This is the 37th true story of "One Thousand and One Dreads"
If you also have a story, please send me a private message
Zhao Kaiwen/Oral
Cuckoo Jun/Written
My name is Zhao Kaiwen. My hometown is in the Northeast. I am 34 years old. , my current permanent residence is in Melbourne, Australia. It may sound like 25,000 to 80,000 yuan, but in fact I am an international migrant worker that is very common in Australia.
International migrant worker
Some people say: "Ideal is leaving home." Is it ideal that makes me choose to leave home? Haha, as a young man who was once willing to lie flat, how can he have any ideals! To be honest, what made me have to stay away from my wife and children was the mortgage, the children's tuition fees, and the medical expenses of my parents...
Before I came to Melbourne , I was really incompetent.
My parents are both retired factory workers. When I was a child, because both my parents received a stable salary, our family’s living standard was pretty decent. In addition, I am the eldest child in the family, and I have two older sisters, so my status at home is like a "devil king". My parents protect me, my sisters dote on me, and I don't feel any pressure in life. I always feel that this family With them supporting me, I can see the blue sky when I look up.
I have always felt that I am the person favored by life, so favored that I don’t have to face the pressure of life!
After finishing high school in a muddle, I stopped going to school. I have been living at home for two or three years. My peers went to school and went to work. It was really boring for me to be alone at home.
Later, my parents asked someone to find me a job as a property manager in the largest commercial center in our county. Because the commercial center is relatively large, surrounded by roads, and has many shops, the quality of the shop owners also varies. There are always some The shop owners refused to pay the rent, so most of my job was to collect rent from these shop owners.
receives hundreds of thousands of yuan in rent every month, and my salary is four thousand yuan a month. This salary is considered to be at the lower-middle level for us. After meeting the basic living expenses, we can still have a balance of one to two thousand.
Life can make young people so poor that they eat instant noodles every day, but it is difficult for them to learn to save money when they are rich.
When I was young, I spent money lavishly. After get off work, I often hung out with a few buddies at bathing centers. Our bathing centers in the Northeast are not like the big bathhouses in some northern cities. After entering, I would rub my back, add some salt, etc., and it would be a mess. One or two hundred yuan each.
Northeast Bathhouse Culture
Our bathing centers in Northeast China are not bathing, but culture and service. After entering, there is a bar and a KTV. Three or five people can stay all night and make a fool of themselves, and only half a month's salary is enough to get in.
When I was young, I could save some money, but I spent it all. When I got married and had children, it was the mortgage, the children’s kindergarten tuition fees, and daily living expenses. After a few years, not only did I not save any money, I had to rely on my parents for support. .
You may ask, there are so many bachelors now, how can someone like me still get a wife?
Ah...this...sometimes you have to believe in fate.
My wife and I were classmates in high school. We didn’t have much contact with each other when we were in school. After graduation, we actually got together on a blind date, and we got along surprisingly well. At that time, we were teenagers who didn’t know what it was like to be sad, as long as we drank boiled water together. All are sweet.
In addition, at that time, with the help of my parents and the private support of my sisters, my life as a child was indeed okay, so my father-in-law and mother-in-law were also quite supportive of our relationship.
We got married at the age of 25. My parents used their life savings to pay a down payment for a house for my wife and me, and bought a car worth more than 100,000 yuan in full.
I was content to enjoy the quiet time in the greenhouse woven by my family, but soon society taught me how to be a human being and how to be a man.
26 years old, our first child was born. When the whole family had not yet come out of the joy of having a successor, I suddenly realized that the money was not enough.
It is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it is difficult to go from luxury to frugality! I know this sentence is a wise saying, but I never expected that it would be surprisingly accurate when applied to a little baby who is only a few months old.
When a child is just born, relying on the love of grandparents and aunts, milk powder, diapers, and even pacifiers are all very good. But when these expenses become the norm, it is a big mountain. When my wife and I discussed lowering Zaizi’s daily necessities to a higher level, he disagreed.
