Antipodean Anecdotes 4: I couldn't live in Australia

Hello, it has been two weeks since I've returned from Australia and I've just received news that my partner's business venture in Australia is going so well that he's going to stay there pretty much for most of 2018. This is what every start up company dreams of: to get clients who will place big orders with you; so many start ups never ever get that far! Well, that came as a shock to me - I thought he's going to be there for a few months and be back at Christmas but now it turns out that after coming back for a few weeks at Christmas, he's going to go right back and spend most of next year in Brisbane. There was an invitation for me to go out and join him there in Brisbane but I have thought long and hard about it. I am sorry, no I couldn't do it -well, I just don't know what I would do with myself in Australia. I suppose I could go work for his company but it would mean leaving a stunningly well paid job to join yet another start up and I'm not sure I'm prepared to return to the start up environment again, after my last foray in the start up world. Besides, for my partner to bring me on board - that would just look like pure nepotism: my partner has come from London to join me in Australia and I'm going to give him a job. I don't want to risk him being put in a rather awkward position nor am I comfortable with that.

Brisbane: pleasant enough to visit, but I can't live there.

Years ago, I worked for a company where the managing director's wife had a job in the company - but she was always disappearing to do things like pick up the kids from school or run to the supermarket. We have a rather disrespectful (but somehow culturally appropriate) term for this in Mandarin: 老板娘: to take the term apart, 老板 means 'boss' whilst 娘 is a rather archaic word for 'mother' - but put together, 老板娘 means the wife of the boss or 'mummy boss'. You wouldn't use that term in polite or formal company as it would be deemed to be somewhat disrespectful to the lady in question - it implies that she is not really a serious about the business, she's merely married to the big boss and she most certainly didn't get the job on the basis of merit. Well, I certainly don't want to be put in that position. Imagine me, as the 老板娘! No way. Besides, I don't know anything about his industry - it is not an industry that I have worked in before and I am not sure how much I can realistically contribute. The only place where I think I can add some value is when they get to the manufacturing stage and they need to go to somewhere like Taiwan to get it done - that's when I think I can be the conduit between them and the Taiwanese manufacturer at least from a language perspective. Oh and in case you didn't know, China has no respect for copyright and the moment you try to manufacture stuff in China, within days, there will be a thousand factories churning out the same product. Taiwan is a much safer bet for high end, medical devices and whilst they are not as cheap, you would be committing commercial suicide if you trusted anyone from China with your intellectual property for they are fucking thieving bastards. Oh and I can say that without being racist as I am Chinese. So yeah, I may do a bit of work for them in Taiwan but that's more on an ad hoc and just part time basis when required.

There's another reason why I don't want to live in Australia - I just don't know what I would do with myself if I am not working hard. I love traveling, I love exotic countries and Australia is bland, even boring. Look if my partner was working in a country where they didn't speak English as a first language, boom I'll be on the next plane out already. I feel I need to be constantly on edge, taken out of my comfort zone. It is like when I was in Bulgaria earlier this year, even just a simple task like going to the supermarket to buy food becomes an adventure because I have to read the labels in Bulgarian; a simple exchange with the cashier becomes a challenge because I would try to do it entirely in Bulgarian without using a word of English. That's just the kind of person I am - I know loads of people would hate being put in that kind of situation, but I thoroughly enjoy it. Australian supermarkets are dull, dull, dull. The food is neither cheap nor interesting and everyone speaks English. At least when I was in Miami, I was constantly surrounded by Spanish speaking people and in a city like London, it is so international that most of the people I hang around with usually speak another language anyway so I can always avoid speaking English with them. Thus by that token, Australia is painfully bland and dull IMHO.

