A Singaporean In Australia

Again, for Singaporeans who are coming this way for whatsoever reason, public holidays may be of interest to some. You see, some Singaporeans may wish to avoid specific public holidays, i.e the Summer end-of-year holiday blitz.  In that case they will not encounter Perth deader than its usual dead. Others may come at the exact period to experience how the locals spend their end of year holidays.

As Australia is such a big country, public holidays can be country wide, state wide or only for certain regional areas. For example, in Tasmania, locals celebrate Easter by having back to back public holidays (Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday). Another example is Labour Day, which Tasmania celebrates on a different day to WA and names it differently too. (They call it Eight Hour Day) Every state also have their own exclusive public holidays.

Even within the WA state itself, Queen's Birthday is celebrated on 4 different dates because some regional areas holds this public holiday on their respective days of significance. Coming from a small city state, I found these amusing at first. Just imagine if there is an Western Singapore Day or Hougang Day or Tanjong Pagar GRC celebrates National Day on Lee Kuan Yew's birthday instead of on the 9th of August. Funny eh? 

I was added to this whatsapp group of Singaporeans living in Australia. There are only a handful of participants in the group, neatly spread all over Australia. If my memory serves me well, there is only a single participant from Perth (me), Brisbane and Adelaide each and 3 others in Melbourne. Almost everyday, we will share basic information such as weather and fuel cost. Other days, I'll be able to read about the casual jobs situation in Melbourne or colourful festivals being held in Adelaide. These remind me that Australia is such a huge country, almost a continent by itself. There are so much diversity across the country and the country offers so much possibilities. 

Before I made my move to Perth years ago, there was a particular night I laid on the deserted running track of ITE College West at 10pm, exhausted after completing a slow but long jog. Those days, I experienced many disturbed nights when I had long periods of quiet time by myself. I felt poisoned after the first thoughts of migration came to my mind. Day by day, as my yearning for attempting the unbelievable increases, my fears froze me in tandem. I could not even land myself a job in my own country, what would be my odds in a country I could hardly understand a sentence that their locals speak? Why then, would I take my pregnant wife along with me to Perth if I didn't lose my sanity? Still lying on the running track, I opened my eyes and saw a few stars flickering dimly up above. Out of the few stars I made out, there were thousands invisible to me due to my bright surroundings. Although darkness is fearful, it is equally frightening when brightness blinds. I reasoned that Australia has 8 capital cities, spanned across a huge land mass 10,743 times bigger than Singapore, surely .... surely there would be a crevice that could accommodate my humble family? It was then I realised I had mistaken the sense of detoxification as a poisoned state.