Melbourne In The Eyes Of A Malaysian Student (Part 3: Lifestyle)

Well, there isn't anymore posts so no dropping required - for this series at least.

The third entry in a trilogy is rarely acknowledged as the best entry in the series and for good reason. For most third entries, the very reason for its existence is due to some corporate bigwigs deciding to milk their highly successful series by prolonging it much further than it was ever intended to be. No clear game plan, no real plot progression and at the end of the day, it exists as a dirty and unwashed stain on what should have been a great series. Something that didn't need to be there but it happened and now everyone treated it as an illegitimate child or something. 

Good (or maybe bad?) examples of these absolute disgrace of media are but not limited to Spiderman 3 (sigh...), Home Alone 3 (an exponential drop of quality from the first ever entry), the Hunger Games ( I still want my money back) and probably Men In Black 3 (enough Will Smith, thanks.).

Of course, there are clear exceptions to this rule. A third entry should always serve a clear purpose to expand or complete an unfinished story (Half-life 3, I'm looking at you). They must have a reason for existing and to not just exist for the mere reason of existing. A worthwhile addition where it's disappearance from the series would cause a huge unexplained gaping hole.

Pretty popular examples which I agree with is Metal Gear Solid 3 (best game on the PS2), Toy Story 3 (a great handling of the end of Andy with his toys) and Aria The Origination (wrapping up the beautiful journey of the three undines which we had been with for 3 seasons) .

So, what am I getting at? Well, I guess I'm just trying to justify having a triple entry into this series of articles which seemed to have gathered minimal attention from the world. Like the story of Big Boss to the Prima Undine promotion for Akari, this third entry of the series is vital and therefore needed to be written and read to the world.

Your welcome.

And with that, the usual unimportant introduction is complete and now we shall transition to the meat of the matter.

Lifestyle.

Everyone has it, be it their very unique own or one of the norms that society has prepared for us. It can be a respectable one where people can take one glance and look in admiration. On the other hand, it can be the absolute opposite where barely audible mutterings can be heard in the background and no, these mutterings aren't one of high praise but instead of utter disgust and clear distaste. 

Or you know, it can be one where people say,

' Oh, how normal.'

Spread the salt !

Like a lot of things in the world, good or bad is subjective. There are some indisputably good or bad ones which for most situations produce the generally similar warm or cold response from the public. I've been around long enough to see plenty of different lifestyles which have been played out more or less like its cliche counterpart from the usual unstoppable motion of the conveyor line of B-class Hollywood movies.

Being in a different country gave me an opportunity to experience this oddity of a natural phenomena in action. I live in one of the most overpriced student accommodation possible situated right between the city and the university. This meant when not in university, I frequently encounter students (which are people, in some way) from massively distinct backgrounds and countries (although most of them are from China) in addition to the local people here in Melbourne. 

An undeniable fact would be to say that spending enough time in a city can change a person. A very popular proof of this are the many different dialects people pick up when living among locals in a foreign country for a good amount of time. Of course, some of them are terribly exaggerated to a point where within earshot, I feel blood rushing out from my ruptured eardrums (add it to one of pet peeves). It could be something as simple of a natural local colloquial term (Maccas, anyone?) or something big like drinking alcohol all day (An Australian thing, I assure you).

But the main question here would be how did it affect me, a relatively normal person with the usual pimples growing from one's face due to the ritual of adolescence , large rimmed spectacles and a face which has been mistaken by locals here to either be from China and even Australia (due to my impeccable command of English, no doubt)?

Well, here's my answer to you web users.

1. Dialects and slangs  

What I expected:

Unlike most people I met back in Malaysia who 'developed' accents after being in a foreign country, I had my doubts on yours truly actually developing one myself. I had too much pride to throw away my identity as a Malaysian which means my Malaysian 'accent' is something that I had no intention of abandoning. However, the usual 'lah' and 'yah-oh' was something I decided to try to get rid of. After all, it was essentially broken English and I had no intention of making a fool of myself in a new country.