Various allergic reactions, lactose intolerance and other symptoms appear one after another, okay~~~ If you are ruthless, I will grit my teeth and beg you to be a good little boy! I stopped going to bathing centers. In the end, in order to save money, I even quit smoking and drinking.
Later, I no longer relied on the income from the "rent collection" job, and started to use some time off work to open a certain drip to earn some living expenses.
But life has told me with practical actions: "The debt I owed in the wasted years cannot be repaid by quitting smoking, quitting drinking, and even taking a certain drug! "
At the beginning of 2017, when I was nearly 30 years old, I was trying to find ways to raise money to give to When a child pays kindergarten tuition. Because of the high-intensity physical work all year round, coupled with my father who usually drinks and smokes, the red light is on in my body. There are problems with the stomach and liver. If you don't pay attention to your diet, you will need hospitalization.
Although there is social security, the cost of living has increased in various ways. That time my father was hospitalized again, and the life that could barely be supported by using credit cards completely broke the balance. "A penny can stump a hero." Although I am not a hero in , I am still stumped by a penny!
During that time, I truly understood that I was not the one favored by life. Like most men, I was destined to support the entire family on my own in this life.
I was able to come to Australia thanks to a very talkative passenger I brought along.
Through chatting at that time, I learned that his buddy was going to Australia to work, and his Australian study visa had been issued.
I didn’t understand at the time, and I asked him why he didn’t get a work visa when he went to work in Australia, but why he also applied for a study visa. This guy popularized it to me for a while, although I didn’t understand much in the end.
There are very few pedestrians on the streets of Australia.
Later, when we talked about the income from working in Australia, my heart became alive. This buddy has a relative in Australia, and it was because of this relative that he went to Australia this time. Generally speaking, Australia's income is higher than that in China mainly due to the exchange rate , which means that Australia's salary level can be used to support a wife living in China.
Moreover, in Tu'ao, if you have some skills, you can make some money if you can endure some hardships.
Before he got off the bus, I kindly added his WeChat account. This guy was very nice and didn’t refuse.
Now that I think about it, people are really delicate. Sometimes, just ten or twenty minutes of chatting can change the trajectory of a person's life.
After this friend logged in to Australia, I asked him many things one after another, such as prices in Australia, safety issues, what kind of jobs can Chinese generally do, what is the approximate income, food and accommodation expenses, and whether the jobs there are for foreigners or Chinese. I want to work part-time. If I don’t speak English, will I be able to work there?
After asking these questions, I decided to go abroad. At first, my wife and parents were quite opposed to it. After all, this was going abroad, not working in other provinces. Later, I used the idea of "go out and try for a year, and then come back if you can't make any money" to get through my family's work.
html At the age of 130, he traveled far away for the first time and took a plane for the first time. A man left home alone to go to the other side of the earth in order to survive.
Melbourne Airport
The special ticket I bought at that time was more than 1,800 points for a one-way ticket, but it was not a direct flight and had to be transferred. Although there were bumps along the way, luckily we landed in Australia safely.
After arriving at the Australian airport, my first impression was that the sky here is extremely blue, there are very few people, and the air is very fresh. Obviously I am in the city. I close my eyes and simply breathe. This almost oxygen-drunk feeling would only be possible if I were in my hometown. I can experience it near Daxinganling .
After that, the company that issued my visa arranged for someone to pick me up at the airport and take me to my accommodation.
The house we lived in at that time
was a house in the suburbs. There were two people living in one room and there was a yard. There were often unfamiliar birds staying in the yard. They wandered around in the yard and were not afraid of people. It felt quite fresh. of.
’s first job in Australia, you will never guess what it will be!
Haha, it’s pruning branches from fruit trees! Many people with no education, no skills, and no background came to Australia to do jobs that no one wanted to do at first. Australia has a vast land and rich resources, but there are few people, so we urgently need this kind of labor force.
Pruning farm
A row of fruit trees can be two to three hundred meters long. If one row can be pruned a day, the income can reach more than 200 dollars.
I am a bitch. I vowed on the first day to cut a row of meanings, and then. . . Then from nine o'clock in the morning to four thirty in the afternoon, less than half of it was cut, and I felt nothing else. I just felt my hands were sore and numb, and then I looked at the remaining branches and sighed.
