Tag: koreans in australia (Page 2 of 3)

Interview with Typhoon – Part 2

2013/10/08 / Nic / 2 Comments

Here is the second part of the interview with Typhoon who has been living with my parents out in rural Australia. I filmed a little bit of him every time I went back home.

To just expand on what he was talking about in regards to other Koreans: It’s something that frustrates my husband a lot too. Many Koreans go back to Korea and tell others, “Don’t go to Australia. I didn’t learn any English there. It’s not a good place to learn English.” The reality usually is that these people went straight into the Korean community, got a job with only Koreans, lived with Koreans and only met Koreans. That’s fine if that’s what they want to do, but not so good for improving English, which is usually their goal. Having large Korean communities in Australia is a great thing, but can also mean that some Koreans don’t ever step outside of their comfort zone. The same thing happens in The Philippines. Many people go there to learn English but instead just party with other Koreans and not go to English class. Bit hard to learn English that way! Typhoon wants to encourage others to try new things and step outside of their comfort zone.

What Typhoon and his girlfriend did was travel to a more rural part of Australia right away, which is why they made lots of Australian friends, experienced different things and why Typhoon plays soccer on Australian teams.

We are hoping to do a few more interviews like this with other Koreans that are living in Australia.

Interview with Typhoon

2013/09/26 / Nic / 3 Comments

So we’ve talked about Australian working holiday visas before and Koreans in Australia. Now we have an interview with a Korean guy who is in Australia on a working holiday. Here is part 1:

Working Holiday

2013/09/18 / Nic / 4 Comments

So I hope that explains a bit more about working holidays in Australia. If you have a question you can leave it in the comment section and we’ll try to answer it!

My Korean Husband goes to Strathfield

2013/04/19 / Nic / 34 Comments

There are a bunch of areas in Sydney with Korean populations.We just wanted to show you guys one of these areas. Some people have commented about their own countries and how it is difficult to get Korean things there, so we wanted show why Sydney is such a good place for us to live as a couple that aims to be bi-cultural.

Usually we frequent the Korea Town in the Sydney CBD, which we also call ‘The City’. Strathfield is just a short train ride away but there is a different feel compared to the city. Koreans in the city are usually on working holiday or student visas and between the age of 20 and 30 but Strathfield is a more established Korean community with Korean people of all ages. You can see in the video there are clothes stores catering to older Korean women which you don’t see in our area.

I did notice a slight difference to how people looked at us. In the city there are many interracial couples so we don’t get much of a second glance usually, but in Strathfield I felt people looked at us a bit more, that we were a bit more unusual.

We went My Sweet Memory Cafe and Doo Ri Korean Restuarant.

Also, the reason why we have another video up so soon is because we had this video and the Secret Garden video ready and edited but we were just waiting for the music. Don’t expect a new video every second day! hehe. We will probably settle into a schedule of one going out and doing something video and one inside question and answer video a week when we get back from Korea. We are planning on doing some short vlogs while in Korea though.

We started out with just some simple trips for the first few videos while we get used to being on camera and editing but we’ll gradually do more exciting things. You can give us suggestions too! What would you like to see?

No Mum

2013/03/12 / Nic / 15 Comments

I’m a party pooper, but I didn’t think that him eating sticky honey chicken on the daybed, while playing computer games, was a good idea. He might be cheeky while Mum is not here, but if she walked through the door right now he’d be jumping up and apologising profusely.

My parents are in Japan because my brother just graduated from the Tokyo School of Music. They went to his graduation and are now spending about a month travelling around Japan with him. My husband’s sister and her boyfriend will be staying in my home town at my parents’ house while on their working holiday visas. My parents already have a Korean couple boarding with them (as well as renting the house next door out to Korean guys) so even though we are in a rural part of Australia, in my parents’ houses there are plenty of Koreans. So right now I’m the odd one out. Even though this is the Australian house I grew up in, there are 5 Koreans here right now. I’m the one that can’t always follow the conversations.

My husband has spent so much time here that he is really comfortable in this house and it’s like home for him too, which is why he is just lounging around and wanting to eat on the nice cushions.

Rockpools at Night

2013/02/06 / Nic / 17 Comments

This was over Christmas when we stayed in a holiday house near the beach. Whenever we were walking on the beach my husband would ask, “Can we eat it?” for almost everything he saw. My family goes to the beach and enjoys swimming and relaxing, but my husband sees it as an opportunity to find food. His attempt at catching squid was unsuccessful because the ocean was too rough, but we did see others catch a lot a few days earlier, so maybe next time.

We had a really fun time looking in rock pools though, especially at night. The octopus freaked us out. Well, freaked me out. I have this half joking fear that giant octopuses will one day take over the world. This is why I don’t eat baby octopuses in Korean seafood hotpot because when octopuses take over the world I’m going to be like “I didn’t eat your babies! Don’t kill me!” All my friends know my theory and laugh at me. So I was a bit scared when my husband caught the octopus in the bucket. Which a bit out of character for me, I’m not scared of animals and I’m trained as a zoo keeper so I’ve handled plenty of animals. Octopus though…. they are just so smart. This octopus we caught was easily crawling out of the bucket, and when we put it back it changed it’s colour to match the rocks in the rockpool. Freaky.

My husband was sad he couldn’t eat it and we really had to force him to put it back. Even though I’ve explained that you can’t just take everything from the environment, sometimes he thinks with his stomach. We were also lucky that it wasn’t a Blue-ringed Octopus which are deadly.

Anyway, go watch some Youtube videos about octopus and see how smart they are.

I Can Tell

2012/11/09 / Nic / 18 Comments

I’ve mentioned before about him pointing out Koreans every time he sees them. So many Koreans live near us so it’s not like it’s a rare event to see a Korean person. The other day he was having one of his boasts about being able to tell who is Korean and just to prove his point was pointing out who was Korean or not for every person that walked past us. There were some people who were obviously not Korean at all, but he still had to point it out… Actually what he means is that he can identify Koreans from other Asian people.

It’s really not that hard to identify who is Korean here as not only is there a certain Korean look but also clothes and mannerisms are very strong hints and once you hear them speaking Korean…. easy. I’m talking about Koreans who have spent most of their life in Korea, not Korean Australians or those adopted from Korea. The difference can be quite interesting. I remember a few years ago at a party and a friend who was born in Korea but adopted as a baby by an Australian couple came, as well as Koreans on working holiday visas. Although with my Australian friend, I can identify the Korean features of his face: everything else, his clothing style, mannerisms and body language was completely different to the Korean guys.

Where we grow up influences so many things about us.