the winter holidays have gotten off to a slow start since getting back from Australia. apart from meeting up with old friends and chilling out at the usual familiar places, nothing exciting has been happening. its always nice to be back here though, the sense of familiarity, the cheap and good food, and best of all, mum has just decided to back paddle on her hardline stance against maids and hire a maid. so its really nice not having to cook, wash dishes or do laundry for a month!

we had a class party last night. qianyi, always being the kind and generous one, offered her place to host our reunion once again. jon brought his new gf and was pleasantly surprised by the little "gift" that teresa and i had for him. now, the scum has lost yet another valuable member.

joking around and teasing each other just brings back the memories of the good ol' times back in JC. haven't indulged in that for quite some time.

was just talking about Australia with my friend's mum and having travelled there for business pretty often, they doesn't like them all that much. at board meetings, she feels that they are not listening attentively just because it is a Chinese person speaking. it is only when they have finally decided to pay attention that they actually start to listen. i cannot help but agree with her views that they still tend to not view Asians in general in the same light. IMHO, they still tend to be rather judgemental about colour. such things are hard to explain in words, its just a subtle feeling you get while talking to some of them. its like when they see ur face they facial expression just tends to change. as if they are not used to seeing asian people or something.

racism definitely is a problem in Australia today, despite the white australia policy having been abolished for quite some time. the emnity against asian people still remains. in the past, during the gold rush era, the white miners were rather unhappy that the Chinese workers were taking away their jobs as they were willing to work harder and for less pay. this gave rise to the origins of the anti asian sentiments in australia. chinese workers were seen as "spoiling the market." it got so bad that companies which hired chinese workers were branded by the whites as traitors.

oh well...i guess such ugliness in a society is something that its inhabitants have to deal with. even though it exists, i think its important to not let it bother one too much. because if one walks around with the suspicion that australians are racist, it makes it difficult in day to day interactions and forging of potentially meaningful friendships.

having lived there for about a year and a half, i think dealing with these problems has made me stronger, and given me a deeper understanding of the pitfalls of their society. given a choice, i would rather study in the US but of course for medicine, that is not a very feasible option.