The experience is God's gift ;-)

I wish Hyde Park can be bigger then I will feel detached to this busy city while in the middle of the city - Sydney. I was trying to get evenly tanned but obviously I couldn’t strip to my underwear and lie on the grass. There were 2 couples getting married. Girls always have this complex about wedding dresses. So do I. Though I am only 23 and single. When my best friend - Lynn told me she finally decided to get married in May next year, I was very jealous.

She is bored with her life because her parents arrange everything for her apart from marriage. Soon she will get married and she is not particularly excited about it because they will have dated for 4 years till then. She has a very controversial point - it is indifferent to get married after dating for so long. Being a lot less experienced in this area, marriage for me is a life promise instead of something indifferent.

I clearly know that my life is very ‘exciting’ largely because there is no certainty. I am scared of the fact that nothing is ensured also not sure if I can handle an arranged life. The other day I was thinking, if I go back to China still single next summer, my aunts or even my parents will start to arrange an active ‘social’ life for me. It is gonna be hilarious and ridiculous. 2 persons’ energies can easily be centralized once the ‘single kid policy’ is in place.

Um…I’ve already been here for 2 weeks. Australia is such a ‘no worries’ country. People here are very friendly - shop assistants always chat with customers or at least they’ll ask ‘how are you?’. I was actually expecting a ‘good day!’ as how my mornings started in Rotterdam when Tom Gara walked into the office. ;-) Australia is famous for its natural resources - I can see it by the size of its prawns. Yum!!! It is also truly multi cultural that I don’t feel like a foreigner at all. It feels like different people can find their own pillows. And different ethnical groups do feel they are all Aussie thought they don’t all mix with each other. Australia is such a wonderful country that I feel it is too comfortable to live at such a young age.

I am really happy I get to spend a month here especially a summer Christmas. I am always glad to learn about a country by staying there. Meanwhile, it has always been a rush - same thing with a couple of other countries I stayed for 1 month+ or even The Netherlands. Recently, a more scary feeling came to me - how much do I know about my own country China? VK’s mum made a very crucial point when he was asked - are you escaping something? Am I?

This past week I was staying at Tilly’s. It is a big, clean and very well decorated house located very close to Mosman beach. Tilly’s parents are very lovely. Meanwhile, they are very opinionated about world issues. (See this is where Tilly and Arthur from.) When Tilly’s mum knew that I came from China, she said ‘Oh, you must have been the lucky one! Isn’t it? You kill all the baby girls in China.’ Hm…we do have a very big gender imbalance now - 1 million single Chinese men at the marriage age. One evening, I was given the chance to cook a Chinese dinner for the family and we always had interesting conversations about different bits of the world we are very much concerned about. I really think being an AP director is God’s gift for me. The venture includes all sorts of people I meet at all different places as well as all different things I got to do related or not related to AIESEC. They all made my experience so diverse, exciting and unique.