Text | Kaigo Chronicles
Edit | Kaigo Chronicles
"I'd rather be a beggar in England than go back to Hong Kong and be emperor!"
As the old saying goes, "A man leaves his homeland and is a lowly man."
A Hong Kong couple emigrated to Britain with two children, but in less than three months they spent half of their savings.
Not only is the family "shining", the husband Aman does not even have a job guarantee.
With irregular jobs, unfamiliar language and money that is about to bottom out, can the family stick to it in the UK?
Life is too "bland"
Fiona is a people's teacher with a monthly salary of 40,000 Hong Kong dollars, and her husband, Aman, is a bus driver with an irregular salary.
They have a daughter who has difficulty studying and a two-year-old son who can't speak yet.
A family of four lives in a small apartment of dozens of square meters, and the usual diet and living are all responsible for a Filipino maid.
Housework is lagging behind, and Fiona will concentrate on spending time with her children after work.
However, no parent can escape the fate of being "driven crazy" by the tutored child.
Although Fiona is a teacher, when teaching her daughter Zhou Hainan to write homework, especially mathematics, the mother and daughter will always quarrel.
Zhou Hainan's study is not very good, and she is also a bit unable to keep up with the progress of the school. In the long run, Fiona complained more about homework in Hong Kong than her children.
Not only is the daughter giving Fiona a headache, but the son is now two years old and can't say enough. Oman, who drives a bus, also feels a little tired of working on the same road day after day.
Life in Hong Kong seems to make this family with an annual income of HK$700,000 breathless.
Although Fiona and Oman are not paid low salaries, the family can afford Filipino maids.
But Hong Kong's peculiar topography has led to ridiculously high housing prices. Even if they live a very moist life, the house space is still a bit cramped.
In order to change the status quo, Fiona and Aman decided to emigrate to the UK to another brand new place to improve their lives.
The couple went to an agency to help them file their immigration applications, and despite the high price of the agency, Oman felt that the company only wanted to make its own money.
There was no way for the two of them to go home and submit their online applications.
Fiona watched the steps on her phone step by step, some of which she couldn't even read in English. As a husband, Aman just sat on the sidelines and let Fiona keep busy.
After the application was submitted, they began to prepare to sell their houses in Hong Kong and spend more money. I also began to slowly say goodbye to my family, and my face was full of joy.
They were immersed in fantasies about life in Britain.
Fiona thinks that teaching abroad is different from teaching at home, and if she goes to England, she wants to send her children to places of average level and relatively stress-free.
That way you can have a lot of free time, you can watch TV and sleep.
Aman is also planning to live in a large villa, with a large bed and a very empty space, which is not at all the same as a small apartment in Hong Kong.
Zhou Hainan also hopes that he can have the same experience as cartoons, can associate with the queen, meet the prince and then have a lot of friends.
Imagination is beautiful, but reality is cruel.
In addition to fantasizing about the future, Fiona and Aman also have to plan a job in The UK to support the family.
Away from home, Fiona and Aman both have stable jobs in Hong Kong. But after going to England, their jobs are not only not so well treated, but even have unstable situations.
Fiona is well aware of the reality, and she thinks that after renting a house, she should go to work in a Chinese restaurant.
Wait for the visa to come down and then make long-term plans.
Oman also heard that he earned more as a truck driver and repairman in the UK, so he took the time to learn some repair skills.
But during the break, a friend who had been in the United States for five years said, "I will not immigrate, nor will I go back." ”
At this time, Oman could not listen to anything, and his heart was already racing through the streets of London.
After making a simple plan, the two began to say goodbye to their families in Hong Kong. After the family had their last big meal in Hong Kong, they also began to pack their bags and prepare to leave.
When Fiona had booked her plane ticket and accommodation, they found that the visa had not yet been issued.
The house was also sold and packed, and Fiona had to reapply for an "express visa" and wait for the official visa in the UK.
A yellow sorghum dream?
The plane landed, and several people rushed to the "new home" with excitement.
Certainly not the ideal London, London is a big city, and prices and house prices are beyond their reach now.
So Fiona's booked homestay, a small two-story cottage in the small cheshire town of Crewe, a few hours' drive from London.
Aman happily walked into the house with the children, and accidentally broke the lock on the back door did not affect his mood.
But this cottage was only their temporary residence, because the rent was too expensive and they had to find a house that could afford it.
The cost of the family migrating to the new place naturally became larger, Fiona wanted to keep the money and spend it slowly, and Aman agreed to the decision.
After a brief tour of the residence, a family of four began buying ingredients at a nearby supermarket.
But soon they also encountered the first difficulty: cooking.
Neither Aman nor Fiona has mastered the skill of cooking.
When I was in Hong Kong before, there was a Filipino maid in the family. Fiona and Aman can get hot meals every day after work and don't have to worry about other chores.
But in the UK their money is used sparingly, and it is impossible to spend a sum of money to hire a nanny.
Looking at the ingredients they wanted to eat and the unfamiliar kitchen utensils, the couple struggled to make a meal that was enough to satisfy.
For days in a row, the children were left with hamburgers and bread, and the family's original interest was reduced.
In order to let the children grow up healthily, Fiona accelerated the pace of finding a house. She thought about getting settled down quickly and learning to cook early.
A few days later she found an £800 rental house, which, while not as good as her current one, was indeed something they were able to pay for in the long term.
