I Don't Want to Let You Down

This week is crazy. Working at a switch factory (just for this week) eight hours during the day and doing cleaning at a butcher shop for two hours in the evenings. I finally understand why my mom wanted me to get an education...so I wouldn't have to do these kinds of jobs.

At the factory we assemble parts for switches and other electronic items. The job is purely repetitive motion and is the epitome of boredom. As one female co-worker put it "I get eight hours to think about life." However, let's make it clear, I'm not complaining. I'm happy with any work that I get, because this is survival. I've also had the opportunity to notice some things.

There's a lot of Vietnamese mothers at the switch factory and they remind me of my friends' moms. Just like them, my friends' mothers (and my mom as well) immigrated to a new country to find better opportunities. They're doing this kind of menial work so that their kids don't have to. They want their children to go to college, graduate, and find better jobs (sound familiar?).

To their surprise they find someone like their son, raised in a Western country* and speaks English as a first language, working under them.

A common question I get when they hear I'm from America is "What (the hell) are you doing here?"

I wonder myself (sometimes). At least I get to experience first hand the type of labor my mom and my friends' moms do and I know where they're coming from.

I can't help but feel gratitude and also a sense of shame when I realize how much my mom sacrificed. And I understand why a lot of my peers do what they do, studying hard in college and/or pursuing stable careers.

Her sacrifice gives me greater inspiration to study, to create, and (on the pragmatic side) to invest my money wisely.

I always keep in mind that this work is just a step to where I want to go.

I don't want to let you down.



*Here I take "Western" as being developed English speaking countries, in this case USA and Australia.

Notes from the Mango Farm 10 of 10

Or more accurately, Photos from Leaving the Mango Farm

Notes from the Mango Farm 9 of 10

This is the last note from my journal on the mango farm. The next post will just be photos. Hopefully I was able to successfully share with you what life on the farm was like and also give some different perspectives.

Wednesday, 10/21

Day 12

Today's the last day of the mango season, which is fine by me because my arm is freaking itchy as hell.

I like this lifestyle, it's simple, it's pure. It's a microcosm of society, except in this society, everyone's pretty cool.

But I long for the city, for internet, for fast food.

I've learned so much here, from this place I've gained confidence in being able to take care of myself and also Trish.

Tomorrow morning I'm off to the city! I'll reunite with my partner (that's the term they use here for boyfriend/girlfriend) and start making plans for the trip to Alice Springs.

Excited.

Notes from the Mango Farm 8 of 10

Tuesday, 10/20

Day 11

On the farm, you have to think about every movement: "I'm going to take a shower, I should drop off my dirty clothes in the wash on the way, also I still gotta make tomorrow's lunch, etc..." As I mentioned before, time is precious, and using time wisely helps to save some time to relax.

Here I've improved my Mandarin a lot, today I've learned a new idiom, 強龍不壓坻頭蛇 (Qiang2Long2Bu4Ya1Di4Tou2She2) from Chris, a Taiwanese guy that's been traveling Oz with his cousin. It literally means, "A strong dragon doesn't step on the local snake."

Chris was in Perth (in Western Australia, birthplace of the late Heath Ledger RIP) before coming to Darwin and he was working at a bar there. At the bar, some drunk guy said to him: "You fucking asian!" Chris just smiled and ignored him and went along his business. To Chris, he knows he's a cool guy, but here in a foreign country, he believes that it's not his place to insult the locals even if they insult him first. Chris said, "Anyways the guy was drunk, so it's probably better just to ignore him."

I'm not sure if I could've done the same. As one of my friends would say, "My pride won't let me do that."

I think it would be cooler if I got some back up and...

Notes from the Mango Farm 7 of 10

Hey guys, I've been really slacking on finishing up this "Notes from the Mango Farm" series. This past week, Trish and I have been really busy looking for a new place to live close to Adelaide city. We're finally moving into our new place today! I'm so happy, living in a hostel sucks, even on the farm, I had my own room (albeit in a old school trailer). I'm going to finish this series up soon and put up some photos of some of the travels that happened after. More soon...

Monday, 10/19

Day 10

Today, while I was snapping stems, I had this feeling of Deja Vu. Here I am in a foreign country doing farm work and it feels as if I've done this before, it feels like an echo of an old dream. In the dream, I remember that I'm sitting in a similar position, doing some form of labor, and I'm thinking about money, which is exactly what I was doing at that moment. I've heard before that deja vu is a way that life tells you that you're on the right track.

I also have an old dream that still haunts me. I had this dream in high school where a gang of guys, in a city I've never been to, beat the shit out of me. The details are fuzzy but I remember that the place is foreign. I thought that it might happen to me in college or Taiwan, but it didn't. Thought came back to me today and I decided to do some martial arts training after work.

Water shared a story about how this guy on a bus in town kept throwing trash at him. He asked us at the dinner table what we would do if it happened to us. Ignore him, ask him to stop, move away ...Water did all those things but the guy kept throwing trash at him (Water couldn't move that far away, the bus was full).

I felt angered by the story because the guy was picking on Water probably cause Water was Asian. There's similar stories of Asians getting picked on in Australia that I've heard and I myself experienced such an incident (I will share at a later post). I wanted to say, "Kick his fucking head in!" but then I thought about it. The first person to get angry is the first person that loses. Once you lose your head, someone's going to get hurt. It sucks, but we're the foreigners here so if shit goes down, we'll take the heat.

Water said that he just turned towards the guy on the bus and said very loudly and clearly "Gan ni niang!" (Fuck your mother!) The guy said, "I don't speak Chinese."

Water, "I said you were very handsome."

I thought that was funny, but that's not going to keep that fucking bloke from doing more disrespectful shit towards people.

The mango season is coming to an end soon. I keep asking the big boss' wife, Ruth, but she's still unsure of when they'll finish ("It all depends on how much fruit there is"). We'll see.