A Singaporean In Australia

Jo of the slimrollypollywannabe.blogspot.com is a foodsmith. I could have just call her a great cook but a foodsmith will be more aussie-like as the word "smith" automatically makes her an expert in her passion like theirs of a blacksmith and locksmith. I have a few foodsmith friends in my neighbourhood in Singapore actually. One of them is Ms Maggie Teo the queen of home cooked delicacies and Baker Julia, formerly known as Julia Chia, who is finally confident enough to take cake orders.

Though Jo isn't the only foodsmith I know in Perth (too many people I will offend if I say so), she is indisputably the one who puts in pride and passion in her food. That is a rare trait to find in a woman of this age. Thus, I simply told her husband that he did a big steal by marrying her.

Well, lest some fucking feminist unexpectedly come my way and tell me off for painting a wife as a food churning machine, all I can say is that simple men are simple. A great cook is one desirable trait of a good wife. Try convincing me it isn't with your crooked reasoning. Some things are straightforward as it is and that's that. You have your rules and we have ours. 

Jo isn't an ordinary foodsmith. What sets her apart is the fact she offers me food. Like I said, I am a simple man, so Jo is good!

Over the months she gave me pineapple tarts on Chinese New Year and the Bak Zhang on the day some noble chap jumped into the river to die for all the sins of mankind long ago.

Can I say I like Bak Zhang a lot? I was really happy to receive these because it had been years since I ate homemade ones. It brought back memories of being offered my first homemade Bak Zhang made by Tucky's mum when we hardly know each other well. Over the years I would shamelessly make my way to his house whenever the it was TIME.

Needless to say, I ate. About 8 Bak Zhang over 2 days.  Thank you Jo.

Now it's time to talk about my own cooking. Over the years, I have the privilege of cooking for my family. No doubt, on some days that felt more like a chore but it does not change the fact that I enjoy the liberty of cooking every single meal for my family because I can afford the time doing so. With practice, I gradually graduated and became a cook of edible food. Though I show little passion in my cooking as compared to Jo and other peers such as Stephen and Patrick, I pride myself in being the quickest cook among them. (I welcome a challenge). With hungry wife and impatient young around, I found myself whipping up meals within minutes, often with limited ingredients or preparation time.

To give myself some credit, I managed to prepare some decent food like fried rice or noodles or even a 2-3 dishes, 1 soup meals in a really short time. There were some weird dishes along the way that fortunately didn't turn out too bad but this one should be one of the recent highlights.

It was on that day when we had to sign an important document quite late in the day. By the time we were done, it was really late and I found myself staring at an empty fridge. 

So Baked Cheese Over Otah and Noodles Egg. Weird but it works.

My buddy always teased me whenever we met in Singapore about my (lack of) slang. He said, "You have moved to Australia for a number of years already, where is your Aussie slang?" I responded by giving him surprise calls from Perth once or twice in my worst attempt to sound like someone I wasn't and pretended to be his boss calling him. Needless to say it didn't work but we had a few laughs.

Tucky had a point. After all, my 3 year old daughter is beginning to sound more Aussie than I would ever be. It is simple, really. To date, I don't have a single Aussie friend. (more about that next time). My ex supervisor was a true blue Aussie. Talking to him and other colleagues trained my ears to gradually understand what the heck they were ranting about in our daily work. The only Aussie in my current company is my boss. I don't even talk to him much at all, unless there are problems at work that I cannot solve. Most of the time, he is out of office anyway. The rest of the team are made up of bloody Asians just like me. It wouldn't help me much if I want to pick an Aussie accent up. That is a big if, because knowing myself too well, I wouldn't.

And I continue to observe which local Aussie bloke choose to be an asshole with me just because I don't sound like them. To date, at least for the courier drivers or warehouse receivers I have interacted with, many of them showed me a level of friendliness even my own countrymen hardly do from where I came from. It is not to say Aussie blokes are angels. That must sound like a joke itself. Well, I have been told off a couple of times by strangers but politely and rightfully so for doing something wrong. Such as, using my phone while refueling. (the bloke said," I don't wan to die, mate.") Do not expect me to call these incidents of racism where I was the one in the wrong.