It's just that when I look at the house, Aman has never had a smile on his face and his mouth is full of complaints.
"The house in Hong Kong is so small, I didn't expect to come to the British house is still so small, the living room is so small, where do we eat?" Where to put sofas and TVs? “
First of all, the room was too small to say that there was not even a TV, and it was clear that he was not willing to reduce the quality of life for his bright future.
Fiona, who had been busy for several days, also broke out.
Originally, they planned to find a new job and a new place to live within two months.
But Aman never went out to work, and every day he sat at home picking and choosing the fruits of Fiona's labor.
The town has a population of only 80,000 and is small, so it is already difficult to find this rental house, but Oman still does not care.
When you first arrive, you are in constant trouble, and it is related to your life later.
Fiona began to question whether her decision to emigrate was the right one.
But Aman said indifferently, "I'd rather be a beggar here than go back to being emperor." ”
Whether we can go back to Hong Kong to be the emperor, we will not evaluate first, according to Oman's living method, every day sit at home to spend the previous savings, sitting on the mountain and eating the sky is sooner or later.
Nor can it be said that Oman has not tried.
Oman had planned to find a job as a maintenance worker, and he had studied it in Hong Kong. But he didn't speak English well and didn't have the relevant certificates, so the maintenance worker's job had to be abandoned.
Later, Oman also found a lot of jobs, but did not receive a reply.
Fortunately, his driving age is still there, and driving a takeaway is relatively simple for him.
On his first day on the job, he earned £56, or more than four hundred dollars. According to such income Oman can earn about 10,000 a month.
Oman relies on navigating the delivery of takeaways from house to house.
Looking at the unfamiliar roads around him, he wondered not whether the order could be delivered on time, but the surrounding scenery was beautiful.
I don't know if Aman thought so when he first started driving a bus.
Fiona is busy taking care of her family while also producing gingerbread on the assembly line.
Because in less than 3 months, their family of four spent more than 400,000 yuan. The savings brought from Taiwan are running out, and it is not stable to rely on Oman alone for odd jobs.
Because the visa has not yet come down, the young couple can only earn living expenses by doing odd jobs.
Fiona previously taught in Hong Kong, but in the United Kingdom, she was mixed with the "assembly line". But she is not the only sad person on the assembly line, there are many domestic master's degree students who will bend over for reality.
What's more, in the Hong Kong immigration circle, there are still many people who are worried about not being able to find a job.
There are many factories around the gingerbread factory where Fiona works, and there is often a shortage of people on the assembly line. When Fiona learned of this, she decided to introduce her compatriots to work.
She first contacted several of her fellow villagers to inquire about their wishes, and after receiving a positive answer, Fiona went to the boss to discuss.
One found a job, the other found a worker, and both sides were satisfied with Fiona, the middleman.
Fiona waited on her own for her first stable job after arriving in england – an intermediary.
This job means that they will have a relatively stable life and can also apply for a loan to buy a bigger house through this contract.
Seeing that life is about to go on the right track, the problem is coming again.
Fiona had a formal job, and if Oman had a formal job, life would have been easier for the family.
However, for Oman, the easiest way to get a stable job is to have a visa.
Fiona called the visa staff and learned the worst news: their visas were "not processed."
Because they were in a hurry to come to the UK before they applied for an "express visa", but with the cancellation of the policy, the visa they had previously found an intermediary to apply for was also regarded as automatically invalidated.
That said, Fiona, they need to resubmit a new immigration application.
Immigration applications need to be filled out simply, in addition to the family population information, there is also a proof of financial status, and they also need to pay for another application.
Today, unlike in the past, Fiona's job has just stabilized, and the family's savings have been spent.
Now wait for the visa again, and pay a large sum of money. This means that in the next six months, it will be difficult to ensure the life of their family.
This is the biggest problem the family has encountered since they arrived in the UK.
The couple is well aware of the situation and the future, and Fiona says that in the future, she will minimize the cost.
Aman began to be reluctant, he was not at home and did not know that chai rice oil and salt were expensive.
From starting a visa to booking a driver's rental house later, to finding a job to take care of her daughter's schooling, Fiona is alone before and after the full.
Aman was a bad English speaker and pushed off a lot of "trouble". He hasn't worked hard for these things and he's not willing to pay for them.
The two argue that Fiona also said that maybe the next time the show team sees her, they are divorced.
Less than half a year after coming to the UK, couples who have been married for eight years can think of divorce.
In fact, the couple already has problems. It's just that in Britain, in an unfamiliar environment, these little things they originally thought were trivial have been magnified.
Language gaps, disillusionment, rapidly passing money, and fiona and Oman's mistrustuous marriage can all hasten the end of the marriage.
It wasn't all a disadvantage to immigrate to England from them, at least the daughter was much happier than before.
Fiona said that her daughter was under great pressure to study, and under the open education in the United Kingdom, she also learned from the teacher that her daughter's advantage was to learn mathematics.
This also made Fiona start to think seriously.
At that time, in Hong Kong, the mother and daughter would quarrel over a math problem. Is the reason for the change now that foreign countries teach well?
It is well known that the domestic education level is high in the world's first phalanx, so what Hainan lacks in that week is education or companionship?
There is no turning back from the bow, they put down the stable life in Hong Kong and came to Britain, and they must have the courage to face the British "full of chicken feathers".
The rest of their lives, no matter what, are their own choices.