One Thing You Learn Living Overseas

I found this shared by my friend on Facebook, and it pretty much sums up the way we, who live overseas, think.

"Living abroad makes me change the way I see people

You smoke? cool. You don't smoke? okay

You drink? cool. You don't drink? Let's grab coffee.

You are not virgin? cool. You are virgin? great!

You wear short skirts, crop tee, dye your hair green? cool. You dress casually? nevermind.

You kiss your date in public? so what. You don't kiss them? not my business.

You get tattoo? well done. You hate tattoo? no probs.

Sometimes we have to mind our own business instead of judging and talking bad about people. You don't pay their living anyway, so what makes you think you can bad mouthing them?"

All those are true to us. We don't really care if you do or do not do all those. And we don't straight away decide oh, you have tattoos, so you are a bad person. Or, you drink, so you must be a drunk and use drugs.

To people living in our home country, they might think we are already ruined by western way of thinking, becoming individualists, arrogant, and simply bad. Well, to us, you are shallow, judging and don't have the ability or even maybe do not want to think. 

Take my friend as an example. She is over 30 years old and still single. If she goes home to Vietnam, everyone asks her "When are you going to get married?". Even her mum forced her to go meet this 40 years old man, to see if they have a chance to date. On that first meeting, that guy asked her "So, you live overseas, so you go to pubs and drink?". To which she replied, "That's the habit in Australia. People go out to pub with friends and have a drink or two. Nothing's wrong with that!". To tell you the truth, she is not a pub girl. True, we all here drink, but doesn't mean we do it regularly or are addicted to it. It's just a once in a while thing. And that guy, without getting to know her better, already judged her and believed that she goes out partying and who knows what else. People say the older you are, the wiser you become. Well, not in that guy's case. He's over 40 but still can't put himself in other people's shoes.

I experienced it myself when I went back to Indo. Once I went with my dad to his music club (It's a traditional Chinese music group, they play erhu, mandolin, flute, zither, yangqing, and other musical instruments). My mum was not feeling well, and she was worried my dad would be sleepy if nobody keeps him company when driving, so I went instead. Then, this old woman, my dad's music club mate, looked at me from head to toe, back to head again, and said to my dad in Mandarin, "Your daughter? Still not married?? She's past 25-26 already, isn't it???". Excuse me????? It's NONE of YOUR effing business!! If it wasn't for my dad, I would have scolded her back. 

That's the thing with Asian country, so much of the so called manner I.e. don't fight with elders, don't talk back to elders bla bla -_- which clearly gives the upper hand to the so called "elders". If we get upset, or annoyed bcoz of what they say, they say we have bad temper. If we talk back or increase our voice just a bit, they say we have no manners. If we defend ourselves, they say "No wonder, she's been living overseas for too long".

Seems like she likes judging people, so let me judge her then! That old lady, if you ask me, is no better than me anyway. She is OLD and already has grandchildren, let me repeat, GRANDCHILDREN! But she comes to the music club in obsessive make up and dressed like she is going to the Melbourne Cup Racing, also with 10 cm high heels. Lady, aren't you suppose to take care of your feet at that age? Also, she is a Chinese descendant living in Indo for all her life, yet, she can't speak a single word in Indo! Now talk about ignorance!

When I saw that post on Facebook, it reminded me of a conversation I had with my friend here. And she just told me that it reminded her of that too. That time her sister had just gave birth to a baby girl, and posted the photos on Facebook. Then this friend, who hasn't contacted her since they were in high school, started chatting to her on Facebook. She asked her all those questions about ANYTHING! About her baby and her sister's baby, I.e. are they or have they been baptized, where will they be baptized, what kind of mobile phones they have and then... What kind of contraceptive does she use -.- talking about kaypoh to the max -.- and please remember that they haven't talked to each other since like.. 10++ years ago.

So yep, back to the post I shared of Facebook, living overseas teaches us to be more considerate towards others. To know our place. To try to understand the other side of the story. To care, but not being busybodies. To ask a question, and know to stop pressing when the other party does not want to answer. To be close, but still giving people their space. When we see someone is upset, we learn to give them time when they are not ready to talk, but still watching over them and letting them know we will always be there when they are finally ready to talk. That to me, definitely is a good thing.

