My first week of university went like a blur. I turned up to the lectures and tutorials I had enrolled in, I talked to people who spoke to me, and I went home. More than dealing with a whole new system and location, it felt like a whole different world, despite being in the very city I had spent my whole life.
It wasn’t the same Australia I grew up in.
Growing up in Chinese communities
My parents moved to Australia one year before I was born, and only knowing a couple of people here, they settled in what they thought was a ‘good’ neighbourhood. Of course, their sources for where to settle down came from other Malaysian Chinese people, so naturally, they settled in an area with good schools and many other ethnically Chinese people.
I spent my childhood and all of my schooling years living in the suburbs of Eastwood and Epping in Sydney. Over the years, Eastwood became more and more Chinese and Korean. Two local chicken shops closed, and in their places, a Chinese restaurant and a Chinese fruit and veg shop. Even the McDonald’s and KFC closed, and up popped more Chinese restaurants. By the time I started year 5 in Eastwood Public School, my peers were 80% minorities, with most being of Chinese and Korean background. Yet despite being the majority, the cool kids were still all white.
It wasn’t just school though - my mum made some friends at the playgroup she used to take me to when I was a toddler. Those friends? All Cantonese. And my dad touched base with one of his childhood friends in Sydney, and we formed our own little Malaysian Chinese family friend group, like a fruit salad of just rambutans and mangosteens.
My first culture shock
Then came high school. My first culture shock. I went from a nerdy co-ed public school filled with immigrant, working class families to an all boys, traditional private high school on the North Shore. My peers were suddenly mostly white, and mostly really wealthy. We wore straw hats, and shorts with long socks, we had an indoor swimming pool and tennis courts within the school grounds, and everyone called each other by their surnames. I remember they announced a special event happening at school - a grandfather and son photo day for boys who have a lineage at this school, which I didn’t quite understand at the time. I even recall my peers at the age of 13 already talking about their scorecards with girls.
Out of place would be an understatement. I went from someone who was involved in school activities and who played handball with a group of friends every lunchtime, to making myself inconspicuous, doing as little as possible outside of school and spending lots of my lunchtimes just wandering around the school by myself. Not that I was really picked on or bullied here (strange on account of my Asianness and nerdiness, as well as the higher level of bullying here), but I felt so different from everyone. I was that mangosteen amongst the apples and oranges.
Two years later and after much protesting from my parents, I transferred to a selective public school, and it was like chalk and cheese. I was back with my fellow nerdy Asians, amongst people who were all a little awkward and from mostly immigrant working class families, and it felt like home. My friend group spent our mornings doing 9 letter word puzzles and sudokus, and our recesses and lunches talking trash or playing music or joining a friendly soccer game.
And I thrived. I got super involved in extracurricular activities and I got to know pretty much my whole grade as well as making friends with people in grades above and below me. It was a culture I was far more familiar with, a way of talking and interacting that felt far more at home.
My second culture shock
And then university. My second culture shock, except this time I was an “adult”, and this time it wasn’t just rich private school boys, it was any and everyone. My communications degree was far from the common choice for my Asian peers, so here I was again, a fish out of water, the fish sauce amongst the mustard and ketchup, the mangosteen amongst the apples and oranges (and peaches and grapes and watermelon). Even though I talked to pretty much everyone at my high school, I realised I didn’t know how to talk to people at university. I had lost the ability to introduce myself, to give details when I answer questions, to ask questions back, to make eye contact - I was momentarily back to my private school days.
It’s funny how two people can grow up in the same city and have completely different experiences.
Cultural enclaves are a part of many big cities, and when you think about it, they make sense. Yes our ideal multicultural world sees a fresh immigrant from Sri Lanka happily living alongside a family whose lineage goes back to the convicts, but in practice it’s much harder. For a Sri Lankan supermarket to open, there needs to be enough demand for Sri Lankan goods, but without a concentration of Sri Lankans in one area, the demand just isn’t there.
New immigrants often want to eat the food they’re used to and talk their mother tongue when they first arrive, so it’s completely understandable that a Vietnamese immigrant would move to a suburb where there are other Vietnamese. And as they say, like attracts like, and over time certain suburbs become more highly concentrated with one or two ethnicities. Just like my parents who moved to a fairly Chinese suburb and sent me to a school with lots of other Chinese kids, it’s much easier to be with people who just get you.
Embracing diversity
But I realised this experience isn’t just for Asians or immigrants, it applies to everyone. After all, you could be white and grow up in Sydney and never venture out west. Your idea of Sydney could just be Double Bay to Coogee, with the occasional trip into town, and even Redfern or Leichhardt seem so far away. It’s easy for any of us to get trapped in our own cultural bubble.
University became a time where I actually mingled with all sorts of people. For the first time (and I know this sounds crazy), I was making friends with people who smoked and weren’t a “bad influence”. I did group assignments with people from all over the world, and made terrible student films with people from all over Sydney who weren’t just from East Asian backgrounds. I actually had friends who weren’t Asian. Not that I don’t hang out with my Asian friends, but I began to embrace people who were a bit different to me.
Diversity, not just within a country, but within your social interactions is important to understand experiences and values that are different from your own. Apples and oranges are great on their own, but a bit of variety creates a richer, more complex experience.
