Su-May Tan
Su-May Tan was born and raised in Malaysia but is currently living on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne. Her debut short story collection Lake Malibu and Other Stories was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards 2022. Her debut YA novel Katie goes to KL, published by Penguin (Southeast Asia), was released in Australia in March 2024. Su-May is interested in the modern Asian diaspora. She works at an international humanitarian organisation as a copywriter.
Is life better over here?
“For those who’ve come across the seas,
We’ve boundless plains to share.”
The day we arrived Melbourne was a rainy evening in autumn though at that time the seasons meant nothing to us. In Malaysia it is either hot or very hot all year round. We were entering as skilled migrants – here to pursue the great Australian dream of fresh air, sunshine and a world of opportunity.
As the taxi swept us over the West Gate Bridge, I thought of our double-storey house in Kuala Lumpur – the frangipani tree in the garden about to bloom, the city we had just left still twinkling in the warmth of late-night food stalls. Outside my window, the rain continued to fall. Walls hollered with graffiti, and traffic lights fizzled in that haze of red and green through windows splattered with rain. Somewhere beyond the darkness, a drunken shadow stumbled into the night. So, this, was Melbourne.
The hardest part about moving to a new country, I found, was not the actual moving but reestablishing your career all over again. Suddenly, you needed a resume when you never needed one before. You had to go for interviews when you used to get jobs by word of mouth. You needed to prove yourself all over again – which, with small kids in tow, was no easy task.
At playgroup, I found that many mums opted to take a break when their kids were little and many returned to work part-time. But many new migrants don’t have the luxury and perks that come with a job you’ve been in for years. At the same time, I also discovered that being a housewife was not financially or mentally feasible. As I wiped toddler crumbs off the floor for the third time that evening, I contemplated the lifestyle of my peers in Malaysia, many of whom can afford helpers who take care of cooking, cleaning and bathing so you can come back home to a nice clean house and children you can then spend ‘quality time’ with. You are not too exhausted to read a story or talk to them about their day. You have time to switch off work – or work overtime if you wish.
In a popular Youtube clip, Anthony Bourdain calls this ‘bourgeois’ – “You are living off the labour of a repressed underclass,” he said of the ubiquitous presence of maids in Singaporean households. Bourgie or not, thanks to the affordable labour supply from neighbouring countries such as Indonesia and the Phillipines, streams of Asian mothers have been able to return to work after three months, resume their flourishing careers, and indulge in all the luxuries of a worldly urbanite.
The Skilled Migration visa is based on the concept that migrants are needed for the Australian economy to grow. The migrants in return will be able to enjoy the great Australian dream of first-world living and access to a wealth of opportunities. The downside? It’s not so easy to get work if you’re expecting the same thing. Many new migrants find themselves in a Catch 22 of not having the ‘local experience’ employers seek. I know senior marketing managers who are packing groceries, engineers working as electricians, or IT professionals driving Ubers around – for a certain amount of time at least.
Is it worth it? Who are you at the end of the day? The skilled migrant that contributes to the economy, or the foreigner taking jobs away? “Migration is always that force of change that questions who we are, that puts a mirror to our face,” said sociologist, Hein De Haas. “Where it gets tricky is when migrants are being framed by politicians as the threat that comes our way.”
Haas argues that it is normal for people to feel challenged when outsiders move in – but these feelings tend to subside over time. “Migrants mean change. Groups that are now seen as fully part of American society or any European society in the past were also The Outsiders and became The Insiders.” Haas adds that for four to five centuries, Europeans used to be the ultimate migrants, moving out to colonise the Americas and later other continents. “I sometimes say, that was the biggest illegal migration in human history.”
As time went by, my partner and I learnt to navigate the relentless marathon of working and parenting in Australia. We found ourselves entwined in a multi-layered landscape of new migrants, old migrants, First Nations communities and more – and we wondered where we fit in all of this. Malaysia too consists of a melting pot of cultures – Chinese, Malays, Indians – but why didn’t we feel like outsiders there? Is it because everyone spoke Bahasa Malaysia? What then is Australia’s national language?