Woolworths' Ads Drive Me Crazy

The new 85 cents Woolworths' bread ad is DRIVING me INSANE!!! Imagine listening to a radio station, and everytime the song stops, that bloody catchy highpitched long ad plays, then few ads later, that ad is on again!!! It was played TWICE on EVERY single ad slot arghhhhhhh -____- I had headache by 12 o'clock -_-"

The radio station was Kiis.FM btw. This station has reputation of playing same song like a million times a day, so my colleagues are really against me putting this station on. So when yday Miss Green said to me, "you can change the radio station if you want..." I ran straight to change to Kiis.fm. but within 1.5 hours I so wanted to change it back -_-"

Lunch time I lodged a complaint to the radio station. I just needed to yell at someone for giving me headaches -_-! What surprised me was that I got a reply within 2 hours! I guess they do monitor the complain inbox hmm... I guess that's what people would do after experiencing some radio scandals, good job but. Anyhow, the guy apologized and said that it was not their intention to annoy the listeners, it's just that Woolworths had put a huge advertising campaign for yesterday only.

They must have put a lot of money to do that :l and I mean a HUGE amount of money, because by 4.30 I couldn't take it anymore and changed it back to the other station, and guess what? They played the bloody ad too!!! *banging my head on the wall* in exact same manner! Twice on EVERY ad slot *banging my head again* that's it, I plugged my earphones on and listen to my own mp3 -_-"'"

Moral of the story, business is really business. Woolworths aim is definitely to get people remembering their 85cent bread, doesn't matter what the method is, including brainwashing your head using radio ad being played a million times a day. I don't usually use millions, trillions etc.. but I damn sure it was played pretty close to that figure yesterday. Might try to get the exact number of it from Kiis guy. Well they succeeded, my head still hurts from that ads and that stupid annoying song keeps repeating inside my head ughhh -__- as for kiis.fm, what a wise decision. I wonder who made it. You guys successfully make me stay away from you, and hopefully not just me. I'm changing to smooth.fm, fingers crossed Woolworths didn't buy this one too -__-""

What People Think of You After You Live Overseas

After I live overseas, I realised that some stuffs that people in Indo think would happen to people living abroad, are not true. Some are even ridiculous lol I tried to think and remember of all those things, and here are what I can think of:

1. Your English is definitely absolutely fluent perfect. Or as my friend puts it, "uda cas cis cus" XD

2. You forget your mother's tongue and even pick up western accent when speaking Indo. This is very common to see in Indonesian sinetron. The most memorable one was the one portrayed by Feby Febiola I think, in Tersanjung as Tante America. 

Her performance was so ridiculous that it was memorable! Not only picking up western accent when speaking Indo is practically not going to happen if you don't learn to speak Indo overseas, her English in that sinetron was TERRIBLE as well. I can understand if you have that western accent, but that means your English must be perfect too!! If ur English is THAT bad, then there is no way your Indo has western accent! Gees... Do your research madam!

3. You can't find Indonesian food overseas. The fact is, prior to leaving Indo, I didn't eat much of Indonesian food. I.e. krecek, gudeg, Ayam penyet etc etc. I actually tried a lot of Indo food for the first time here in Sydney. As for the taste, of course some are really bad (I still remember that mi tek tek that cost me $10 a plate and tasted NOTHING like mi tek tek -_-"), but some of them are really good. So when my auntie in Jakarta offers me food, saying "you cant find this in Sydney right?', though I still eagerly accept it, :p most of the time I say "I can, but the taste might not be that authentic."

