Catching Up (Part 3)

My parents came to visit us during the Easter holiday this year. They stayed for only 2 weeks, but even then they found the weather here too cold to their liking.

We brought them to look around Melbourne, and since there was not much to see, we drove by the beach and stopped at a spot or two. We then visited my old Year 12 college and popped by the flats I used to stay as a first year overseas student.

We wanted to bring them to the Phillips Island to watch the penguin parade, but the cold was too much for them, so they followed my brother and sister-in-law to the Dandenongs and went cherry picking.

We were rather disappointed that the penguins did not return in droves, apparently because there were sharks just outside the island. There is also a colony of penguins in the St. Kilda piers, right near the heart of down town Melbourne.

Apart from the penguin parade we also dropped by the koala reserve. It was scary to see how human activities have decimated the breeding grounds of penguins and koala bear just a little over 100 years.

Catching Up (Part 2)

And in February this year we moved house. We moved a few streets down from where we lived so that the kids would not have to walk too far when they get off the school bus. They used to walk up to 2 km; but now they walked only about 100 m. For most part of the year the walking probably did they some good, but in the hot summer and cold winter, they were actually quite miserable.

After moving in, we have some family members coming over for ho

use warming. The biggest group would be Belinda's cousins, nephews and nieces. It was a great time catching up with them, since the last time we met was when Belinda's grandmother was very sick, and that would have been more than 12 years ago.

That night all 4 families from Belinda's family side turned up; the fellowship was very warm and we all had a good time.

Since coming over, we (actually Belinda and Nicole) have also learnt some tricks in cooking; it is surprising how much one can do with canned sauces. We had a good "laksa" night.

Catching Up (Part 1)

It has been quite awhile since I last found time to jot down my thoughts. Work has been busy - well, that is a lie - but, life has been busy. There's work, there's church, there's family, and life was rather full, until this week. This is the beginning of the kids' winter holiday, and I took a week off to babysit them (not that they need me to).

When did I last blog? Back in the beginning of the year. And that is a fatal mistake - people who follow my blog would likely to give up if I have left it half dead for months. And for your coming back - I am indeed grateful.

Quite a few things happened since. (And that is an understatement - when I need to split this blog into a few parts just to catch up).

Earlier in the year we celebrated my brother's birthday.

Back in April, during the fall break, my parents came over for about 2 weeks. Regretted that we didn't bring them around much. Their main reason of coming though, is to catch up with us and see how we are. They were happy at the end of the visit.

We did bring them looking around Melbourne beach front. It was cold. We then dropped by the secondary college I attended when I first came. There were lots of memory when we toured the old college ground. The school itself has many improvements since - a heated swimming pool, and dedicated gymnasium, new buildings, new common rooms for the Year 12 students etc ...

We then drove past the block of flats I stayed in as a Year 12 student.

It was good to show my parents the school they sent me to, but driving back, I could not hold back the memories of a first year, wild eye, overseas students facing a major examination at the end of the year in a school where there was less than half a dozen of overseas students. Having come from a small town in Malaysia where speaking English is considered pretentious, I had a hard time struggling with my English. My first winter was bitterly cold - apparently the coldest winter in 10 years before that; and I remember seeing my first day of snow peering out of the library window during my English lesson. That year, it actually snowed in suburban Melbourne. There was so much uncertainties and anxieties - would I do well in my exam? What happen if I don't? Was it the right decision to come?

Thank God I made it through and did rather well at the end of the year.

Looking forward, there are many similarities, too, comparing this year with the first year I was here. This winter has been the coldest in 10 years; there was so much adjustment at work; so much to get use to, so much to learn. But if the past is anything to go by - God shows His faithfulness today by showing us how faithful He has been in the past - then I would have all the confidence that things will work out fine; all the confidence in my God.

New year, new station

Over the Chinese New Year, we moved house.

We moved from the house we rented for the past 6 months to another house. As we went back to clean up the house before handing the keys back to the estate agent, there was a strange feeling looking at the empty house.

