local society. Sometimes this is a complex problem, incorporating cultural differences, language barriers and differences in habits and customs. However, if you want to resolve these issues there is only one way, and that is to stay here long enough. So for students who have just arrived, life can be very tough and lonely.

Have you ever attended any social activities or events in Melbourne, such as a sporting event, a music concert, a university club function or a church event?

As a matter of fact, I’d love to attend events like these but I wouldn’t have anyone to talk with. Normally the thought of going to something like that makes me quite nervous, after all I'm a stranger in a strange land. However I would probably adapt pretty quickly. A church meeting might be the best place for me.


Have you met any local Australian families or students?

The only family I’ve met were a Chinese family who immigrated to Australia around 20 years ago. We met on the plane trip to Australia. They sat down next to me and we chatted happily. The father had actually graduated from the university where I am about to commence my studies. After the plane landed they accompanied me to my new house and we have stayed in contact since then.

What do you feel is the greatest difficulty in adapting to life in Melbourne for international students?

Actually, the only real difficulty is the loneliness. Apart from this, most students find it relatively easy to adapt to life here.

If you could, what changes would you make to improve the quality of life for international students in Melbourne?

I feel that the Australian Government could establish more scholarships for overseas students. Also, I think we shouldn’t be viewed merely as consumers, give us more opportunities to contribute to society. For example, we could visit the homes of older local residents and do volunteer work. We don't expect young Australians will be that interested in making friends with overseas students, they are busy enjoying their own lives. Older people on the other hand are often just looking for someone to talk with.

Up until this point in time, what has been your best experience here in Melbourne?

I was walking along the beach at some bay, the name of which escapes me, picking up shells, enjoying the sun's rays and the gentle breeze. It felt so good. I thought to my self, this is truly living!


Overall, would you describe your experience of life in Melbourne as pleasant?

Yes, relatively pleasant. I find life here agreeable, the pace of life is very slow and I am free to do the things I want to do.

The power of compassion

Photo by Nasitra entitled Glimmer of Hope, available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license.

Saturday February 7th 2009 will long be remembered as the day over 200 people lost their lives in Australia’s worst natural disaster to date. On this day, now known as Black Saturday, fires swept through the Victorian bush, destroying over two thousand homes and completely decimating the towns of Kinglake, Marysville, Narbethong, Strathewen and Flowerdale. With over 500 people injured and 7500 people left homeless as a result of the blaze, not to mention the huge economic losses caused by the disaster, a remarkable effort will be needed to restore balance to the lives of those Victorians affected by the fire.

Alongside a swift response from the State Government of Victoria and the Federal Government of Australia, which passed a $10 million emergency package, individual Australians were quick to contribute to the call for donations with a Red Cross appeal raising over $150 million. These contributions have been bolstered by donations from major corporations, companies, banks, and cultural and sporting organizations such as the AFL.

One group that has also rushed to the assistance of the victims of the bushfire has been Australia’s Overseas Chinese community. This community, made up of international students, permanent residents, citizens of Chinese descent and expatriates has galvanised in an effort to raise much-needed funds in this time of need. Whilst their campaign has not received much media attention, I feel that it is extremely important to commend this community for their fund raising efforts.

Personally, I found out about this campaign only last week. Whilst walking to work at Monash I came across a poster proclaiming
捐出一澳元, 献出你爱心。

The sentence can be translated as ‘donate one Australian dollar, show your compassion.’ It went on to detail a campaign organised by the Australian Overseas Chinese community with the support of the Education Group of the Consulate General of the PRC in Melbourne. I was quite awestruck by the community spirit displayed by the Chinese community in Australia in instigating this campaign. I was even more moved when I met a student from Beijing who was standing in the hot sun at Monash Caulfield carrying a hand made donation box emblazoned with the Red Cross insignia and collecting money for the bushfire victims. I began talking with her and discovered that she had only been in Australia for a matter of weeks but felt the need to volunteer and do what she could to help those affected by the disaster.

To read more about the fundraising campaign or to find out how you can donate, you can follow this link to the Monash Chinese Students Association blog. I will provide a full translation of their blog entry in the above post.

In closing, Soy Sauce would like to pay tribute to the Overseas Chinese Community of Australia, especially those international students involved, and also to the Consulate General of the PRC for their assistance in helping Victoria rebuild in the wake of this tragedy.