Slang wise, I knew the usual few Australia ones from social media but I didn't really bother myself with that. I had full confidence that my English prowess would be more than sufficient to survive in Australia even without the knowledge of any real Australian slangs. 

The running joke of Australians not speaking English was surely just that, a joke.

Right?

What I got :

At least Ryan Gosling tried :(

Right.

I haven't went back home yet so none of my friends can testify about my lack of an accent but I'm 99% sure that my tone of voice hasn't wavered from the time I left the shores of Malaysia in February of 2017. I'm not sure how I should feel about that. It might just mean that I haven't really interacted with much Australians OR my Malaysian identity is just something I really can't lose. 

The second one sounds a lot better and much less depressing so I think I'm going with that.

However, I do find myself speaking in a somewhat different tones when talking to Australians. Friends that know me from way back in high school will know me as someone who speaks in a rather embarrassing brash and loud tone. Back home, I guess I didn't really care too much about the perceptions of most people so the chains were just let loose. My friends would sometimes tell me to lower my voice, much to my embarrassment. 

New year, new me. Being in university, most Australians I spoke to are well spoken which meant I had to bite my tongue when speaking to them. Often times, I find myself speaking in a very unusual low tone while carefully omitting any Malaysian slangs. After a few months, it became a norm to switch to this low tone mode when speaking with Australians. 

Then there were my usual group of friends who were partly made up of Malaysians. A switch was always flicked on to Malaysian mode when I talk to them. It was liberating at times and thankfully I had no problem switching between the two modes. 

At the end, I didn't develop an accent per se but definitely chose my words a lot more thoughtfully.

Slangs wise, I seemed to had picked up a few over my time here. McDonald's became Maccas, belanja became shouting someone, barbecues became barbie, no problem became no worries and even afternoon became arvo. 

And no, I still don't understand the last slang. I guess it's fun knowing a few but nothing really much to add here.


EDIT : Back in Malaysia and can confirm that I had developed no accent. Sad reacts only.   

2. The food

What I expected:

Around two weeks before I left for Melbourne, I found myself in a room of probably a hundred or so teenagers like myself sitting rather expectantly while listening to speeches made by teenagers wearing a rather distinctive shirt displaying the words 'MOMU'. 

It was a orientation of sorts where I was joined by fellow Malaysians who were to join me in a similar adventure to Melbourne. I knew no one going into that hall in the 3rd floor of the Kuala Lumpur Exhibition Centre and I left the hall with the similar amount of friends. It was a rather peculiar orientation which seemed to have been made up partly of free advertising for the Malaysian Students Society club and the other with some useful and useless advice peppered in between the speeches given out. 

I learned two main things from that day. One, most Malaysians going to Melbourne were from KL which meant I was probably to know no one familiar when in Melbourne (proven true). Two, Australia didn't seem to have their own food. Instead, it had apparently a multitude of Malaysian restaurants which could successfully cater to the cultured taste of Malaysians. And apparently, Papparich was the pinnacle and shining light of source of Malaysian delicacies. 

Now that struck me as being a very weird statement. After all, Papparich was always seen as a sanctuary for the rich in Malaysia with its chain stores often performing an Oscar-worthy impression of a ghost town. So much so that back in college, one of the chain stores from the area became a running joke among my circle of friends as a place one would only go if their father was rich. 

'Pappa' = papa = father. (assuming you didn't get the joke but you're not such a humorless slow person, are you now?)

This joke might have stemmed from my saltiness of being too poor to even consider eating at Papparich at the first place but then with the many empty stores scattered all over Malaysia as evidence enough, I would like to think that I had a rather justified claim myself. 

I mean after all, who needs Papparich when you can have economy rice for literally one third of the price and double the satisfaction in terms of the fillingness of one's stomach. If this didn't sum up my college life, I don't know what will.

Leaving Malaysian food aside, I guess the other thing I learned that I knew nothing about Australian food. Not once did they mention about Australian dishes which set my mind running to sift through the many terabytes of data stored up in my head to recall what Australian dishes are. 