Strange because over the past 6 months we have called this place home - a small enclave where we found familiarity, warmth, joy and cosiness in an otherwise new and foreign place. And as we scrubbed and cleaned the marks on the wall and floor and carpet, I realised we were not only removing the marks we left in the house, but also the tears and joy we shared as a family in the first 6 months as new migrants in this land.

We are leaving a place where there were more than memories for us as a family. There was the bare kitchen bench top when we had our first dinner as a family in this land - a dinner of only Maggie noodles and eggs. There was the door which the kids walked out in the cold August morning to their first day of school here. There was the oven where I baked my first loaf of fully hand-kneaded bread. There was the stove where my teenage daughter, moved by the busy-ness of our lives and work, cooked her first dinner all by herself for the family.

And strange because after all the cleaning the house looked like the first day we moved in. There was no sign of us ever staying here.

There was no reminder of that laughter when we came back from the walk in the beautiful park nearby; or the worries that hang low on our eyebrows over our work and finances; or the tear that filled our eyes when we shared how we missed our family. There was no trace of the fragrance of a freshly baked loaf of bread on a glorious Saturday morning, or the warmth over a home cook dinner in the cold dark August night.

The house looked exactly like how it was when we first step in in that freezing August evening. And as I walked out of the house for the last time, I felt that as a family we have lost something behind that close door - something that I know was there, yet which left no trace within the bare four walls of that house.

We have been here for only 6 months and we have settled in too well. To all of us, it felt like we have been here for years. It felt like we have been here too long to remember the struggle a new migrant family would face in this land - all the feeling of being lost in a strange and foreign new land, the unpleasant experience of getting one's life together to start anew, the worries of livelihood, the humbling experience of starting anew in one's career.

Perhaps we have scrubbed off more than marks and stains in that house. Perhaps we have also scrubbed off that which marked us apart as new migrants - and with that, the worries and tears of new migrants in this land. And as we struggled to integrate ourselves as part of the masses, we have inadvertently got rid that which is a greater source of joy - the strength we found in each other as we face challenges and unfamiliarity together as a family.

Old Year, New Year

During the last weekend, we brought the kids to one of the places where we used to go as students here. We brought them to one of the Vietnamese streets to enjoy the famous beef pho (rice noodle or vermicelli).

The street has not change much. The food was just as fabulous as it was almost 20 years ago. The kids enjoyed the food - or at least we hope they did as much as us.

Sometimes I feel I miss this food for too long. And I would gladly go back as often as I can.

But it is more than just the food that I have rediscovered here. It is also the memory and the years that we spent here. It is the memory of the night where I knelt before the empty blank wall and surrendered my life to my God and the joyous surprise when I first met my wife. It is also the cold winter nights spent preparing for exam or the long working days in the hospital.

There is a strange sense of familiarity with the whole city here. Sometimes when I drive home at night, I would almost be momentarily confused. Some of the roads looked like what they were 20 years ago. Some of the roadside buildings have not change for the last 20 years.


There is a strange sense of familiarity in this street. Somewhere along the dirty alley and the crowded noisy restaurant, time seems to have stood still. And somewhere between the loud conversations of the patrons and the smell of mint and beef noodles is a doorway back to my youth, a doorway through 20 years of time.

As we count down another year, another decade, and another station of life, perhaps what seems to have gone for good is not lost forever. Perhaps what is lost is the doorway back to where we were. Perhaps if we could only find the way; the tiny restaurant hidden behind the crooked alleyway, or the fresh smell of pine in the early morning sun, or the drizzle in the cold dark winter night, we could once again turn the hands of clock back, and live again what was thought lost forever.

A migrant's psyche

It has been a long while since I could put my thoughts down. It has been a busy two months with my work starting, with adaptation to new work environment, with knowing new colleagues, with finding my ways around ...

Over the past weeks or so, we have also more opportunity to interact with other migrants, old and new. It is quite interesting to note a few things.

