On the second day of the Chinese New Year, Dafuku, who was far away in Australia, sent us two interesting background messages.
In 1993, Dafu graduated with a master's degree in 985, and after working in China for a year, before the epidemic, she applied for a working holiday visa in Australia, and the sudden outbreak of the epidemic forced her to stay in Australia.
The game has not started to play, and it crashes?
She continued that after 2 years, she survived the discomfort of her first arrival in Australia, the torment of the epidemic, worked as a masseuse and barista, traveled in Australia while working, saved 600,000 yuan, and also had a domestic mortgage.
In the gap year between the epidemics, she was lying flat and quite supportive; she saw the distance and made money.
We asked her to write down her experience. So you see the following story, which is not just about the gap year, but also about the action after the choice: how a seemingly unwise decision gradually became the right one.
¥1.26 assets, ¥1.1 million liabilities,
I'm off
On December 17, 2019, I embarked on a flight from Guangzhou to Perth, Australia's fourth largest city. If I had known that this was two or three years, I don't know if I would have had the courage to embark on that flight. When waiting for the plane, I opened WeChat and received a voice message from my mother: "When you get there, pay attention to safety, Guanyin Bodhisattva will bless you, and everything will go smoothly and smoothly", you can hear it, it is the voice that has just cried.
The opportunity to live abroad for a while has always been my dream.
Before going to Australia, I did real estate sales in Qingdao for almost a year, the first time I heard about the Australian working holiday visa, it was in a tweet of a public account, mentioning that since 2015, Australia has opened 5,000 working holiday visa places to Chinese mainland every year, with work permissions, which can allow visa holders to work while making money while realizing the dream of traveling and living in a foreign country, in addition to the hard condition that the applicant's age cannot exceed 31 years old, others are easy to achieve.
When you think of Australia, you suddenly think of the Gold Coast, the Great Barrier Reef, the Sydney Opera House, the blue sea and the sky, the cute koalas and kangaroos... Thinking about it is full of a strong desire to explore, even to the point that if I can't go, I will regret it for the rest of my life, even if the domestic work experience of one year is zero, I can accept it from scratch when I return to China.
At that time, just in time for the Qingdao government to launch the "one-time settlement fee" welfare policy, in line with the conditions of "have settled, have paid a year of social security, graduated after 18 years, full-time graduate students", etc., buy a house can receive a subsidy of 100,000 yuan of one-time settlement fee, check I am eligible, do not want to miss this welfare, I will clear all my deposits, the family will fund a part, buy a house, and rush to complete various procedures before going abroad. After the bank loan, I opened my Chinese bank account, looked at the assets of ¥1.26, the liabilities of ¥1.1 million, and the pressure increased sharply in an instant, and I was worried about whether I could really survive in Australia.
On how to support yourself in Australia, according to the information I found, the minimum statutory hourly wage in Australia is about $20, 1.5 times the salary on weekends and 2 times the salary on holidays. Looking at the experience of some other backpackers who have lived in Australia, I think that a monthly income of 20,000 yuan is achievable, 20,000 yuan is enough to cover my mortgage and basic living expenses, and then save some money for travel, and even have a little left. After thinking about it for a while and feeling that there was no bug, I handled the resignation, began to prepare for IELTS, notarization of academic qualifications, physical examination, grabbing visa quotas, and submitting materials to embassies and consulates.
Finally, in early December 2019, my visa came down, and I remember that I was still driving on the highway, and after receiving the notification, I was so excited that I was about to drive into the ditch, but some people were happy and some people were worried. The old mother who was sitting next to me sighed, touched my head and said, "Little girl, you still have to leave after all."
Alas, as a child, he only has to go away with himself, who can take care of the worries and worries of his parents? I am preoccupied with the wonderful life of the future, and I am ready to bring my luggage for this trip. But I also know that the first priority when I go to Australia is to save money and stabilize my finances before talking about anything else.
You just have to make a choice and make the answer right
Decision-making becomes particularly simple when people are poor, because there is no choice, everything is based on money.
