Those first few months

Xiu talks about some of the biggest barriers faced by overseas students when they first arrive. Like many students, she stayed with a home-stay family on her arrival here before moving on to look for cheaper accommodation. It is a difficult period that students usually face with minimal help, and a time that often leaves them with mixed emotions about their new home.

I have participated in some events here, like the Melbourne Cup and horse riding. I’ve watched sports games that I don’t even know the exact names of. I have met many Australian people too. I met them through my friends or just accidently. My first two months here, I lived with a local family which was a really important experience for me. I got to come to terms with a different culture and get used to different life.

The biggest difficulty living in Melbourne is the unfamiliar environment around us, especially at the very beginning because most of us don’t have friends and families here. Those first few months are a tough time for us.

Another thing is the transportation; it’s so infrequent here! Some areas don’t even have much public transport and if you don’t have a car it’s really inconvenient.

Money is also an issue and the cost of our tuition is the most popular topic of conversation amongst my friends and I. Our fees are three times higher than those of local students, which just doesn’t make any sense to me. Local students really should appreciate how lucky they are.

So I guess that so far, I can’t really tell about this whole experience. It has been bittersweet. Having said that, if there were more things for us to do, that could help us get involved in Melbourne life, we would be so glad. I have tried so hard to feel part of life here, but it seems hard sometimes.

No turning back

I got this great post from Xiu before Christmas but have waited until now to put it up. With Chinese New Year soon upon us I think some of her words really bring home the sense of isolation felt by some international students during the holidays. Also, Xiu hints at the incredible expense involved with studying in Australia. Students pay thousands of dollars in fees to attend English language colleges throughout the city. If a student is using these colleges as a means to help them achieve the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) score that their tertiary course of choice requires of them before they can commence their studies, then they are stuck paying for courses until they get the score they are after. In some cases this may mean paying for 5 weeks of mind numbing English classes just to improve a reading test result by half a percentage point.

A few days ago, one of my friends’ IELTS score came out. Just like me, it wasn’t enough to get her into university. I guess for both of us, the whole same journey needs to start again. There are consequences, like we will have to pay money again to take IELTS, but this is nothing compared with English class fees. It’s ridiculous. It is like we are paying thousands of dollars to an English language centre for one more course just so we get that extra bloody 0.5 or 1 point. Actually, most of the students I know are all so close to our required scores but we can’t go anywhere until we achieve what we set out to do, we certainly can’t go back home guilty and with bad scores.

Right now, we are having our holiday for Christmas. In two days it will be Christmas. We all ask each other “any plan for Christmas.” Some people I know are planning really fabulous holidays. Others are really boring. Some of their holidays will be just like mine, promising myself I will work harder to get a perfect score next time, promising myself that I will use the whole holiday if that is what it takes. So, technically, you could say our life here is inspiring, not boring at all.

I met some people recently, and they all asked the same thing, “Will you go back for the holiday?” Of course I said no. Of course, the next question you already know, “Why?” I guess I really didn’t want to explain that much and receive some kind of sympathy so I said, “I don’t miss home at all and I like to stay here, I have so much to do.” Anyway, I gave up the whole going back thing. It may be good for me. Tomorrow I promise myself to go to school and study. But who knows what I am going to do, I already broke so many of these kinds of promises. But looking back on the days I stayed home and did nothing, I never knew doing nothing could be so exhausting. I need my energy back.

Working hard for the money

In this post, Xiu gives Soy Sauce readers a peak into her experience of working life as an international student in Melbourne.

Before I came to Australia I had never worked a day in my life. Now though, I am on the lookout for part time jobs. The job I have right now is not so great. I guess the biggest reason why I cannot find a satisfactory job is my language is not good enough, or lets say my language is bad, not even close to good!

I am a waitress in a Chinese restaurant. The pay is so bad! I guess the boss just treats us as cheap laborers. My boss is the kind of person who thinks a lot about money, which is good for her, cause she is running a business. But from where I am standing, she is just a mean person who likes yelling and saving money.

As for my friends, whose English skills are as bad as mine, most of them cannot even find a job. If they do find a job they usually find themselves in the same situation as me, with low pay and a horrible boss. One student I know has a very good job in a bank. She is very good at English and smart. She is also very young. She is still studying in Monash University and sometimes she can make 5,000 in one month. She works hard and has really good social skills so she earns good money. But she is an exception and most of us tell of uncountable bad experiences, about bad bosses and bad work conditions. Some students even get hurt during their work. One of my friends even burned their hand whilst working!

A place to call my own

In one of the previous posts we met Yang Tong Xiu, a Chinese student who has been living in Melbourne for several months now. In this installment Xiu offers her thoughts on finding accommodation in Melbourne.

