A Place Called Home
The morning of Jan 11, 2022, I was in the kitchen after grocery shopping when a notification popped up on my phone – an email from William titled “permanent visa approval”. I quickly swiped it open and started reading:
Congratulations to you on becoming Australia’s newest permanent residents!
S walked into the kitchen looking as calm. “You saw the email too?” I asked. “What email?” “We got it.” In a few seconds I was in the air. “We can get our xiao mao mao now.” (We both love cats, but wouldn't consider getting cats without being able to give them a permanent home.)
I still couldn’t believe it. They told me it is going to be a long wait, but it’s only been five days since my physical check. In August last year, only five months ago, I got my two-year temporary working visa while preparing for my own PR application (skilled independent). A month later, My partner's lawyer advised that I could get on his application to speed up the process since he is applying through a different stream. As I am already applying on my own, there wasn’t any waiting on my side to get all the documents ready. Four months later, we are the newest permanent residents. Is it really THAT easy?
Nothing really came easy. I came to Australia in March 2018 on a working holiday visa without knowing what will happen. I had decided to take a three-month break picking mangos and vaccinating goats on some farm in the rural area (things people on this visa usually do). Surprisingly, I was soon back to an ordinary office job after a month.
I was not sure what my plans were in this country, and what this working holiday trip would mean to me. Was it a gap year that I got to cross off my bucket list before returning back to the normal life in Shanghai? Was it an opportunity to experience working overseas so my resume looks better for my next job? Was it a literary pilgrimage where I finally get my writing degree? Or was it something else?
As cliché as it may sound, life has its own plans. I was let go of my office job only after 1.5 months, then started a part-time marketing job at a tuition school where I got to make many good friends. I did end up receiving four offers for masters of creative writing, but declined and tried a fictional writing workshop instead to have the “itch” scratched. Along the journey, I was slowly finding the charm of the city and the people. When my overly-worried parents visited and eventually gave me a "yes" of staying overseas, I held off the plan of going back for a bit longer, and started my master’s degree in teaching.
A new adventure had begun “A break from the predictable, ordinary life” turned into a gap year, which eventually became a more serious journey. Right after I received my maters offer for teaching, I attended a seminar with these questions in mind - “what does having the skill on the skill shortage list mean to me, and what else I should do?” I realised that I might be able to stay in Australia permanently, but I had a long list of tasks to cross off. I completed every single one of them within the time frame.
It was an emotional roller coaster. The policy was changing constantly during my study, and so were my plans. I was going through a points system, and when I first started, the points requirement for PR was 70, then it increased to 75. Both were not too challenging for me back then. But I was gathering every point I can, 20 points from my education, 20 points from PTE, 25 points from skill assessment, 5 from working, extra 5 from CCL... One year in my program, the minimum points score for 189 (skill independent visa) suddenly went up to 95, which was mission impossible for me. Then coronavirus happened and took the last ray of hope away - the country’s boarder was closed, skill invitations were only open to people with medical backgrounds. It took another two years before the invitation started again for teaching with the minimum of 85 points, which I was just qualified for.
It had been almost 3 years and 10 months since I came to Australia without a plan. It is certainly a wild journey beyond my expectation for lack of a better term. I also understand my privilege - having an option to spend time overseas because I needed some change in life, going back to uni almost ten years after my undergrad, and now the option to call both Shanghai and Melbourne home.
(Note: My douban page has been a sanctuary where I recorded and will be continuing to record my journey, good and bad. There was a lot of venting and frustration over the years, but I also want to record some happy news, as a reminder for tough times. If you see this post, thanks for reading this far.)