4. You like western food better than Indo now. Hmmmm... Not really... I don't know about everyone, but between me and my friends, we all still prefer Indo/Chinese food. We do like western food more than the first time we landed in the land of Oz, but we won't say our favourite is western food. We can crave, but we can't imagine eating it every day :l

5. You speak English all the time and meet more Caucasians than Asians. Well... Not in Sydney lol This city is SO multicultural, just name a nationality you want to meet and there will be one. Actually, if I go to Sydney CBD, I see more Asians than Caucasians. Of course this includes Australian Born Asians too, but you get the picture :) as for speaking English all the time, that really depends on your friends . I do speak 100% English at work, but my friends used to work for companies that have a lot of Indo people, so they spoke Indo at work and at home. And most of our friends are Indo too. So, really.. depends...

6. You must be filthy rich. Maybe the sound of living abroad is so cool? So some people who heard that I live abroad usually say, "Oh? How good, you have a lot of money. Must be very nice ya?". But in truth, I worked while I was a fulltime student in uni. In my last year in uni I even had 3 different casual jobs! It was pretty hard to juggle on my last semester. I was lucky to have a very understanding manager back then. Then after I graduated, I didn't get a full time job. Instead, I worked on 4 different jobs. A 3 days office junior job, 2 days of handing free magazines and 3-4 days a week in a supermarket. It's not as sparkly as people think it is.

So that's my list of things people think will happen to people living abroad. If you have other thought, let me know and I'll say if it's true or not :)

What A Hell of Two Days!!

Honestly, I feel like I have experienced a LOT of things these past 2 days. Let's start with yesterday, Sunday 7 Sep 2014, shall we?

Yesterday was the day before the Moon Cake Festival, and my friends, my sisters and I rented a car and went to Cabramatta for the Moon Cake Festival. Firstly, few days before that, there was a drama too between our group about our plan for yesterday, but let's not go there. Long story short, just say it wasn't that smooth just to get to yesterday. Anyway, it was DAMN crowded in Cabramatta. Lucky we started early, so it was still okay when we got there.

Once we got there and looking at the stalls, suddenly my friends started queuing in front of some random stall. I then asked them, "What are you guys queuing for???" They said, "Don't know. But the queue is long! Must be great stuff!!". Honestly, Wah Banana's video on "Signs That You Are A Singaporean" flashed back on me lol I really felt like I was a Singaporean, as I started queuing too without knowing what it was for.

When we got closer to the front of the line, we realised that it was a queue for a lucky draw. You pay $2, and then take a folded paper inside a plastic barrel for your prize. The prize were either a bottle of water, a pack of rice (probably 1 kg), or a box of mooncakes. My friends were first, and they got bottles of water. Then my turn came, and I took one of the folded paper and gave it to the stall girl. She opened it, her eyes WIDENED, and she excitedly showed me the writing on the paper (which I had no clue about as my Chinese really is at kindergarten level). She then said, "You've got the Mooncake!!!!!". Honestly, what went through my mind was "Is it 1 mooncake or 1 box of mooncakes?" LOL A greedy girl, aren't I? XD

They gave me a box of mooncakes and then asked me if I mind if they took my photo and it would be published on tomorrow's paper (which is today, and I've been checking if my photo is on their website =P but I couldn't find any *sob* I would check on the paper in library tomorrow). How lucky hohohoho ^^ The unlucky part was, my friend's mobile phone froze when he tried to take photo of me with the prize, and after it was fixed, he took a photo of the prize WITHOUT ME -_-" I ended up getting him to take photo of ME with the prize later on at my friend's place, but it's not the same!!! >>>____<<< I want the stall's background hix..... T___T

Then afterwards, everything was normal. We went eating, shopping, had DIY rice paper rolls, oh, we also got to see Adrian Nakadoo performing at the mooncake festival which is pretty cool! He sounded exactly like in XFactor! So I guess all of them must be really good then. After all those, we visited our friends who just had a new baby girl. Though after I think about it again, something funny did happen there.... My friend, let's name him Sunny, bought some nappy sealer machine as a gift for the new baby. He likes those gadgets kind of thing. He did say that this machine only includes 6 bags, and the bags cassettes cost like $40 for 3 or 6, I can't remember, anyway exxy. When he showed it to his flatmate earlier, she said to him "When I give birth, don't give me this, alright?" LOL So he said well at least she gets to play with it. When my friend (the one who just gave birth) received it, she opened it straight away and had a look. And then she said, "I think I picked the cassettes the other day!!" (This friend of mine is just like me, cheapskates and likes to pick things up from the recycle room lol... As a matter of fact, I actually learned this from her hahaha....). She then went and took the cassettes she found, and they look similar!! She didn't try them on, but they really look similar. So she actually picked the cassettes before she got the machine XD What a talent lol