When I first went back from here to my home country more than 15 years ago, people from my home country used to ask me if this is a racist country. I used to tell them that interesting enough often it was the new migrants who had difficulty accepting even newer migrants. Those who have been here a long time seem to accept others better. I wasn't quite sure if I were right; I am still not sure.

But after 15 years, and after spending some time with some of the migrants here, there are 3 things that I found interesting.

Firstly, I met a guy in a meeting whose family has moved over, but who is still flying back to his home country regularly and for prolonged period of time to attend to his business there. Interesting to hear from a migrant like him that this country should not accept anymore migrants. He kept saying that there are too many migrants here and migrants are crowding out many of the places here - from housing and accommodation to school places, public transportation and traffic jams. It sounded as though those who have made it here first want to stop more people coming so that we don't have to share whatever good things here with others. I did not think it was polite to confront him the first time we meet - but if the country should not accept new migrants, than why should he and his family be accepted? Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee had a fantastic reply when the American female reporter asked him about the relationship between the aborigines and the white; he replied simply, yet profoundly, "Two fleas (the aborigines and the whites) arguing who owns the dog (the country)." Do we own this place simply because we are here first? Have we truly the right to exclude others from coming? As Christians do we not believe that God owns the place and we are but stewards here, and the main responsibility is to share our blessings with others, especially the less fortunate?

Secondly, it was interesting to hear what was the response to the Sri Lankan boat people. Most if not all believe that they should not be granted asylum. Somehow, we believe that most of them were trying to smuggle themselves into the country, and abuse the welfare system once here. And somehow we believe that instead of them we are more deserving to come here, either because of the amount of money we bring in or because of our skills. Is that so? Do we truly believe we have earned the right to be here? Whatever that we have, skills, money or anything else, are these not blessings from God? How are we different from them? We have not earned the right to be here, or anywhere else, for that matter. We are here by the grace and blessings of God, grace and blessings that are given us so that we can share with others.

Thirdly, we have a friend who recently went home for a few months, and when he came back he shared publicly that he was very glad we weren't back home. And we keep giving thanks that we don't have to suffer the racist policy and the discrimination back home. We thank God for the peace, the prosperity, and the good life. In fact, we keep reminding ourselves and our children of all these good things and we keep reminding each other. It is good to remind ourselves, and it is good to thank God. There is nothing wrong in giving thanks, but there is everything wrong if that is where we stop. It is even worst if to others we seem like gloating over their predicament, though that may be the furthest from our intention. The sentence "Thank God my children don't have to suffer from racist policy!" sounds good to those here; but how does it sound to the people back home? How does that sound to those who want to go but can't? How do you explain to your children when they read of this and ask you, as a parent, "Why don't we go?"

At the end of the day; I wonder if all these are the fruits of a deeper problem, a problem that we don't have an answer to, but choose to ignore it and bury it deep in the sand of our unconscious mind. I wonder at the end of the day, whether we can truly, honestly face up to this question, "Did we run away from the problems back home and let the less fortunate others face the music?" A related question is "Why did we leave?"

Why did we leave?!

First month

Yeap! I survived the first month of work. And praise God it hasn't been as bad as I thought. In fact, praise God, it has been quite okay.

I was nervous for awhile when I first started. After a month or so, I believe I am getting the hang of things.

There isn't much difference in the medical side of things. After all, human beings are remarkably alike in many more ways that we thought.

It's just the ways things are done - tests are easier to come by, finances less of a concern; and on the other hand, patients are more demanding and litigation more of a problem.

All these affect the way medicine is practiced here. For the better? Perhaps not always. Overall, efficiency suffers because doctors have to be more defensive.

Going to work is also not as bad. Driving across town to work is something that we are used to do in Malaysia. Traffic is better here as well. So there is not as bad as it seems.

The other thing is weather; weather here changes at the drop of a hat. It could be cold and damp one day, and hot and sunny the next. Overall, though, it is warming up, and we are beginning to have 30 degrees days even early in November. It is forecast that we will have one of the hottest years in decades, with peak temperature up to high 40s mid summer this year.