Before leaving, when I browsed the work information on Facebook, I saw a masseuse's job, the salary was still good, and I talked with a few docking people and felt very reliable, ready to go to work in Australia.
I don't have any baggage about what I want to do in Australia, and I have never cared about the comments and eyes of others. I have long accepted the fact that I am an ordinary person, I do not have the will and ability to save the world, and the work on a tall level is not necessarily suitable for me, I don't want to suffer that and I can't do it, and I can live according to my own wishes, and I am already very satisfied.
As soon as the plane landed in Perth, I took a deep breath, well, this is the taste of Australia, wearing a down jacket, I immediately felt the summer atmosphere of the southern hemisphere. After putting down my things and changing my clothes at the hotel, I rushed to get my bank card, tax number, telephone card, and bus card, and then took a 7-hour train ride from Perth to the town where I wanted to work according to the time agreed with the boss.
This remote inland town is my first place to live in Australia, I didn't like it at first sight when I got off the train and saw it, it was hot and sunny, it was far from the sea, there was no shop in front of the village, and it was far from the beautiful scenery of Australia that I imagined. At that time, there was another Chinese girl, Xiao Q, and the two of us newcomers were there at about the same time and were training together.
Exterior and interior of the shop where I work
For people who do not contribute much in the country, massage is still quite difficult to get started, in addition to learning to follow the methods and processes of the guests, there are also large and small requirements in the store that need to be remembered, just that is the Christmas season, the store is super busy, often there is no time to eat, the store manager and colleagues can only take advantage of their idle time to train you, although tired, but also not good to delay everyone too much time, just let yourself learn as soon as possible.
At the end of the day, my brain was tired, my body was tired, my hands were sore, and my stomach was empty, so I felt that it was quite hard.
After the end of the training back to the residence has been 11 o'clock in the evening, after going back to the little Q cried and told me, this is not the same as her imagination of Australian life, she wants to go back to Perth, to live in the city, I advised her we took a 7-hour train from Perth, spent 100 knives train tickets to come here, this has not returned to the original so thanks, everything at the beginning is difficult to no longer insist on looking at it.
Anyone will say comforting words, why don't I want to?
The next day, as soon as the alarm clock rang, before the eyes were opened, I felt the soreness of my hands first, and I couldn't care less about myself, so I quickly got up and cooked.
During that time, the most common thing I bought was carrots, not because I liked to eat them, but because they were cheap, and 1 knife could buy a big bag. But raw carrots are really hard and difficult to cut, and cutting diced carrots when your hands hurt is the first purgatory after waking up every day.
Although it is necessary to save money, but also try to ensure nutritional balance, so I will eat meat, eggs, milk and coarse grains every day, and I will buy chicken thighs and canned fish for meat, because it is the cheapest source of meat protein.
Cook the day's meals, go back to the room and learn English, because in my spoken English at the time, it was still a bit difficult to deal with the work.
At 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning, the sun was already very large, against the 40-degree heat of the southern hemisphere at the end of December, walking on the way to the store, passing by the old houses around, despite the umbrellas, the hot air was still blowing people are very anxious: Heavens, when can I leave this ghost place. Alas, after a long sigh, the chicken feathers of life still have to be faced.
The next day when the training was almost over, Xiao Q still decided to leave, she felt too tired, and did not like to do massage, she had already decided, I would no longer advise.
There is no standard answer in life, how to choose is right, you just have to make a choice, and then make this answer correct.
In fact, I also hesitated in the middle, but I just came to Australia from China, and only changed 1600 Australian dollars to enter the country (equivalent to about 7600 yuan at the exchange rate at that time), and I really couldn't bear to toss back and forth. But I thought to myself that if I stayed a few months, I would definitely get out of here.
After surviving the beginning, my cash flow returned to the right after two days of official work, Australia is paid once a week, and the monthly income of 20,000 yuan has slowly become a reality. In terms of work, when I learned to press the guests in the right way, I gradually became more comfortable.
Who would have thought that I would not be able to escape the "law of true incense" and stay in this place that I hated for a year and a half.