On the other side of the balance, I received a lot more kindness from strangers. From the elderly man who walked up to us after we alighted from a bus to ask us if we needed help because we "looked lost," to strangers furnishing us with their unwanted furniture, as well as baby accessories, for free. Then there is Anita.

Though Anita and I had several email exchanges over the years, we have never met before. I forgot how she even came to know about this blog (if she told me at all), but she continued to give me good advice as well as encouragement despite my late and non replies (I don't mean it, sorry!) Last weekend, Anita made me an offer I couldn't refuse, bags of Mandarin Oranges harvested from her own yard.

Don't get me wrong. it wasn't the free fruits offered to me convinced me to make a trip to Anita's house. I am cheap but not as gian peng as you think. What Anita wrote in her email made me feel that I will be a real asshole if I rejected her kind offer. Firstly she told me to ignore the email if I don't like it and she won't feel offended. Secondly she sensed that I am shy anti-social and told me I could just pick up the bags at her door. I offered to pass her some food, whatever I was cooking that day and she told me if an exchange was the only way to make me take her fruits, then she would take it.

So I decided to make a trip to Anita's place on a cold Saturday evening.

What I did not clarify was that passing Anita some of my own cooking wasn't part of a gift exchange program. I wanted to do it because I received so much sincere concern and kindness over the years that I just wanted to make something with my own hands to show my appreciation. In the end, the Bannister Road orientation we did for friends here early in the day left me with inadequate time to cook. So I made 2 simple desserts that my grandmother used to make for me, Sweet Potato in Ginger Soup and Black Glutinous Rice. It was the simplest versions of those ever. I did not even put pandan leaves. Hopefully my "auntie" friend will still like it.

That was the first time I visited the suburb named Alfred Cove. Over the emails, I often had the impression that Anita has always been fixing up her house, such as a broken roof, shed or parts of the garden. Her repair works seem endless. Without even checking what kind of a suburb Alfred Cove is, the impression of Anita formed in my mind was a busy housewife fixing up a broken house after the last storm took her roof away. But when I reached Alfred Cove, damn! Anita's "broken house" could possibly buy 5 of mine.

So I walked gingerly along her large front yard, where 3 cars where parked and found the bags left for me at her veranda. I placed my desserts down and took her bags. I felt like a thief as I made my way out.

Later, I found a letter in one of the bags, this was what it said

Dear Nix,

This is a small (and inexpensive) gift for your Jen. It protects mothers and children, especially unborn children and mothers in childbirth.

You may not approve of such things so I will not be offended if you do not want it.

Anita

Thanks! I just got my results, probably get 60 points exact unless I retake ietls test again hoping for a higher score. I will apply for migration first and see how it goes 

I'm a financial analyst so I guess job wise I should consider Melbourne or Sydney. I plan to head to Perth to check it out as well. My primary priority is a conducive environment for both study and play. Actually I don't mind doing a different job too. After all it's a new lease of life, I'm up to try something new! 

As I read your blog, I noted that things were sounded pretty tough in the beginning and I admire your perseverance to stay on despite the challenges then. Don't mind me asking, what makes you so determined to stay regardless the obstacles? 

Cheers

Mum C,

Congrats. 60 points sounds good to me. All the best for your EOI. Perth is full, though. We have a quota here to keep the place boring. So please head to Melbourne or Sydney like everyone else lah! We will be cheering for you from WA.

My answer/s to your question is really simple. Don't make it sound like superhuman will. Most of us have done something similar before.

Staying in Perth, challenges or not, is not much of a difference to committing ourselves to a cause. It isn't much harder than forcing ourselves to wake up to our jobs on a Monday Singapore morning, putting ourselves through a jam-packed MRT train or even sedating our minds with blind optimism to cope with annoyances of life. If my challenges sound tough to you, it is because such experiences are foreign to you. Put anyone else through it, to a state it becomes a routine, he or she will find it no harder than yours.

The same goes for dealing with obstacles that comes our way. In order to carry on our respective lifestyle we choose to commit ourselves to, we will get past, evade or even destroy obstacles that threatens the feasibility of our decisions. There is no difference when it comes to dealing with challenges, only different perspectives. Like how I could not figure out why Singaporeans would choose to live overseas when I was much younger, I now struggle to understand why Singaporeans wouldn't. Our point of views are likely to change once we look at the same thing from a different angle.