人生的突破時刻｜An Atypical Journey from China to Australia

In the 4 years that I've been in Australia, after again and again meeting new people, telling my story, observing people's reactions and refining the details, I have worked out the version of the story that I tell people.

"Hi, I'm May and I'm from China. I did computer science at uni when I was in China and in the whole 4 years I didn't like it, I thought coding was boring and at the end of my study, I didn't want to do it anymore as a career. I decided I wanted to be in somewhere else doing something different, so I came to Australia to do my masters in design. As I was doing design, I realised coding is actually cool because I can make my ideas come true when others have their ideas on paper. That's when I started liking coding, so I kept doing it ever since. Now I'm a software engineer with a startup."

People seem to like my story. My guess is this story is simple enough but yet has something they can relate to. I'm no longer one of those international students coming here with parents' money and not willing to blend in. I'm a person, who gets lost and wanders around looking for an answer.

While I was engineering a story to make people like me, I was also keeping a story for my parents. To them, I have been a good kid, always trying hard, has a masters degree from a world-class university and a well-paid job. Most importantly, I'm better off than most of their friends' kids.

Both of the stories are true, I didn't make up any facts. In fact, I might have more versions tailored to more sub-segment of the audience. I cherry-pick some details of my story and leave out the others in different situations to survive, to fit in and to avoid conflicts.

But deep down, what is the story to myself?

The systems

I didn't like the system when I was in China. When I tell people this, sometimes I say "you know, it's China…", and most people will make a yes-I-understand face whether they are Chinese or not, and regardless how much they actually know about China. And with the agreement, we move on to the next topic. But I should explain a little more here.

Let alone the political regime, it is this system that seems there is only one path I was supposed to go. And the path is to do well in school, get a practical degree from one of the top universities, and the prospect is a 996 job (working from 9 am to 9 pm for 6 days a week) where the CEO says "you should consider yourself lucky if you get to work 996". And it is sadly true compared to the other options. The promise is one day you might accumulate enough that you will be on the top of the food chain and can start exploiting others. As there is only one path, it felt like everyone is watching how everyone else is doing. My parents' friends, old neighbours, people from high school, people from uni, they all cared about me, but did they? I was also curious about them because I didn't want to lose the race. I believed it was the only thing to do and I was doing relatively well. Something felt wrong but I couldn't articulate at that time because I was so deep in the framework and didn't see any alternatives.

So I escaped. I came to Australia not because I knew my answer is here but because I couldn't find an answer in China and I wanted to run away from the problem. And it wasn't a heroic move like a philosopher withdraw from the society saying "this is a dumb game and I don't want to play along". It was more of a sneaky move. I still made sure it was one of the best actions in the framework - studying abroad at a prestigious university. I was saying "this is dumb but I won. And you can't argue with me because I'm not here to play anymore".

After I came here, for a while I thought I had the answer. I had a great job that I believed is making a difference and didn't consume my whole life. I walked on the street seeing all the strange faces and felt like no one cares about me, no one even knew me. There seemed a democratic process in place even though I didn't have a say as a temporary resident. Everything sounded awesome. I wanted to be accepted in the circle so I can enjoy full rights and take my responsibility as a citizen. That was my Australian dream.

But as I stayed longer, I slowly realised the this is an illusion. The government who prides themselves in protecting the people and only their people is the government who evaluate the outsiders who want to join the club by how useful they are to the economy and ultimately the insiders. If you are disabled or in some medical condition, sorry we can't have you here because you will potentially cost taxpayers' money in medical care. If you come here on a boat from a war-torn country, sorry you are not our problem. We have a problem that people die on our footsteps so we are fixing it by kindly asking people to die somewhere else or lock them up like criminals if they refuse to listen. Wow, you are fee-paying international students or you have the skills we need to build our economy, welcome to your new home here. But when the crisis hits, I thought we agreed that you were supposed to support yourself, if not maybe it's time to go home.

Just like the big tech CEO in China, this is just a more systematic way of saying "consider yourself lucky if we think you are useful". And again I am the lucky one that meets what the system wants. Or should I say I am lucky enough to be able to shape myself to fit in the system? I'm no longer not sure how much the fact that software development is on the skill shortage list while design is not has contributed to my career decision. And all the other decisions I made, how much were they affected by the system? I'm not sure. I did it again, just as I what did well in China.

I fantasised myself to be the rebel fleeing a system that I didn't want to be part of, but only to realise I've arrived at another one. What do I do this time? Look for a better place? Is there a utopia in this world? I don't know.

