Word List 1 Part 1 : 兼职

Photo by Zsolt Bugarski, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.


Whilst translating Jack's last Soy Sauce entry I encountered many words and phrases that were unfamiliar to me. Perhaps I had never encountered them before or maybe I had just forgotten, whatever the reason I would like to spend some time writing about some of the language elements that sent me scrambling for my dictionary. And this is just the first paragraph! I find translation almost endlessly fascinating.

1) I never had a decent part time job in China.

在国内的时候，我没有做过像样的兼职。

像样 This adjective can be translated as decent, presentable or sound, conveying the idea that the noun being described is nothing to be ashamed of. In this sentence Jack uses it to describe part time work － 像样的兼职。 It could also be used to describe a decent meal 像样的饭菜 furniture 像样的家具 or even a suit 像样的套装。Interestingly enough you could also use it in the same way English speakers say make yourself presentable. For example, the sentence - Make yourself presentable for the interview, could be rendered as 面谈时收拾得像样点儿。

2) When I had time I mostly squandered it having fun.

有时间都浪费在玩儿上面

浪费 is a verb meaning to waste or squander. As a noun, the character 浪 means a wave, 巨浪 meaning mountainous wave. As a verb this character takes on the very wave like meaning of being unrestrained, hence its ability to convey the meaning of squandering time by having fun 浪费在玩儿上面。 One could also waste one's money 浪费金钱， words 浪费口舌 or even one's youth 浪费青春. Interestingly, 浪 also appears in 浪漫， meaning romantic. Here both characters convey a sense of something that cannot be contained, an overflowing of emotion made even more poetic by the presence of the water radical in both characters.

3) To be honest I haven't been that considerate of my parents.

说实话，我不是一个能体谅父母的人。

体谅 is a verb meaning to be considerate or to show sympathetic understanding of. When describing the character of a person or place in Chinese it seems quite common to use the pattern 我是/不是一个能做某事的人 meaning literally I am a person who can/cannot do something. I don't know why but this kind of pattern reminds me of a song lyric by the Beijing band Car Sick Cars called Square where singer Shou Wang sings 这是一个没有希望的广场, this is a (public/town) square without hope.

4) However since arriving in Australia, I have begun to appreciate the hardships associated with earning money.

不过来澳洲, 我能感到赚钱的艰辛。

赚钱 is a verb meaning to earn money. 艰辛 is a noun meaning difficulties and hardships, the first character also appearing in the more commonly heard 艰难。Last semester I also remember coming across the character whilst reading the words of the famous Chinese author 胡适. He used the word 艰深 meaning abstruse as a way to describe theories 艰深概念 that by right should be critically analyzed in order to discover their true worth to society in his essay 新思潮的意义, commonly translated as 'The meaning of New Thought'。 As a way of wrapping this post up you might notice that the title of the essay employs the character 潮 which literally means tide. However, 潮 here is used figuratively to describe a social upsurge, in this case the influx of western ideas in China during the early 20th century. So we can have a wave of refugees 难民潮 and, going back to our earlier character 浪 we can describe a tidal wave of reform － 改革的浪潮。

Wading through shallow waters

Here is the second part of my interview with Jack. Here he talks about his experiences working in Melbourne and coming to terms with the difficulties of supporting yourself for the first time.

I never had a decent part time job in China. When I had time I mostly squandered it having fun. To be honest I haven't been that considerate of my parents. However, However since arriving in Australia, I have begun to appreciate the hardships associated with earning money.

Whilst I was completing my English course, I worked as a removalist. I got this job through my roommate. We got six hours to unload containers in a ware house and the pay was really good, $15 an hour plus one meal supplied. Because there were four of us working together the workload wasn’t that heavy and we usually had it all finished within 5 hours. At the end of the day each person would walk away with $90. It was definitely worth it but I have a feeling I am not going to be able to find another part time job that paid as well as that.

Recently I have been looking for work in Chinese convenience stores but the pay is pretty low, usually around $7 an hour. Apart from the difficulty of finding a well paying job, I haven’t really been entangled in any negative workplace situations like having a bad boss. But maybe that is just because I haven’t been around long enough!

In terms of jobs that I would really like to have whilst in Melbourne, I kind of envy those students who have jobs where they come into contact with local people quite frequently or they work in a place where the boss is an Australian. This is because improving my English is something I feel is really important.

On an island in the sun...

Introducing Pei Pei whom I met whilst teaching a fantastic group of students at the Monash University English Language Centre a year or so ago. It was great reading that she had some great experiences doing vacation work on Boyne Island in Queensland, a remote island that most Queenslanders would never have even heard about, let alone visited.


I’m Pei Pei from China. Right now, I am doing third level of Materials Engineering at Monash University. Before I came to Australia, I finished the first two years of university education at my local university.

I believe that the three main reasons why students leave China to study abroad include a better quality of education, a chance to improve their language skills in an English speaking environment and the possibility of future immigration. As for those students who don’t come overseas, budget and language limitations are two of the main factors. Also, many students would find it very difficult to live without having their friends and family around.

I chose to come to Australia because I was offered a place in a program that allowed me to finish my bachelor degree at Monash University. Actually, it might not have been my first choice if there weren’t so many terrorist-attacks in the United States. :)

It’s hard to tell whether other students from China are satisfied with their educational experience or not. Personally, I’m content with what I’ve gained from my experience. For instance, there is help offered by various levels of organizations and individuals out there. There are all kinds of tutorials and programs helping international students with their studies, communications, and health.

Regarding work, I haven’t had a part-time job since being in Melbourne. Usually coping with lectures and exams is already enough to keep us occupied during our free time. As a result, not many of my friends have taken part time jobs because we think of them as being dangerous. This is because if we fail one subject we have to pay 3,000 dollars to repeat the course, compared to the paltry amount of money earned by doing laboring work it just really isn’t worth the risk.

Although I’ve never taken any part time in Melbourne, this summer I did do some vacation work at Boyne Smelters Limited in Queensland. I’m really lucky that I got this opportunity, because it’s extremely hard, almost impossible, for international students to get vacation work due to the difference in our educational background and language level when compared with local students.

It has been a great experience for me! I have gained industrial experience and contacts, as well as living with locals and hanging out with them. To be honest, if not for these three month, I may never have chance to mingle with local students and experience Australian culture. Now that I have friends who have grown up in Melbourne, even when I go back, life will be different.

Something to talk about

In this post, Wei Jia talks about some of her experiences of working in Melbourne.

When I first arrived I worked in a Chinese restaurant. The wages for working in a Chinatown restaurant are pretty low, and to make matters worse the work is usually really laborious. These days I occasionally work in a Sri Lankan take away place where the wages are OK, the work is not as strenuous and the boss is not too bad. Actually, I am quite happy when I’m doing this job. It is sort of like a break from study and my real job, which is working part time at a landscape architecture company.

I feel that language is still my biggest obstacle to truly fitting in with my workmates. Also, I’m still not 100% familiar with Australian culture and that makes it really difficult to fully integrate with my work colleagues. For example, everyone at the landscape architecture company loves to go fishing, but I don’t know how, so it is really hard to find something to chat about with them. But, on the whole, I’m really pleased to have this opportunity.

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!