The black swan of the epidemic is coming,
The most anxious period also came
Just when I thought everything was going well, the black swan of the epidemic came.
On February 1, 2020, more than a month after I landed in Australia, Australia announced that it would impose an entry ban on China, in other words, if I came more than a month late, I would not be able to enter Australia.
Also since February, racial discrimination caused by the outbreak believed to have originated in China has also spread. At that special stage, the name "new crown virus" has not yet been popularized, and it is often mentioned as "Chinese virus" and "Wuhan virus" in foreign countries, and Chinese people abroad have become street rats. Some Asians will be scolded for no reason when they walk on the street, and in severe cases, they will be violently attacked. On the walls of public places, some people maliciously painted racially discriminatory slogans.
Although Australia is explicitly prohibited for racial discrimination, after all, Australia is a multicultural immigrant country, the education level of the masses is uneven, the cultural background of the original country is also very different, the forest is big and what birds are, how much is not easy to manage, and most importantly, the law can interfere with and regulate people's words and deeds, but it cannot change the prejudice in people's hearts.
At the end of March, the whole of Australia was locked down, except for supermarkets, hospitals and other key places that can operate normally, other industries have stopped production and stopped work, and I have ushered in the most anxious period of the past two years.
At that time, although I had saved a little money not to sleep on the street, but there was no stable cash flow, and I had to use the loan to pad it for a few months.
The roof leak was raining overnight, and the exchange rate of the Australian dollar to the renminbi fell from 4.9 all the way to 3.9, and I lost 20% of the Australian dollar in an instant before I earned a few Australian dollars. Worries about the future and all kinds of uncertainties make me wake up every day staring at the ceiling and routinely asking: Heavens, when am I going to be unemployed, how unlucky, the game has not started to play, it will die. If you accidentally get infected again, the whole game is over. Maybe I shouldn't have gone abroad at all, but this time I really seemed to have chosen the wrong one.
At that time, the two Taiwanese roommates who lived with me bought protective clothing and planned to return to Taiwan, I checked the tickets for Australia to fly domestically, and it had soared to thirty or forty thousand, and at that time, the vaccine had not been studied and understood, and the risk of infection on the way back home was extremely high. After thinking about it, I finally decided to stay still and wait and see what happened. After complaining about the end of the world, life still has to find a way to catch the heavy punch you give.
During the 50 days of the suspension, although anxiety would still hit from time to time, it slowly began to be bitter and happy.
My roommate next door, Little T, and I are at home every day, trying dishes on each other, making scallion oil cakes with noodles today, pasta tomorrow, studying salmon plating the day after tomorrow... When you're not cooking, watch movies and dramas, learn English, listen to the news occasionally, and look forward to what good news you can get.
When I opened the curtains and saw that the weather was too good, I took a mask to walk around the park, and slowly found that this town that I had never liked had a lot of good corners and cute people, and I was too paranoid before.
When the weather is clear, the streets of the colorful town are colorful
Walking on the street, seeing that the once bustling commercial street has now become so depressed and lonely, I can't help but sigh, it is really unpredictable.
In mid-May, the news of the resumption of work was ushered in, and the epidemic made backpackers from all over the world leave Australia one after another, but because the Australian border was closed to the outside world, the backpackers who went out could not enter, so the backpackers who remained in Australia after the resumption of work ushered in a wave of good.
Due to the shortage of people in all walks of life, the salary of employees has been improved compared with before. After the epidemic, I don't know because everyone thinks that the world is uncertain and has begun to have fun in time, or to hold back at home for too long to produce retaliatory consumption, the business in the store is better, and then I became the manager of the store and began to manage the store, more than some other things, but it is not difficult, I have been staying here to make money steadily. Watching the account balance increase steadily, the exchange rate of the Australian dollar against the renminbi gradually rose back to 5, taking the opportunity to exchange several waves of renminbi. Everything went so smoothly that it seemed too bland, man, that's it, just comfortable for a while and then wanted to toss, just tossed for a while and then felt still lying comfortable.
