Colours

Colour of Water by kool_skatkat, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 license.

The following post is from Grace, a former student of mine whom I met whilst teaching at the Monash University English Language Centre in Clayton.

My name is Ruan Xuemei and my English name is Grace. I come from Hangzhou in China, which is a very beautiful city. I arrived in Melbourne in March 2008. Along with many other students, the main reasons I decided to study abroad were not only to improve my English, but also to broaden my mind and add to my life experiences. For me, the reason I choose Australia is very simple, it's easier to apply for entry than America and also my agent told me Monash is a very good university. In my opinion, most students from China are generally satisfied with their educational experience in Melbourne.

I am living in Clayton now. Like other students in Australia, I share a house with others. Fortunately, I live with my friends, and I get along with them very well. We care about each other and often make meals together just like a family. Finding nice housemates is very important I think. Apart from this, choosing a place to live is also crucial. For me, I chose a house near the station and not far from the shopping center, so I can go to university by train and buy food conveniently.

About my social life, I think the best way to get involved with the environment is participating in social activities, for example go to a church. People in the church are all very nice and friendly. They are willing to help you. I became a Christian here and go to a church regularly. As time goes by, I have made good friends from church. I enjoy spending time spending with them. This year, I joined the worship team, which has been an unforgettable experience in my life. For new students, especially oversea students, joining university clubs is a good way to meet friends. Don't always stay at home alone. Going out and making friends will make your life colorful.

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!

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Photo by Fernando de Sousa entitled VIBGYOR, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 license.

Just had a quick flick through the Rainbow Guide, an orientation and pre-arrival handbook funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, International Quality Branch. The guide is available to download from the excellent International Education Association website ISANA. The Rainbow Guide is basically a template that can be adapted by all education providers throughout Australia in an effort to help student service professionals provide students with a thorough orientation to both their institution and life in Australia.

The AEI website describes it as a synthesis of orientation best practice and Soy Sauce was really impressed with both the presentation and the level of information that the document provides. Also, Soy Sauce is really supportive of this kind of top-down best-practice standardization. With all of the controversies late last year over dodgy education providers, moves from the DEEWR to provide leadership in areas such as pre-arrival and orientation will hopefully raise the level of service provided to all international students during the time leading up and immediately prior to their arrival in Australia.

One area that I find interesting especially in light of recent stories featured on Soy Sauce, is the section of the document covering permanent accommodation. There is a wealth of information and advice provided in relation to renting, all of it presented in clear and simple language. The section covers everything from information about bonds to advice on how to select suitable housemates. It also provides contact details for relevant bodies that can provide further help such as the Tenants Union of Victoria.

However, with the lack of rental properties available in cities such as Melbourne, the document inadvertently serves to highlight the fact that not all service providers have a dedicated accommodation service, and that despite this wealth of information, students face the difficult challenge of actually finding and negotiating a rental arrangement alone. Perhaps if institutions where required to assist students secure suitable accommodation for their first couple of months in their new city, then the depressing tales of students being forced into signing overpriced leases through non-mainstream providers might be less common. So, whilst this document is a great start, further work needs to be done to provide international students with support in securing permanent accommodation.

The importance of being harmonious

This post introduces Jack, a student who I first met whilst working at RMIT English Worldwide. Jack was always really funny and interesting in class so I was keen to ask him to contribute to Soy Sauce. In this first excerpt, he talks about some of the reasons why Chinese students come to Australia and goes on to give some really interesting anecdotes about the problems many students face when trying to find suitable accommodation in Melbourne.


My name is Jack and I come from China. I have lived in Melbourne for four months. I finished my Bachelor degree in China with a major in applied mathematics.

I think the main reasons Chinese students go abroad for further study include widening their own horizons, improving their English skills and also exploring the possibilities of future immigration. As for those students who choose not to go abroad, they probably cannot afford the financial burden and their parents have rejected the idea, or they simply want to start their careers early. Personally speaking, I came to Australia to improve my English and I’m also interested in migrating here one day, even though I’d prefer to live in Canada.