Absolutely happy with life in Melbourne

In this second and final part of my interview with Pei Pei, she relates her feelings and opinions on a variety of topics relating to the international student experience in Melbourne.

I live in shared accommodation near the Clayton campus of Monash where I go to uni. It is definitely very difficult to find accommodation here. There are lots of student seeking off campus accommodation, so rental properties become quite a scarce resource with availability unable to meet demand. I think that this makes rental agencies quite rude, as they don’t have to worry about the properties they are handling, knowing that there are so many people who are desperate for housing. As for price, those properties located near campus become unreasonably expensive. Living in home-stay accommodation is even dearer, plus I don’t really think I’d like the food provided!

In terms of my experiences living in shared accommodation, I have heard lots of horror stories. I am constantly hearing complaints from my friends or friends’ friends that their housemates are being difficult or their landlord is being unreasonably harsh, even doing things like asking them to move out at extremely short notice. Ideally, I’d live in a cozy and clean newly built rental property with two to three other people. Of course it would be even better to have an opportunity to live with local people in a nice neighborhood in order to really experience Melbourne’s culture.

This brings me to the subject of meeting local people, I don’t think international students usually get many opportunities to do this. I was able to make local friends through my recent vacation work experience in Queensland but if I hadn’t had this opportunity I may have never had a chance to mingle with local students. Before my vacation I had been to soccer matches, footy matches, charity events and other things but only once did I really get a chance to meet any Australian students or their families. This occurred through an activity organized by St Johns Church near Caulfield. Some friends and I went to one of the church volunteer’s houses and had dinner with her family and friends. It was a really great experience.

Overall I think life in Melbourne is fairly easy for international students, especially compared to remote areas like the island I stayed on during my summer vacation. On the island there weren’t any Asian supermarkets or grocery stores, plus ALL the shops were closed on Sundays.

Sure the public transport here isn’t great but that is because Melbourne is more sparsely populated than most Chinese cities and the majority of the population have private cars here. This just means I have to plan my trip before I go out otherwise I might get caught waiting for a long time or stuck because of the dreaded NO SERVICE notice.

And in terms of safety I’d say that overall I feel quite safe here, except when I’m walking down the street and someone yells out ‘Sexy!’ Many of my friends have had this experience and have talked about it, so we just don’t go out alone anymore.

If I could make any changes I would let international students benefit from the public transport concessions that local students enjoy but on the whole I have been absolutely happy with my time here in Melbourne. The city itself is the most international city in Australia and there are heaps of exciting events happening here everyday!

Everything and Nothing

In this post Wei Jia recalls some of her first impressions of Melbourne and explores her views on the personality of the city itself.

For me, the thing I enjoyed most about university was participating in field trips.

A ‘field trip’ is a kind of assignment that students are required to do whilst studying Urban Design at the University of Melbourne. Put simply, a field trip is an activity where you go out to visit a place and then write a report describing how you felt about the experience.

My first urban design studio was quite out there. We were asked to assume that, as a result of global warming, the sea level would rise by 6.096m over the next fifty to one hundred years, covering a huge area of Melbourne and creating a new coastline. Along this coastline, we were asked to design something. Our first step was to take a field trip in order to analyze the breadth of this new waterfront. I teamed up with two other classmates during this image collection stage.

On the first day, we cycled together from the CBD to Docklands. This was my first impression of Melbourne, a place of many high rises with glass walls here and there, the sky reflecting off the glass giving the impression of a blue saturated world, dry and almost devoid of greenery. When we arrived at Docklands, everything seemed to become compressed, merging into a singular flat scene. Here it was industrial and dusty. Here the metallic-sheen left one feeling more than a little uncomfortable. So this is Melbourne, a monster with a great collage of imagery. It is not Europe, not America, not Asia, not the Middle East, neither classic nor modern. It is nothing, but in other words, it is everything. Melbourne, much like the people who inhabit it, is a city full of stylish conflicts.

This first field trip was a tiring experience for our group. We found that it wasn’t very smart to do everything together and so we split up. Williamstown was to be my next destination, another beautiful but disastrous field trip for me. But, I will talk more about that later.

To be continued…