The simplicity and warmth of the small place,
It's like a spring breeze
The slow and leisurely pace of life is easy to spawn a simple human touch. Our shop has been open in the local area for 10 years, and the relationship with the guests is more like a friendly neighbor. From time to time, the shop will receive their hearts, including abalone that has just been caught from the sea, honey produced at home, eggs laid by their own chickens... During the Spring Festival, we were also wrapped in red envelopes, and the big red envelope was very thoughtfully written "Happy Chinese New Year".
Sometimes my colleagues and I are busy and don't have time to greet them, so they just put down their things and leave. Occasionally, an old customer passes by the door of our shop after work, and when he sees you looking up at him, he will make a grimace at you through the glass. The simplicity and warmth of the small place have melted me, a cold-blooded and thin-hearted person who has been in reinforced concrete for a long time.
In Australia, regardless of age, gender and position, everyone calls each other by their first names, and over time they become acquainted with the guests, and they do not call their names between colleagues, because they have a new nickname: "Angel" is a big uncle who tips a lot, looks like Maitreya Buddha, and has super positive energy. "Melancholy Brother" is a sad little brother who looks sad every time he comes to the store, at first he thinks he is unhappy, but later finds that his face looks like that when he has no expression. The "old monk" is a super talking old man in his 80s who comes once a week. For an hour, he can talk to you incessantly and without your response at all, just like the old monk chanting, there is no ups and downs in the tone, and it hurts after listening to it for a while. I guess it may be because he lived alone for too long, and the people around him who didn't speak poured out all the words he had saved for a week.
Australians take politeness very seriously, every guest will come in and greet you warmly, ask you how you are doing today, although it is only a polite greeting, but for strangers who have never known each other, it will still make people feel like a spring breeze.
Once a mother with a child passed by our store, because she had more things in her hand, she asked the little boy to come in and ask about the price, the little boy asked me "Hi How much is it for 1h massage?" (how much is it that you press an hour)", and his mother reminded him in the back: "Please", and then the little boy added Please and asked me again: "How much is it for 1h massage please?" (How much is it to press an hour)", only to see the old mother nodding in relief.
I have always been accustomed to going straight, at first I will feel that these "courtesies" are very troublesome, but over time after being assimilated, I am used to it, because the pace of Australian life is very slow, and the effort of saying more than two sentences does not delay things.
According to the more guests, I slowly summed up a set of methods suitable for myself, such as no matter how good the body is, I will have a sour feeling according to his wind pool point, Baihui point, Chengshan cave, foot three mile and several other key acupuncture points. If it is a person who usually uses my fingers to force, such as me, pressing the position of the palm of the tiger's mouth, it will most likely be very sour. When pressing the guest's face, the eye exercise technique is surprisingly easy to use.
Sometimes after eating, pressing the guest will be a little sleepy, I will close my eyes and press, but unexpectedly have a new discovery: when I press with my eyes closed, I can better feel the direction of the guest's muscles and the location of the meridians. I guess this is probably because people have five senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell), and after turning off one sense (vision), the same attention will be assigned to the remaining four senses, so my sense of touch will be more acute. Well, after returning home, I don't have to worry, I have a "blind massage" this guaranteed offer.
Sometimes when I video with my mother, she occasionally feels very sorry, good evil is also a graduate student who graduated from 985, just do this? I told her: I haven't sat in the office, it's just moving bricks, just moving happily. After slowly feeling my self-enjoyment, she was less entangled.
One week was very busy, Indonesian colleague Xiao H asked the boss whether she was going to work or take a break this weekend, the boss said: Oh, are you here to work or come on vacation, how can you take two days off every week? Little H back: I took the working and holiday visa, not the working hard visa, and the boss was also crying and laughing.
Yes, burying my head in money is not my original intention to come to Australia, after slowly gaining a sense of security in a foreign country, my various trips began to be put on the agenda.