On the whole I have been satisfied with my life in Melbourne although I’m always annoyed that there are so many Chinese here, which limits my chances to speak English.

I think one of the biggest problems facing Chinese students when they come to Melbourne is housing. When we arrive in Australia, usually our English speaking and listening skills are not sufficient to interact with local agents. We have to say ‘pardon’ so many times that they become impatient and bored, leaving with the impression that Chinese have poor communication skills. As a result local agents seem like they really don’t want to do business with Chinese students, which really limits our options when it comes to renting a house.

However, we still need to live somewhere so we are usually forced to seek help through more established Chinese immigrants operating within the rental market. Because the properties controlled by Chinese in Melbourne represent only a small section of the overall market, we are forced to compete with all of the other Chinese students here who face the same problem. As a result of this fierce competition the prices go up and up. In the end, Chinese students usually end up living in places where the rent seems irrationally high!

To add to this problem is the difference in the exchange rate between China and Australia. Let me give a specific example, the money used to pay a month’s rent in Australia on a single room is equivalent to what it would cost to rent an entire apartment for a whole month in some mid-scale Chinese cities.

Because of this, most of my friends here live in share houses with other international students. This experience is not without its problems and some of my friends have been forced to move house. A couple of my friends have even moved house several times in one month! Honestly though, I would probably do the same thing as I believe in the importance of harmony when one is living abroad alone. I would rather avoid conflict even if it meant losing a little bit of money. I guess that is because I am a pretty easy-going guy with not much in the way of aggression.

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.

Building a platform for the future

Soy Sauce talks with Wei Jia about her take on life and study in Melbourne. Wei Jia has lived here for over two years now and I have had the pleasure of meeting with her on several occasions as she was a classmate of my girlfriends at Melbourne University.

My name is Wei Jia and I come from Guangzhou. I arrived in Australia in late 2006. At the time I had just graduated from University and hadn’t any work experience. As for why I chose to come to Melbourne, to be honest it wasn’t my first choice. I was more inclined to work for a couple of years in China and then go to America but my family were more familiar with things here which made it easier I guess.

Students from China leave home to pursue advanced studies for lots of reasons but I think the three most important ones include the desire to study more things which gives them greater opportunities for the future. Immigration is also a popular reason along with dodging the pressures of sitting either the national university entrance examination or the exams for entering a graduate programme. As for those students from China who don’t come overseas, I believe their reasons would be things like a lack of funds, or they think China is fine. Many probably plan to accumulate some more work experience in China before looking for opportunities to go abroad.

On the whole I don’t really believe that Chinese overseas students are happy with the study environment in Melbourne for the simple fact that there are just too many Chinese people here!

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!

Melbourne isn't like living in a foreign city

My name is Zhao Jing (Crystal is my English name) and I come from Henan in China. I have lived in Australia a little over a year now and moved here shortly after I finished my undergraduate degree. Like many other students, the main reasons I decided to study abroad were to improve my English, to meet the expectations of my parents and to enjoy a high quality education.

Regarding those students who don’t make it overseas, I believe most of them stay in China because of a lack of money and English skills. As for why I chose Australia, my brother was already living here and my parents encouraged me to join him. Do I believe that Chinese students are satisfied with their educational experience in Australia? Yes, I think they think it is OK. However, there is a consensus that living in Melbourne isn’t really like living in a foreign city at all.

I am living in Clayton at the moment. Personally, finding accommodation wasn’t that difficult but finding suitable housemates was extremely hard. Many people just don’t know how to communicate with other housemates or with their landlord and this causes problems. Apart from this, I find the expense of housing in Melbourne to be the biggest difficulty. In terms of my ideal circumstances, I would like to find a place near to Clayton campus that was reasonably priced and not too big.

In terms of safety, I can't say that I feel safe in Melbourne. I think people drive too fast and this makes me feel uncomfortable. Also, I have experienced being bothered on the street whilst out walking. However, the worst thing is a thief stole my credit card! I reported it to police but nothing really happened.