I mean surely they had some type of specialty dishes. Italy has their pizza and pasta , England has their fish and chips, France had their bread and even America has hot dogs to be proud of. However, the only dishes that came to mind involved kangaroos and crocodiles which was obviously stereotypical and completely wrong, right?

Anyway, I figured that I had to throw everything I knew out of the window and head to the bright future ahead of me. It's a new country after all !


What I expected:

I laugh everytime.

So, I wasn't wrong. Papparich is even more overpriced here. Australia have no dishes they can call their own. And there's a lot of Malaysian stores here. 

Well, that's it. Off to the next one!

Oh, what is it I hear from my lovely and totally not imaginary audience? You want to hear more? Alright, just because you asked nicely, I'll do so. 

It's not like I like writing to you or anything, baka! (lame ass tsundere joke, I apologize)

My life in Melbourne can be split to many different time periods. Sure, there's the usual boring ones like weeks, semesters, months and etc. Then there's the Melvin specific labels which only yours truly could use in profiling one's life. 

One of them would be the pre-cooking period and the cooking period. Starting off my time here in university, I had nearly zero experience with cooking so I decided to eat out every day. However being the cheapskate I was, I used my 2 weeks before the first classes of the semester to trek through the city of Melbourne searching for restaurants that would charge for food no more than 8 dollars. That is why I would say I am fully equipped to describe the food in Melbourne in terms of its prices, variety and taste with addition to the many food sessions with friends that broke my allowable price ceiling which I categorized under social luxuries. 

This extensive research brought many points to my attention. Australia didn't really have their own food. However being the great melting pot it proudly claimed to be, it was a hotbed of variety of different dishes from all around the world. From Japanese to Greek food, it really had it all. 

Hungry for some Italian pasta and pizza? Lygon Street would be the place to be. 

Craving for some decent Malaysian food? Elizabeth Street would set you straight.

Needing some Thailand and Vietnam fix? Richmond has a boom of Thailand and Vietnam food stores.

Just gotta have your Chinese on for dinner tonight? Boxhill and Chinatown at Bourke would have you salivating for more.

Those were just an example of the many different type of foods Melbourne can cater to. It is a truly wondrous place for people who love to try different types of food. However......

Well there seems to always be a 'but' in everything and this is no exception. I probably do sound like a broken record but the undeniable and uncomfortable truth that constantly knocks on my door is that the price I pay for the changing up of what I eat on different days is well, the price.

EVERYTHING COSTS WAY TOO MUCH. And at this moment of realization, we move into the cooking period of my life where I decided that cooking couldn't be that hard, right?

Heading back to the fact that good food here really does cost a lot, an average dish here can set you back to at the very least $15 or so. To me, that's grossly overpriced. Plain and simple. To play the currency conversion game would hurt too much so just take my word for it. As a suffering Malaysian, I give you my word. It's not all doom and gloom though. For some odd reason, you can easily find good Japanese, Malaysian, Italian, Chinese or pretty much any food for the average price of $15. Unlike Malaysia where all international food are much more expensive compared to local dishes, Melbourne at the very least does not discriminate and has a pretty much samey price for all dishes (does not include buffet or like lobsters and stuff of course). It doesn't really mean too much when it's still rather expensive but this is a rare positive for me as now I don't really need to care on what type of food we'll eat when going out with friends, price-wise at least.    

Summoning the inner Freud in me, I can pretty much analyse what Australians really like eating, in Melbourne at least. One, they really like sushi. I mean REALLY like sushi. If the hundreds of sushi stores around the CBD aren't proof enough, the working Australians and even students often seen sitting around with a soy sauce in hand and a sushi platter in the other. I wouldn't say the sushi here is cheap either but I guess the fast nature of obtaining sushi is the appeal. Or maybe it just tastes really good? Sushi tastes the same everywhere for me anyway.

