Written by Wan Liu
On April the 5th, I left China where I have been for 19 years and 5 months, since I was born I am from Wuhan. Many people know that it is “famous” for the eruption of Covid 19. I was afraid of leaving home, but I did not anticipate that staying in Perth would become an interesting experience for me.
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My plane trip had 3 parts. The first one was from Wuhan to Guangzhou. The second one was about crossing the border of China. I scanned my passport, passed the strange auto doors and everything seemed easier than I expected. Then I was on the plane to Melbourne. The plane arrived later than scheduled so that I couldn’t catch the third flight to Perth, I was struck by panic. But after I asked for help from the staff, I realized that it was quite normal and I was left to face this , after all I am an adult now.
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After I placed my foot on the ground in Perth, I felt it was weird because every sign there was written in English and not Mandarin, luckily most words were not too hard. Lots of people with different skin colours were walking around me , smiling and talking. It was very interesting for me. Mostly in China, one can only see Asian faces, but here is different.
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I arrived at my host family’s place at 4pm that day perhaps. The hostess greeted me with kind manners and a meal. She could speak a few Chinese sentences but probably not Mandarin and definitely not Taiwanese. I could tell her accent sounded like a Chinese accent. However, I do not know where she is originally from even now, because she kept this a secret. The meal consisted of rice and a sausage with curry on it, and it tasted ok. I lived there for a few weeks, and everything was fine. I had a roommate there from Thailand, but he seldom spoke.
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After a few weeks, I had to move to another host family. The host was an elderly white man aged 64 who is living with his teenage son. This guy had excellent cooking skills. Not only could he create Western food like pasta and pizza, but he was an expert of Asian dishes as well. His chicken soup and noodles were delicious. He has stayed in the Philippines for a very long time and his son is half Filipino . I could see complicated happiness and sorrow flickering in his eyes when he talked about the Philippines. One of the things I can never forget is that he said poverty is a real disease in the Philippines in a deep and serious tone.
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A day after I arrived at his house, a Japanese person arrived . I have always been interested in Japanese anime and culture in Japan and we soon became friends after some nice conversations. He told me he was fond of the comic magazine named Shonen Jump. I was very surprised to find that he always kept his room so tidy, and everything in order, unlike me.
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One night, as the weather became colder, our host made us drink a little wine to warm us up. He meant to be kind, but I cannot drink alcohol. They pushed me to finish a little bottle of wine. But even if it was a very little amount of wine, I kept drinking and then vomiting. My Japanese roommate recorded a video, and he laughed till he was brought to tears. I thought it was funny too. After all, the taste of alcohol made me sick. I cannot drink anything stronger than beer.
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My roommate and I both went to the language school in the university of Western Australia each day. But we were in different kinds of programs. Mine was the English bridging course. I met a lot of friends in the class. 14 of us were from China, 2 of us were from Taiwan, and 1 was from Bangladesh. There was a girl who was also from Wuhan and was majoring in data science which was similar to my major of Mathematics. We had a lot of conversations together and went to a Japanese Ramen restaurant . I was going to make this relationship go further but she told me she was 16 years older than me. I could not believe that because of her appearance. This made me feel like a clown and I felt very bad for a week.
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At last, the lessons were over, and my teacher had been very helpful. She was an energetic lady and very kind. The class had a meal at her house on the last night, bringing our own foods, this is called a potluck.
All of this has been a wonderful experience so far.