I didn’t really see my parents or even get to talk to them very much as a young …
I didn't really see my parents or even get to talk to them very much as a young child. They had gone to Australia for a better life – my father left just after I was born, and when I was 2, my mum left me with my grandma. As a result, I grew up with a Chinese...
(Part 2 of 2) When my daughter was born, I became very depressed. I had a kind o…
(Part 2 of 2) When my daughter was born, I became very depressed. I had a kind of existential crisis, facing a lot of gender related issues, like: If this is my child, am I a female? Do I really feel like I am a mother? I have a lot of memory blanks from that time....
(Part 1 of 2) I was born just when the post-apartheid era started in South Afric…
(Part 1 of 2) I was born just when the post-apartheid era started in South Africa. As a young kid, I remember everything being really exciting and colourful, with a lot of acceptance for difference. But when I was 7 we moved from that to the very conservative eastern...
In my mum’s time, it would have been tricky for a girl to spend a lot of time be…
In my mum’s time, it would have been tricky for a girl to spend a lot of time being active outside the house, but times were changing in Nepal. As a child, I was always really into sports, especially table tennis and badminton. My brother played cricket, and one day...
It was always a big dream of my ex-husband’s to leave Russia and migrate to Aust…
It was always a big dream of my ex-husband’s to leave Russia and migrate to Australia. For eight years, he was desperately trying to get a skilled migrant visa. But it was difficult for him to get the points we needed to apply. First, we had to wait for him to get...
For about 12 months, my family lived in a bamboo hut in a refugee camp in Thaila…
For about 12 months, my family lived in a bamboo hut in a refugee camp in Thailand. My parents don’t talk about that time much. I think it was a bit traumatic for them - the war in Laos, feeling it was no longer safe for us to stay, having to escape from our native...
The two of us had never really settled anywhere. We worked as IT contractors thr…
The two of us had never really settled anywhere. We worked as IT contractors throughout Europe, and then whenever we had saved up enough, we would go sailing for a while. We always had boats, but in 2000, we decided we wanted to build our dream boat. Because we knew...
I went to nine different schools growing up, as my father was travelling back an…
I went to nine different schools growing up, as my father was travelling back and forth from Australia to India for work. It was so hard to be constantly packing up and leaving, and I had many days when I would cry. Unfortunately, I experienced bullying in both...
The first time we tried to leave Vietnam, the boat sank. At that time, I was onl…
The first time we tried to leave Vietnam, the boat sank. At that time, I was only 4, but I remember being on Dad’s back while he swam to the shore. Mum and Dad were separated, and one year earlier, she had left by boat for Hong Kong with the intention of supporting my...
A week from my 12th birthday, I waited for my mum to come and pick us kids up …
A week from my 12th birthday, I waited for my mum to come and pick us kids up from primary school but she never came. The entire school emptied and I remember just standing there and wondering what was going on. Then we found out that she had been killed in a car...