My income on the first day was calculated as 86 knives. If I hadn’t seen a big boss earning more than 200 knives, I would have just returned home!
Fortunately, practice makes perfect when pruning branches. In the second week, after adapting to the intensity of the work, I was really able to do one row a day and became a "big boss" with an income of 200 dollars. Earning more than 1,000 yuan a day, which is equivalent to RMB, was something I couldn’t even imagine at the time!
But this work can only be a transition. On the one hand, pruning has seasonal requirements, and on the other hand, no one wants to stay here for a long time.
Because the pruning place is in a remote area, it felt quite fresh when I first came here. The endless fields, the vast land, the blue sky, the fresh air, everything was so beautiful. The key is to stay for a while and get tired of seeing the scenery. This is a place where only birds poop. People can't help but ask themselves: " Did I come to Tu'ao to be a farmer... "
and The sun in Australia is so poisonous that it makes people bald. also made a special investigation at that time and found out that the sun in Tuao is really poisonous. The world's largest ozone layer hole is over Australia, which is a place with strong ultraviolet radiation. If you don't do enough sun protection, you will be miserable.
After working on pruning for more than half a month, I resigned. Being unskilled, I did a small job at a construction site. Yes, it was the job of moving bricks in Australia, which was quite popular on the Internet.
What I want to say is that although this job is not fake, it is not as easy as no agency in China boasts, and you can make a lot of money every day. Generally, the hourly wage for part-time workers is between 17 and 20 dollars, and the working hours are about seven in the morning. By five o'clock in the afternoon, everyone who has worked on a construction site knows how tiring this job is. It's just the same work in another country.
So if you want to come to Australia, unskilled friends who can’t work hard and make big money should take a detour...
Melbourne construction site
In the first year here, I worked in pruning, moving bricks, cleaning, and picking fruits on the farm for a while. Fruit, it is worth mentioning that the fruits in Australia are really delicious and cheap. As a quitter of smoking and drinking, my only hobby here is playing with all kinds of fruits, haha!
came here. In the first year, because I had to change jobs frequently, my income was about 20,000 U.S. dollars. Compared with the previous "rent collection" job, it was much better. But there are gains and losses. Before coming here, I was a fat man of 180 pounds. When I returned, I lost a total of 20 pounds.
Beautiful colleagues from China
Are you tired of picking big cherries
? It was really tiring, but when I came home with the money, after the things that had not been resolved because of the money were settled with money, and after seeing the relief in my wife’s eyes, I had never felt like this in my life. of ease.
After resting at home for more than half a month, I set out again. My life began to shuttle between China and Australia, but compared to the peaceful life before, now I have a direction in my heart at all times.
Starting from the second half of 2018, I gradually stabilized my job in Australia. That is delivering food. This job is similar to that of a domestic delivery person. The difference may be the means of transportation.
was scrapped after it was launched, and the new takeout vehicle
Most of the delivery people in China ride electric bicycles. In Melbourne, motorcycles are the standard equipment for delivery people, and they often have to deliver food a few kilometers away. Electric vehicles are really not that good. Perfect fit.
As for income, there are high and low incomes. The high income is 300 to 400 dollars a day, and the average is 100 to 200 dollars. But compared to working on a farm, the body is really much easier.
At the beginning of 2019, I paid off my mortgage 20 years ahead of schedule. Standing on the black soil of my hometown, I couldn’t help shouting to the sky: "Men are free!"
One day’s takeaway income
From 20 years to now, due to the epidemic, , I rarely go back to China. Every time I have a video chat with my wife and parents, they advise me to go home. But after finally finding the direction of my life, I decided to be like a man on the battlefield. Although I am in danger, I can protect myself alone. The family has neither wind nor rain, no matter how hard it is and how tiring it is, it is worth it.
A man is not that great. If he can support a family, he is considered qualified, right?
PS: Telling about my experience of working abroad is purely to share my life insights. Friendly reminder: In the current epidemic situation, be cautious about working abroad and stay away from unscrupulous intermediaries...