In most of the work,
Interspersed with small parts of the trip
When traveling for a stay, I generally like to book a homestay on Airbnb, and every host is diverse. There is Helen, a retired old lady living in the suburbs of Perth, who has been in Hong Kong for 14 years as an English foreign teacher, and the dog was also raised at that time, the name is Fylok, which is actually the Cantonese pronunciation of the word "happy". As soon as you arrive at her house, she pulls you to start chatting, sometimes talking about occupational diseases, and then starts to correct me and tell me the difference between "work" and "walk" pronunciation.
There was also Claire, who lived in the farm town, and I had just arrived at her house, and she had prepared a pile of food for me in advance and went on vacation, so she was very relieved to let a stranger stay at her house for three days.
A corner of Claire's living room
And Kelly, who has been working from home during the epidemic, as soon as I arrived at her house, she excitedly asked me if I liked dutch pigs, and then ran barefoot to the yard to pick up her sleeping dutch pig and show me. She also lived in the super environmentally friendly and water-saving Jessi's home, and she specifically told me that the pots and pans used after eating were all put in the sink without washing, and in order to save water, she would wash them together in the dishwasher.
Every time you stay in a house, it's as if you're opening a new blind box.
The norm of life is that most of the work is interspersed with a small part of the trip. After entering the comfort zone, it is inevitable that you will feel a little bored, a lot of free time needs to be spent, and there are several times when you itch to change places and change jobs, but every time you are bombarded by the boss's sugar-coated shells of "adding money and money", laymen such as me still bow to this broken silver.
Although I am keen to save money, my material desires and consumption have always been very low, and I can't buy new clothes when I have enough clothes; Estée Lauder seems to be similar to olay oil; I have no feeling for luxury goods; and I will be ecstatic for half a day when I buy something special at a supermarket. Only in terms of play and experience, I will be more willing to spend money, watch musicals, skydiving, take a hot air balloon, live in a cabin in the forest... The price of a few hundred knives, as long as I really want to go, I think it is worth this money. It doesn't matter how much money you make, it's just that everyone's source of happiness is different.
I also like to visit the second-hand shops in Australia, I have bought very practical things from the second-hand shops, and I have donated things to them that I don't use, which does not have to be distributed and redistributed through reproduction, which is both environmentally friendly and saves money.
A new environment can make you stay for a long time, only relying on freshness can not support for long, stay comfortable is the key. The acceptance of the whole society is high enough for everyone to feel comfortable being themselves. I've seen my gray-haired grandmother go to college classes as well, middle-aged men with green toenails will not be looked at twice as they walk on the road, young people with super eye-catching "Fuck the world" tattoos tattooed on their backs speak very gently, they have had several marriages and don't need to feel ashamed, they can only be in love and not married to spend the rest of their lives together as partners, they can also be very happy without slim waists, and they can confidently wear crop tops, and the whole town is the only one who will play umbrella under the sun, and I can't be wrong... Dress freely, aesthetic freedom more, appearance anxiety, body anxiety will be less, everyone's appearance is different, every look and body type should be accepted.
Sometimes I see the article on trafficking anxiety pushed by the domestic public account, think about the domestic peers are struggling hard, am I so comfortable and suitable? But soon I began to self-hypnotize, give up treatment, can lie down and lie down, when I can't lie down, and then get up again.
Riding around the island, lamenting why he is in his twenties and physical strength in his seventies and eighties
Chase a sunset by the sea in Broome
10,000-foot skydive overlooking the entire Rottnest Island
Watch the sunrise in a slowly rising hot air balloon and feel the morning mist and quiet at 5 a.m
Aerial view of the beautiful Pink Lake on the island
Esperance will glow on the beach
After staying in Australia for a long time, I will often miss the various cuisines in China, after all, the variety of ingredients and cooking level in Australia are not even as good as the small thumb nail cover of my big heavenly dynasty. Of course, I was more homesick than good food, and I missed my mother, which reminded me of the night when I was first forced to live in kindergarten; and the night when I went to school a day early at the beginning of my freshman year, and my roommates had not yet come, and I lived alone in the empty dormitory; every time I ended up crying in a storm, crying like a child who had been wanted by no one. Different ages, different places, but with the same emotions. Sometimes I video with my mother, carefully observing her big face on the screen, I found out how suddenly she was so much older than before I went abroad, and I broke my defenses in an instant. Before going abroad, I originally planned to return to China in the middle to take my mother to Australia to play, who thought about this protracted epidemic, so I have not seen the head.