Second, Australians love their coffee! Be it construction worker, students or even the hundreds of fancily dressed office worker, it seems to be a norm to have a coffee cup in one's hand. This is one ritual that I got behind pretty easily. The university life is a perilous one where the never-ending cycle of exams, assignments and projects can cause plenty of unwanted sleepless nights. If it wasn't for the glorious $1 coffee from 7-11, I might have not been standing here today. 

10/10 for price and quality.

Lastly, Australians might have a BBQ problem. It's a bit of a weird one but I guess I would say the closest food that Australians could call their own is BBQ sausages. Nearly every club or society in University of Melbourne seem to have one common activity which is providing free BBQ sausages with the grill which seem to be a common fixture in the university. I won't complain about free food of course but it's strange enough to strike the fascinating thought of questioning the basis of Australians loving BBQ sausages. I even heard from the news on social media that there was even a BBQ sausage event hosted by a politician to earn some votes for his re-election. 

They don't taste that special but I can't deny that I do enjoy sausages and it's free so who am I to judge, eh?

In terms of finding good Malaysian food here, I guess I would say the standard here is pretty decent. Nasi lemak here is just alright with the sambal being somewhat lacking in spice. Most Malaysian Chinese dishes here are actually really good with some being better than most stores back home. Hokkien noodles in a store at Grattan Street was really good. The Kolo Mee in Sarawak Kitchen is pretty good too. I tried the Laksa noodles in Laksa House and it's just alright, I guess. For some reason, my non-Malaysian friends seemed to really like the laksa noodles here but I just don't see what's too special about it.

And the Bah Kut Teh here. Sigh. I've eaten Bah Kut Teh three times here with some more expensive than the other but all I've gotten out of it after leaving the store is varying degrees of disappointment. Some were better than the rest but that really isn't saying much. It's a shame to think my favorite food is so badly represented in a place where I am to live for another 2 years. I don't think I'm up to the task of making it myself so this could be a tough two years for me.....

Most of the food here are priced rather decently (Australian prices wise) so at least it makes for an easy choice when choosing to splurge every once in a while. However, my beloved mamak food will forever remain at Malaysia. The classic roti telur and teh tarik combo that I have en-grained in my mind as an automatic response when in a mamak would set me back a minimum of at least $10 in a Malaysian store in Melbourne.

You heard me right. $10! Doing the maths, that's RM 30 for what I consider as a very light and simple lunch/midnight snack combo. To put into context, that could be enough for two good Bah Kut Teh sessions, a Wan Tan Mee quickie and even have some change for a nice cold bowl of cendol. 

Blasphemous and ultimately tragic.

During my first week here, I quickly found myself the infamous Papparich which was in my mind riding on the hype of my 'seniors' were giving. It was in QV, a shopping mall in the middle of the CBD so it was not much effort to have found it. However, one quick glance at the menu had my blood shot cold all of the sudden. My body froze and it was only the sharp cold breeze in the air that snapped me out of my stoic position. It was expensive. And not even just the Malaysia price-wise expensive. It was grossly overpriced even for an Australian store. A good $20 dollars was probably a decent minimum price for eating there. And what were they serving? Just plain everyday Malaysian food that looked slightly better due to the clear editing skills on whoever was assigned to do the menu. So I never entered the restaurant. Ever.

I also realized that most of the Malaysians in Melbourne were from KL and fuck me, they do have a lot of cash to have been going to Papparich on a regular basis. I hate that I'm actually envious of them. 

You can call me a hypocrite all you want but there are certain prices I won't ever entertain for the simple fact that it would never be worth it at the end.

Ending this segment on a brighter note, I guess I'll tell you the food I really enjoyed during my time here. The multiple ramen stores in Melbourne are a sight to behold, serving really delicious ramen at a relatively cheap price at under $15. I also enjoy the chicken schnitzel at Lygon Street which is really good as well as it is delicious AND good value for money. A HSP snack pack is just under $15 but I can fully appreciate its deliciousness just as well. Boreks in QVM is really good too and is my go to lunch for those drowsy mornings. I did mention I liked the coffee here too although most of my coffee here is from 7-11 which gets a lot of flak for being cheap, but I think it's really good in its own way. As I said, most Malaysian food here are pretty good as well! Dumplings at Bourke Street when served as its juiciness due to the meat inside wrapped by the salty and crunchy skin are what legends are made off!