I am living in Clayton right now, with two couples and another girl. We are all Chinese. Even though our house is a big, with six people living in it together it still feels crowded. I found this house by myself, and it was very hard process for me at the time. I had looked at five different places before I found this one. In the end, I decided on this house because I was just tired of looking for accommodation, there was no other thought behind the decision. It is so hard to find somewhere to live in Melbourne!

The people I have been living with are fine. Some of them are very nice and take care of me. Some of them are so different to me, because actually we were total strangers to each other at the very beginning. I guess we have been very careful to establish some boundaries; we keep a very quiet environment in order to live together and have been doing fine so far.

In talking with my friends and acquaintances in Melbourne, they all have different stories about housing. Most of them are like me, finding a satisfactory place to live is very hard. The main thing that everyone talks about is the importance of the living environment. Most of us come to Australia by ourselves. We arrive in a city with absolutely no friends and no idea about who we will be living with during our time here. As a result finding a good environment and good housemates is especially hard. Some of my friends have experienced a really horrible time here. They moved house quite a few times because of their housemates were so terrible. They experienced fights, arguments or just really awkward situations. So they were forced to move out and begin the exhausting search for accommodation all over again.

Like a lot of my friends, I want to settle down during my time here and try my best to live peacefully with other people. Really, there is no use in fighting and moving house is just such a waste. This wasn’t why we came here! So we are trying to knuckle down so we are able to focus on our studies.

My ideal house or housing environment would be a single apartment where I could live alone. I would like to live in an area which has lots of people and is clean. I guess when we grow up, we all want to live in our own apartment, where we don’t need to worry about how to get along with others and we can enjoy our privacy. As for the price, a high price usually means high quality. Some of my friends and I just hope some day we are able to afford that by ourselves. Overall though, the housing prices here are still bloody expensive… sorry about the word, but it is true!

Young and excited about the future

My name is Yang Tong Xiu and I come from China. I used to study at the Communication University of China but unfortunately I didn’t complete my studies before leaving. At that time, my family and I thought it would be better for me to come to Australia to study. The main reason was that coming to Australia would help me get a good job in the future.

Chinese students come to Australia to study for many different reasons but the main one is definitely to secure a well paying job in the future. Of course another reason is that Australia is an English speaking country, and it is good for us to have this environment, because pay prospects are still better in many companies if you are proficient in English. The third reason, I suppose is because Australia is cheaper and safer for students.

As for those students who don’t go overseas to continue their studies, they also have their reasons for staying behind. Firstly, for many students it is too expensive to study overseas. As you know, our fees are three times higher than those of local students, which is a very heavy burden for our families. Secondly, overseas study is a tough thing to do. Some students have a very promising future in my country so they don’t need to consider this choice. For most families, they don’t want their children to carry too much on their shoulders when they are very young. Obviously, life would be better and easier for most of us if we were able to stay in China where we have close friends and family. Australia is a good country, but we would be able to enjoy a much more convenient life and closer relationships if we were at home.

To be honest, I did not choose to come to Australia. Australia was my only option. This is the country that my family was able to afford and also seemed like a good environment for study. If I had a choice, I would probably say I would like to live in France but after everything I have experienced here, I am not sure if going abroad to study is the right decision at all.

Generally speaking, overseas study is a good thing for Chinese students. I suppose it is because we are young and all excited about the future. But for most of us, the reality of studying in Australia is not exactly the same as we used to imagine. Talk about complaints, the biggest one is the high price of almost everything! And the environment is also a problem for us. One of the reasons many people came here was to learn English but there are so many Chinese! We hang around and speak our mother tongue, despite the fact that language is already the biggest problem for us getting involved in Australia. So, you will often hear students say, “I never knew there were going to be so many Chinese here.” This moment seems rather dramatic, as this is one thought we all share but no one wants to say.

Introductions

The initial idea behind Soy Sauce was to bring together stories from Chinese students living in Melbourne. The next couple of entries introduce two such students. I have been lucky enough to teach both of them in the past and I asked them to be the first profiles on Soy Sauce because I had always found them to be very interested and insightful regarding the transition period all of us face when moving to another country.

Special thanks to Crystal who very kindly translated all of my original questions into Chinese and who has been very encouraging of this project from day one. Thanks also to Xiu who has sent me heaps of extremely engaging and honest material which I aim to upload over the next couple of days.

Even with just a couple of profiles ready to share, I can already see how Soy Sauce has the potential to be a positive force for change in the lives of international students in Melbourne. Through reflecting on the problems faced by these young people as they try their best to adjust to life away from home, we must look for new ways in which to make this experience not just meet their expectations, but exceed them. In the same way, by bringing together examples of positive housing, life and educational experiences, Soy Sauce hopes to act as a resource for those looking for some suggestions on how to make their new home a little bit more enjoyable.