When I stayed in the town for a year and a half, although I saw that my salary had reached new highs, the happiness brought to me by making money was slowly reduced to zero. The highest record so far is $482 a day and $2800 a week, which should not be broken, and I am not ready to break it. I remember when I got off work that day at $482 a day, I wasn't a little excited, I wasn't excited, I just felt bored.
I think it's time to start slowing down and shifting gears, and it's been too long to make money on the first priority in my life, and it's time to back off.
Moving forward is the meaning of life,
Just walk up
Three weeks later, in October last year, after handing over the work in the store, I resigned and moved to a seaside town in southwest Australia, across the sea from the Antarctic continent, to become a long-awaited barista, and until now, in order to facilitate travel, I also bought a decent used car, carrying me around.
Now although I don't earn as much as before, I enjoy life more.
Go to the library on a day off to quietly read newspapers and magazines; tease the cattle and sheep grazing on the hillside; drive 1,000 kilometers around the southwest coastline of Australia; buy a freshly fried fish and potato to go to the beach, eat while watching others surf; watch the sea lions lying on the reef on the shore to bask in the sun; get up early on the weekend to watch a sunrise and catch an early market; go to the beach at sunset to listen to the self-playing songs of street performers... Live like a local, not just a tourist.
Go to the streets and alleys at Christmas to visit the decorated houses
Lie back on the lazy couch and wait until dark to watch a rooftop movie
Sit by the white sand beach and watch others surf
At the end of the work, I happened to encounter a pink sunset like an aurora
At the end of 21, with the reopening of Australia's national doors, the epidemic suddenly became severe, and flights back home were also fused many times. I only hope that the first half of the year will allow me to return to China smoothly, and until then, I will continue to live my life in peace and quiet.
The money earned in Australia in two years, in addition to the expenses in Australia, almost saved 600,000 yuan, of which 150,000 were used to repay the mortgage, and they also paid the domestic social security.
I don't think I'm making a lot of money, and I don't think backpackers are cool or worth emulating. The young people who work hard and strive for their goals in the cubicle are also cool; the people who shoulder family responsibilities and live their lives step by step are not the same.
Now I've also changed my attitude towards financial freedom, and I used to think that it was a goal that the sooner I achieved the better. Now I find that many things really don't need to wait until I have money, until I'm XX, or when a certain time is up, and it will be happier to live my life as a going forward rather than a future. If you were not happy before your financial freedom, you may still be unhappy even if you retire early. The unknown, the confusion, the anxiety will always exist until you learn to live with it. When you always think about the future, it means that you don't like the present, but only the present is the only thing we can grasp.
In the past two years, I have also contacted some other backpackers in Australia, some working full-time in the first half of the year, full-time traveling in the second half of the year; some doing more than a dozen different jobs in a year; some picking fruits on the farm; and some saving enough money to start driving tens of thousands of kilometers around Australia. Everyone's careers are also diverse; street performers, Chinese teachers, luxury cabinet sisters, yoga teachers, casino dealers, postmen...
Where did everyone go after the gap year? Some people gap for a year to feel enough, so they return to China to get married and have children; some people make enough money in Australia, take money back to China to pay a down payment to buy a house; some people sell their domestic houses, take money to pay tuition to study in Australia, and prepare to take the immigration route to stay; some people leave Ali to come to Australia Gap for two years, and then return to Ali to work; some people find true love in Australia and decide to stay here; some people in Australia Gap for two years are not enough, and then go to New Zealand and Canada to continue to be backpackers. Everyone is making their own choices and living their own lives.
This is my two-year australian drift career, and I don't need to convince myself how meaningful it is, nor do I need to worry about my life after N years in advance. I'm lazy, and I don't think about things I don't understand.
Moving forward is the meaning of life, but which is the front?
Just walk up, everywhere is front.