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Years have passed and I’ve learnt to do a lot of things myself. I can fill up bank forms with one hand. I can prepare breakfast, pack lunch, do pick-ups and drop-offs – and still manage to squeeze work in between. Melbourne has taught me to be a parent, or more precisely, it has taught me that it is okay to be one.
And yet, as I feed my youngest child and revel in the joy she has in slurping up a strand of spaghetti, I reflect on all these things I have done on my own and I notice the quietness of my living room. The gum tree creaking outside, the footpath cold and silent, and I think of the country I have left behind. Despite the traffic, the chaos, and the way rules are bent all over the place, would it not be better to have a village around?
Moving here, I know that the children will never really know their roots, not the way I did. There is only so much you can learn from Mandarin class 50 minutes a week before running out into a world full of Australian words and Australian life. Sure, they might have a trip back home every few years, but it will simply be a holiday like any other. My children will never understand the beauty of chaos; where malls are abuzz until 10pm, where cars trump pedestrians, and no one complains about the hawker stalls spilling out onto a street.
The country has a Malaysia Boleh attitude, a ‘we-can-do-anything-ness’ that flies through the city like a flag that inspires people to break boundaries and try new things. How do you explain the joy of eating in a back lane at midnight, or being able to understand three languages simply because you have heard them all your life?
Every time I go back to Malaysia, there is something bigger, shinier and newer. The malls there make Chaddy look like a suburban store. And the payment systems are so advanced. People were tapping and paying for things all over the place using apps I’d never heard of before. Things like Eftpos and PayID were considered pre-historic.
On my last trip back, the Light Rail Transit was complete, transforming the skyline into something from Blade Runner. Gentrified cafes had cropped up everywhere offering contemporary treats like matcha ice-cream, sourdough croissants and Michelin-star cakes. Apartments with rooftop pools and hanging gardens painted the skyline like an architecture magazine. Meanwhile, in Melbourne, the city had not changed much since my university days. The Union Building still looked the same as it did 20 years ago and trams plowed Swanston Street like they did in the 1903.
That said, many migrants flock to Melbourne not for its infrastructure but for the underlying foundations that uphold society such as a system of government that is seen as world-class, transparent, and genuinely dedicated to giving everyone a fair go. Almost one third of Australians today are born overseas and whether it is from UK, Italy or China, we have all left people and places behind, many of whom are no more. We are all learning to carve a new life, and hanging on to the pieces of culture and language that exist only in our memories.
Suddenly the festivals and celebrations we used to celebrate with such fanfare, have become private family rituals that remind us of who we used to be. The mooncake festivals, the Chinese New Year reunion dinners, winter solstice; each year and every generation they remain special but are somewhat smaller, and more diluted.
Instead, we celebrate Easter and Christmas, the Grand Finals and the significance of NAIDOC week. What ties us together is a bigger, all-encompassing celebration of life, of family, of people who have made the choice to seek alternate pastures; whose second, third or fourth generation children may feel loss, but who will hopefully emerge as Australians and citizens of the world.
When I go for school assemblies, the national anthem still brings a tear to my eye as I view this mass of children whose families have come from ‘across the seas’ to share in the ‘boundless plains’. Part of me feels lost on this gigantic continent at the edge of the world and I feel the distance between where I stand and where I was born; requiring a five-hour flight just to get to the other side of the country and an additional four to reach South East Asia.
At this point, my 14-year-old son walks into the room. The garden outside is blooming with the irises I’d planted last spring. He tells me about a funny thing that happened in school. My daughter is at gymnastics and we’re having shepherd’s pie for dinner later tonight. In that moment, I have an epiphany – it doesn’t matter where I am or where I was from, as long as I was here.
When my son finds something simple, he says it’s ‘easy as’. He likes sausage sizzles and vegemite sandwiches, and acknowledges Wurundjeri land. He calls a ‘duvet’ a ‘doona’ and says things like ‘Woolies’, ‘Maccas’ and ‘Mate’. And I think maybe… maybe we do have a national language after all.