I am being challenged in other ways in London - I am constantly taken out of my comfort zone at work. Whilst I work for a fixed income specialist, each product we put together is unique and different: every few months, I am given a brand new product to sell and there's an extremely steep learning curve I have to scramble up each time. In any case, I am dealing with international distributors so I am constantly using my languages in any case, especially Spanish. And of course, there's my gymnastics. I still train about four to five times a week and if you were to come along and watch me train, you'll probably think I'm not very good because I'm constantly struggling and falling. That's a reflection of a fact that I am pushing myself to perform skills that are at the very limit of my ability - there are people who will think, Alex, you're no longer competing, you're just doing this for fun and fitness, so why push yourself so hard and risk an injury? Why don't you just get a relaxed workout doing the skills you can do confidently with little effort? Well, I do some of those skills but that's during warm up - I don't think I would have enough fun at gymnastics if I wasn't pushing myself like that. I'm not bothered or upset if I spent the whole evening landing on my backside or face, trying a new skill because if I found the session too easy, then I know I am just not pushing myself hard enough. I have a need to stay out of my comfort zone. 

I suppose the only way for things to work out for me in Australia would be for me to get an equally challenging job in Australia - but I know that's highly unlikely to say the least for the following factors. Firstly, my partner is only going to be there for about another 14 to 15 months and once he has finished the work with his clients, then he will move on to the next client who may or may not be in Australia, we don't know. But say if he gets a client in South Africa or Chile, then that's where he needs to go to. One of the key questions a gatekeeper would ask me would be, "so how long are you going to be in Australia for?" And the honest answer would be, "I really don't know, it depends on what happens with my partner's business." That would make it hard for any recruiter to take me seriously for jobs as senior as the one I am doing at the moment. Secondly, my partner is in Brisbane, not Sydney or Melbourne - how many good jobs are there in a small town Brisbane?  And finally, I am only able to constantly get my hands on good jobs in London because of my network of really good friends and professional contacts here in London which I have built up after 20 years. I barely know anyone in Brisbane and that's going to make things so much more difficult for me to rebuild my career there.

I could take a year long vacation given that I am a landlord who earns enough money from my property portfolio but then the question would be what the hell would I do with myself in Brisbane? If it had been in a more exciting, interesting, culturally vibrant city, I would have relished the thought of taking a year long holiday (hey, how many people can have that kind of luxury eh?), but Brisbane of all places? I would be so extremely bored within weeks and in any case, the Australian summer is unbearable, there is no escape from the heat. The temperatures in Brisbane were okay when I was there in September, but from around November to March, Brisbane is just way too hot for me. In any case, Australia suffers from georgraphical isolation: Brisbane is so far away from anywhere. At least in London, I can easily hop on a plane and be on continental Europe within an hour or two, with a range of culturally vibrant destinations to choose from. Where could I visit from Brisbane, bearing in mind that I have just done New Zealand last month? I hate to say this, but I have little desire to visit the Pacific islands like Fiji, New Caledonia or Vanuatu. I've been to Indonesia and am no fan of it. Look, I'm from Singapore - tropical islands may seem exotic to white people coming from colder climates but there have nothing to offer me. I was in the Dominican Republic last year and thankfully, it had a vibrant culture because the beaches and the tropical climate did nothing for me there. Besides, I hate hot weather so much - I'd love to visit somewhere like Greenland or northern Alaska just to have a holiday where the temperature stays well below freezing.

Is it hard for me to spend this much time away from my partner? Of course it is hard, I suppose modern technology makes it a lot easier. We speak all the time and yes, I am going back to Australia to visit him again next year, probably around April once the summer there is over. And I think there's a part of me that worries what other people would think, for refusing to go over to Australia to support him just because I don't like Australia that much. Does it make me selfish to put my own needs over his? Well, that's me - I had gladly put my needs before everyone else's and I left Singapore 20 years ago without paying any heed to what my parents felt about me leaving. But what is the point of me going to Australia if I am just going to be unhappy there and miss London everyday? I suppose that was the same reason why I left Singapore - what was the point of  me living in Singapore just to please my parents when that would have simply made me miserable? If you want to call me selfish for putting my own happiness before anyone else's, then I'm guilty as charged. That's why I am staying put in London for now. Let's see if my partner's company can get a big client in a non-English speaking country soon and when that happens, I would gladly go. Let me know your thoughts, would you move to another country just to be with your partner, even if you didn't like that country? Or am I just going to chalk up a lot of air miles over the next year and a half? Let me know what you think, leave a comment below. Many thanks for reading.