So yeah, it's not all bad. (just the prices!)


3. Stuff to do in free time

What I expected :

Every single time I fill up this column for my earlier expectations, I usually take about half an hour to gather my thoughts and try to remind myself of my state of mind back then. It doesn't get easier as present memories will always try to mess up my memory like those pesky impurities in chemicals. This topic is no different.

To put it in simple terms, I expected to do new stuff that I have never done before. I had a good idea on what those new stuff were at the time but it was of course as unrealistic as you would think. Melbourne's a big enough city and surely there would be plenty of things to do. A vast unexplored land was there for me to discover and do stuff I have never done before (which wasn't really hard since I was such a 'good boy' back home). 

I heard of the drinking culture in Australia although I was unconvinced I would participate as I just don't like consuming alcohol. Nightclubs were frequently mentioned during my time with my friends in Malaysia but the thought of participating remained just that, a thought. 

At the end, I just wanted to do things I love whether undiscovered or not with people I enjoy being with.

What I got :

I walked one hour to this place that I can't remember because I had nothing to do...

Well, I guess people still see me as that boring guy from Klang.

It always comes down to money, doesn't it? 

It feels like I'm using it as an excuse very often but up to a certain point, I would say it's partially true at the very least. Allow me to present my defense for my relatively mundane after school activities.

So train fees cost a lot. And so do trams. One thing I really do hate about the trams and trains in Melbourne is there is no difference between taking one stop or ten stops. They charge you either by 2 hours or basically the whole day. Sure that sounds good if you travel often in a day, but sure sucks if you only want to go to somewhere nearby for a little while. 

Paying $8.60 for trips out of the city is really painful which has had a significant effect on my unchanging Myki balance. Secondly, nightclubs and alcohol cost a lot. Like quite a bit. I was a never fan in the first place but now I have a pretty solid reason. 

Basically, I'm just going to state that everything in Melbourne is too damn expensive for a Malaysian kid like me who's already living pretty shamelessly frugal.

ANNNNDDDD.......friends do play a part too, I guess. For whatever reason, my friends (the close ones, at the very least) seem to be situated in the outskirts of Melbourne. Most of them live at least an hour away which makes it pretty difficult to invite them to do stuff together. It's frustrating to not have a lot of friends that live in the city with me. I guess it's typical of my luck, I guess.

With all those excuses out of the way, I guess I can finally reveal my free-time 'activities'. 

In my opinion, maybe I was being too pessimistic with myself. Thinking about it, I may not have had the wonderful and rated R lifestyle that my friends back in Malaysia expected me to have. But in my very own way, I really did have fun at times.

I went to two concerts. One was a free concert in the Sidney Myer Asia Bowl. It showcased a few of the best Asian acts in the world where the star of the show was Ailee. I enjoyed the concert a lot despite not knowing a single act there. I left the concert as a fan of most of the artists that were there so I can honestly say it was a time well spent.

The other was a Two Door Cinema Club concert. They're not my favorite band (that prestigious title belongs to  Foster The People ) but they are my top 5 for sure. Their new album, Gameshow was really good and a chance to listen to them live was not something I would miss. The concert was a no contest compared to the other one. The feeling of singing out the lyrics that have been burned into your brain with thousands of delirious fans in the presence of the band members you've grown listening to for years is something I would advice everyone to do at least once.

Fucking glorious. My voice was gone but it was worth it.

Non-tucked shirt. Looking like a real badass.

And I went to a nightclub with some of my friends and their friends. I only remember that I danced around in the nightclub while being packed like sardines with the hundreds of sweaty university students who looked a hundred times more comfortable swaying their bodies around than me. It was a decent experience but I enjoyed the mini party I had with my little circle before heading off to the nightclub much more. That was a pretty good time, mixing with people I know and don't. 

