What I’ve learnt from studying in Australia as an Asian woman
May 17, 2016 – by Ly Phan
University of Sydney PhD graduate Ly Phan Photo: Supplied
Some of my Anglo Australian friends keep asking me how I find Australia. I know what they want me to say – that’s it’s a fabulous country that offers a Fair Go for all, and a true melting pot of different cultures.
And, with 19 per cent of Sydney’s population today of Asian descent, and 18 per cent of Melbourne’s, life for me as a woman with a Vietnamese background really shouldn’t be much different to anyone else’s.
But it still is, and in some ways quite surprisingly so.
I laughed when the two Asian flatmates on the TV show Gogglebox said the only time you see Asians on Australian TV are on the reality shows Border Patrol and Bondi Rescue.
Everyone knows, you see, that Asians are either trying to smuggle food or drugs into the country or causing trouble by swimming when they don’t actually know how.
Apart from those, and the IGA ads with Anh Do, I see very few Asian faces on mainstream TV in Australia. Watching it, you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s still bound by the White Australia Policy which, after all, was only finally disbanded in 1973.
In other media too, the image projected of Australia is still very much one of a population of mostly Anglos. Perhaps there still aren’t many Asian journalists getting good jobs in the media? And doubtless there are few media bosses from an Asian background.
My personal experience backs this up. While I love Australia, I really do, sometimes it still takes me by surprise. I’ve been here for three years now, taking my PhD and teaching at the University of Sydney University. Despite the fact I’ve also studied at Washington University in the US and worked in Berlin, Germany, the first thing most Australians I meet ask is, “Do you want to stay in Australia?”
Yes, Australia is wonderful in many ways, but my purpose in having an education is not solely to migrate to Australia!
They seem to make exactly the same assumption when I date someone local; I’m obviously only doing so with some kind of ulterior visa purpose in mind.
When I studied and worked in the US, and then in Europe, people would ask me many things about how I found the universities, the standard of education, the food, the lifestyle. But no one seemed to assume I was only there in the hope of one day gaining permanent residency.
At the same time, having just finished my PhD, I’m now applying for university jobs around the world. Universities across the work have interviewed me via Skype and even flown me overseas from Australia for interviews.
Those are universities in Europe, the US and Singapore. But from the Australian universities there’s been only a deathly silence, with not even my applications acknowledged. I sometimes wonder – or is this a defence mechanism, I tell myself – if they see my Asian name and dismiss me as someone simply wanting to stay in the country …
A friend who works in administration for another university tells me they are now having enormous problems with Asian students. It’s nothing to do with how hard they study, or how well they fit it at the university, however. It’s when they try to organise work experience placements with companies outside.
Those firms are today more and more rejecting anyone with an Asian-sounding name. And that’s regardless of how well Smith, Jones, Wong or Li are doing at their course, and without even being given the chance of an interview.
Another Asian friend works in another university with a boss who insists on speaking incredibly slowly and loudly to her, and asking at the end of every conversation, “D-O Y-O-U U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-N-D?” This is despite my friend being Singaporean, and thus being multi-lingual, with English one of her first languages. She speaks it better than him.
It’s not just professionally that things can be a little tricky, though. I have a good friend, an older Anglo Australian male, with whom I regularly go out for walks, bike rides and meals.
But when we hang out, we always get confused looks from other people. The look is a knowing one, kind of, “Yeah, we know what you’re doing”. Their stares seem to say exactly the same thing. A younger Asian woman and an older Anglo male? It seems there can only ever be a few possibilities – he has a mail order bride, I’m a gold-digger after his money, or I’m a paid companion.
We both find that either awkward or hilarious, but are equally determined not to give in. And hopefully people will just get used to seeing Asian women, and Asians generally, as what they truly are: just ordinary people hoping for the same fair go as everyone else.
Ly Phan has just finished her PhD at the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney, specialising in demography, gender equality, population, migration and urbanisation in Southeast Asia.
Source: http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/what-ive-learnt-from-studying-in-australia-as-an-asian-woman-20160516-gow634.html