Then, another not so strange thing was, remember the mooncakes I won? My bestie wanted to buy some mooncakes in the festival, but all was sold per box, she won't be able to finish them, so she didn't end up buying. So, I gave her 1 of my prize. When my friend came to my place for dinner that night, he gave me 1 mooncake. Seems to me like it was to replace the one I gave away :)

Another thing was, yesterday in the car on our way home, my sister was looking for her mobile phone. She couldn't find it and asked me to ring it. It rang inside the car, really faint, muffled sound, but we clearly heard it, so we thought that it must have been in the bag and not to worry about it. However, later that night she tried to find it, she couldn't! She lost her phone!! We rang her mobile but we couldn't hear the ringtone! The phone was still on though. Unfortunately, the friend who hired the car was already sleeping so he couldn't check the car. I left him a message to check the car if he still could access it.

Then this morning he checked it out, however he couldn't find it. He checked the seat, the floor, tried ringing it, but couldn't find anything. I pretty much lost half of my hope. Unfortunately Sydney is not as great as Japan in terms of lost property, so if someone finds your phone, you pretty much have higher chance that you won't ever get it back. But saying that, I still return wallets that I found on the street or on the bus.

I tried locating the phone using Android's Device Manager, however my stupid sister couldn't even remember her gmail username and password!!!! Grrrrrrrr -_____-""" So while trying to crack her account, I sent an SMS to her phone hoping someone would reply. And they did!!!! I rang her phone and a girl answered it. She said she found it in the car last night and so she took it with her, coz she thought somebody else might take it if she left it in the car. She also said sorry that she didn't pick up the calls last night because she was already sleeping. How nice!!! I was SO SO SO SO relieved!! Really thank God for it :))

And you know what, last night's dinner was for my friend's birthday, which is today. And this morning he dropped his iPhone and had the glass cracked XD Oh man, so many things!

This afternoon, I was looking at the time on my PC and I just realised that today last year, my sisters and I were in Tokyo. Gosh!! How quickly time flies!!! I miss that time so much. Today last year we were eating and shopping in Sensouji, went to Shinjuku to see Tokyo view and met my friend for lunch. Eventhough towards the end of the day we were drenched at Harajuku, didn't get to see the cosplay and had to get back to the station straight after arriving at Harajuku because it was raining SO hard, it was the best time we ever had. So I wrote a little email to the ryokan owners we stayed at in Tokyo, just to say hello. Simply because I miss that time. To my surprise, they replied to me straight away with a really long email and are as warm and friendly as before :)

That's not all. This arvo water tap announced in our VIP group that Blondie had resigned. Blondie didn't give months of heads up just like what superexcited expects everyone to do and was very shitty about it and pretty much told Blondie to piss off. So the last day would be this Friday :(( I don't get it really, according to the colleagues, Blondie hasn't got much to do these past few weeks and has been pretty bored. Plus, si bawel always says that we don't have a lot of things to do, we're pretty much free and rah rah rah... so, isn't it good if someone leaves voluntarily? He won't have to pay for the next 3 months :/ Plus, Blondie is not exactly si bawel's preference anyway, so I don't really get what's the problem :/

After I left work tonight, Ms Green was looking for me on Whatsapp, asking if I already left. Sensing something is up, I sent multiple messages asking why. She then said, she wanted to tell me before they announce it tomorrow, she's officially resigned >>>>>>_______<<<<<< Her last day would be a month from now >>>>>>>>_______<<<<<<<< Everybody's leaving me TT_______________TT

See? What a hell of 2 days... I don't think I've had 2 days as full on as these 2 days.

Now, off to the Cotton Island!

Sleep tight :)