Besides that, I can't really say that I did much different to what I usually do in Malaysia. I watched a few films in my time in Australia which was decent and all but it was a dramatic decrease from the amount I usually watch as the prices for tickets were ridiculously pricey. $14 is too much for a film that I could easily pirate or borrow its DVD from for the price of absolutely zilch. It's a rough estimate but I would say I watched about 5 movies all year and yet it feels too much in terms of the price. It didn't help that I picked some pretty below average movies to watch which makes it all the more depressing. 

This pretty much meant that I only really watch movies when my friends are interested since the social aspect of having actual friends to watch movies together has to be added in to really make it at least 75% worth the admission. 

There were the usual club events that I participated in during my 'free time' I guess but I won't really ramble on too much about that. 

It's not too much of a stretch to say that I spent more time indoors than outdoors during my free time. For whatever reason, I got into anime and manga upon arriving at Melbourne. Actually, I do know the reason.

The Anime and Manga club I joined in university kind of help grow the seed that was embedded in the hippocampus section of my brain where lived some faint but happy memories of watching re-runs of old anime such as Yu Yu Hakusho and Law of Ueki. Weirdly enough, it wasn't the club activities that prompted me to binge anime series but the people I met there. I enjoyed talking to some of the people there and they inadvertently encouraged me to watch more anime by giving off a glow of happiness that I found mesmerizing. Since then, I haven't looked back and found some real gems that hold a special place in my heart now.

I was a pretty huge gamer back in Malaysia but having left Melbourne without my PS4, it left a huge void in me. However, I did bring my PS Vita which was a great companion to me during my many days of solitude in my tiny little room. I discovered many new games and built up a pretty respectful collection of PS Vita physical games that never fails to crack a stupid grin on my face when I take a quick glance at it. The hours and hours of my thumbs constantly fiddling at the buttons on the D-pad  are time that I would never exchange for, although it did usually ended in me being really frustrated at the many tough challenges I had to face in-game.

So yeah, I changed from a boring Klang boy who loved football and video games to a semi-boring Klang boy who loves football, video games AND anime while trying to stay positive in surviving the rigors of the pathway of University of Melbourne.

If that isn't progress, I don't know what is.


4. The area I breathe in :

What I expected :

So, the city of Melbourne. I knew close to nothing about it since I came to the city knowing nearly zero people who went there before as a student. My only contact was a single girl whom I knew 3 years ago and had not spoken to in those 3 years. It was awkward but I managed to scrape a few pieces of information on where I was to live in.

1. It had trams and it was free ! (I liked this part)
2. It was pretty, apparently. 
3. A lot of local food but would have cost a lot.

And that was it (i think?) ! 

What I got :

Trams. There were lots of them. And no it wasn't entirely free. One thing that peeved me off was that the free tram zone ended just before the university. Which meant more walking for me but I guess you can't win them all. At the end, I do like the trams since I'm too lazy to walk around the city anyway. 

Surroundings wise, I guess I could say Melbourne did look pretty at times. It wasn't as clean as Sydney but it was definitely cleaner than the dump I call home, Klang (which doesn't take much to do). It had a few beautiful beaches which made for great scenery and cool Instagrammable pictures that all the cool kids take these days. There's also something about the charm of Melbourne during certain hours of the day in the city that warms my heart at times. I can't quite put my finger around it but I certainly don't hate it.

One more thing that I loved about the city was the music scene. During my first few weeks in the city,  I had the time to just walk around the streets and do absolutely nothing noteworthy. A boring old stroll just for filling up unused time. Those were the carefree days that are now like gold dust to me as I can't say I have much of that anymore. 

For every 50 meters I walked, I would have heard some sort of singing performance by buskers on the street. Good singing performances, might I add. It was a sight that I have not seen before back in Malaysia. A sole person braving the stares of many to produce a performance that their talent would have easily justified. The loud but warm applause of the crowd upon hearing the song end. I really do enjoy the music scene in Australia. Lively, just how I like it.




2018, may this be a better fucking year than 2017.