I used to believe globalisation deconstructs the systems because people are free to move and choose sensibly, eventually those unfavourable systems will fade out and we will create a whole new world. So I was a hero because I made a bold decision to leave an evil system. But it turned out globalisation reinforces the inequality more than cancelling it out as it makes more choices available to those people who already have more freedom and options in their local region but not the others. On the table, those systems seem to work in opposite ways, sometimes they accuse each other of the things that go wrong in the world and make their people point fingers at the others. Under the table, however, they work with each other to filter out the "good" people and reward them with privileges and discriminate the undesired "useless" people altogether.

4 years ago, my answer to an unfair system is to leave. But after this long journey, I realised there is nowhere to escape, especially in this globalising world where the systems' tentacles are longer than ever before and interwoven with each other. A Buddhist saying started to make more and more sense to me - things and people are the way they are because I am the way I am. Free speech in China worsens because I didn't think it was worth fighting a losing game and I left. The controversial security law was passed in HongKong because I was self-censored and didn't do enough about it. Asylum seekers are locked up in detention centres in Australia because I was so busy fitting in and keeping myself afloat.

So this time, instead of putting my effort into looking for a better place and leaving and settling down again, I am going to stay where I am and fight and help and do what I can to make the change happen. How? I don't know. I will make things up as it comes.

Me

When I was in China, even though I couldn't articulate it, this monoculture that approves only one right way to live and no one can ask questions about it made me feel like I couldn't breathe. My dad was constantly saying everyone is supposed to do the right thing at the right time, the timeline is basically study - get a stable job - get married - have kids. My mum was more subtle. She was understanding and empathetic most of the time and only hope I was happy, but I could still see the cultural values in her picture of happiness. I can understand them to some extent, if you lived your life for a picture, it's easier to just believe in it than looking back and regretting things could have been done differently. So I left, to get away from the pressure without putting myself against it so I wouldn't confront too many people in my life.

And when I came to Australia, one problem solved, but more questions arisen. The most essential one is what am I? What is my position in this alien place? In answering this question, I made a conscious and unconscious decision to make more friends that don't speak Chinese.

Consciously, I wanted to be a "good" immigrant. I didn't want to be the "typical" Chinese international student often criticised by the local community, who lives in their own bubble and surrounded by other Chinese students, closed-minded and not willing to blend in the local culture, and takes all the local resources and makes the city crowded. I didn't feel as right as other people to be here. It was a different feeling from when I was in China. In China, though things didn't feel right, I felt every right to be there, no one could challenge me to exist. I wanted to be accepted, so I wanted to fit in the culture as there's no much I could do about the resources and city.

Unconsciously, I didn't want to be around the same group of people that I escaped from. Even if some of them might have come here for the same reason as I did, some ideas and values are so deep inside us and we just cannot hope to leave behind by simply being in another place. They come out as we speak the language that we spoke and as we do things that we did without we realising it. It's easier to cut it off completely.

So speaking a foreign language was my way to start anew. Because I don't speak fluently in English, I have to think before I speak and that allows me to reflect if that is what I really want to say or something come out of my mouth as an agent of the culture and system. The language a society speak carries the culture and value of society. Sometimes when I think in Chinese and try to translate my thoughts into English later, the direct translation just doesn't work the context, it requires more explanation like why an action leads to another, something comes natural in Chinese culture but not Australian. Other times I find it hard to articulate my thoughts in English to my Chinese friends or family. I also appreciate meeting people who come from very different background with a totally different experience from me, which again allows me to reflect on what I take as granted and what I never thought of that could have been other ways.

It took me a while to realise the good immigrant argument doesn't stand itself. The process of blending in takes two parties, one cannot ask the question if the newcomers are doing enough to fit in without asking the local communities are doing anything to make them feel welcomed. As for immigrants taking resources from local people, how hypocrite it is to say such a thing in a country where the British coloniser came 200 years ago and almost swept out the aboriginal population, and still treat them less like a human to this date, while the recent immigrants are brought in by the system with a clear goal to stimulate economic growth.

Today I am a lot more comfortable with who I am. I am neither a typical Chinese nor Australian. There's no such thing as a typical human being, everyone has a unique story if one is willing to listen. I didn't try to fit in Chinese culture and I will not try to fit in an Australian narrative. Again this time, I will stay and tell my own story. 

In the 4 years, from the questions, I have found answers that raise more questions. And I continue to answer those questions with more questions. I'm not sure if I will get to the ultimate answer one day, my promise is that I will keep looking with an open mind.