1987年末我在澳洲第一次遇到华人

1987年12月27日上午，我乘坐的澳洲Qantas航空公司班机降落在悉尼。我是前一晚从温哥华机场起飞的，中国大陆护照上贴的是澳大利亚驻温哥华领事馆签发的独立移民即PR签证。当晚在温哥华机场及飞机上旅客很少，好像人人都在昏昏欲睡，也无交流。在当时华人面孔罕见的悉尼机场，我推着行李车走过机场大厅过道的时候，恰好遇到一位个头不高的新加坡华人男子。他与我年龄相仿也是30岁出头，肤色稍暗，两人英文交谈。得知我来自中国大陆，他显得很高兴。交谈中他知道我一人来澳，尚无安排住处，就邀请我到他的公寓里暂住，因为他是一个人住。我很高兴，起先正一路盘算下机后如何寻找住处呢。我跟着他去了他在悉尼东郊Bondi Junction 的公寓。他未婚，一个人住在高级公寓群的一个三居室内，说是当时价值30多万澳元。我当时对澳洲房价一无所知，口袋里只有一张自己在加拿大用所有剩余积蓄购买的3000多元旅行支票（当时加元澳元1:1汇率），很庆幸这位新加坡人帮我省了临时寻找旅馆的麻烦。如今那个公寓楼群还矗立在Bondi Junction 沿着公路边的Westfield 购物中心附近，我感觉应当就是79-81 Grafton Street那座浅红色的公寓大楼，看最近网上销售当时的三居室如今价值应接近300万澳元。

这位新加坡男对我独自一人以独立移民身份来澳洲表示欣赏不已，估计也有点惊讶。他说他父亲是位富商，但在家中很专制。他自称非常崇拜香港的李嘉诚，自己也要学李嘉诚成功创业经营等等。他的新加坡口音英文我第一次遇到，比如他说 “thinker” 我听成 “tinker”, 但两人交谈基本无障碍。我告诉他我会很快自己找到住处搬出去，且会自己寻找工作。他跟我说会帮我找电脑程序员工作云云，我虽感激，也未太抱希望。因为据我在加拿大找程序员工作的经验，知道得有一些过程和手续。

这位独身新加坡男的三居室公寓在高层，进出有安全门卡，室内有门禁对讲机，但除了床和简单桌椅沙发外，并无什么豪华家具装饰，我甚至都不记得他有私人电话？因那时大家也无手机之类移动通信器。我也未见他有女朋友之类，也无人来访。白天他出去大概是交际应酬或工作？但那时正值圣诞至新年的澳洲假期时节，估计也没多少人认真打工。我自己忙于打公用电话找单独的住处，也未在意新加坡人如何进出公寓。他倒是对我毫无防范，给了我入门钥匙门卡等等，但我估计他公寓内也无贵重物品，连厨房都挺干净，大概他不怎么做饭。

我买了报纸查看各种租房子的信息，看到悉尼的租金显然比我刚刚离开的加拿大维多利亚小城昂贵不少，而且可租房源也紧张。当时悉尼甚至有些专门帮助潜在租客寻找房源的公司：就是你交给这些公司一些钱，他们帮你找一些适合你条件的潜在待租房子，你可以去挨个看看合适与否。我没有想使用这些掮客公司的服务，自己按照报纸广告信息打电话寻找了几个房源，甚至坐火车从市政厅站一直跑到南边较远的Cronulla 站。因为我初来悉尼，对地理远近概念模糊。一开始我甚至对如何确认澳洲的住宅地址都不清楚，因为澳洲的街道名字有许多都同名，比如乔治街George Street, 到处都有，但与街名后面的郊区名（Suburb）联合起来，就可以准确识别一个地址的位置。这许许多多的郊区把整个澳洲划分为易于投递邮件与区别地址的小块地域，每一个或几个郊区享有一个唯一的邮政编码，比如Sydney 2000， Blacktown 2148, 等等。记得我那次找到南边Cronulla 的一间出租房，收拾的挺干净，屋主是西人妇女，但我感觉离市中心较远，就没有租。后来我匆匆租了一个在近市中心Petersham 郊区的Terrace 小楼房里面的一个房间，租金现已记不太清，但应该是每周$100以下（相比之下我在加拿大Victoria市租一个单间是每月$175），就决定搬离新加坡人的地方，因为我感觉总免费住在人家那里过意不去。我起先告诉他我欲在Petersham 那附近找住处时，他还帮我分析，说那里会有公交车服务等等。

确认租到住处后，正好新加坡人不在家，我写了张感谢与告别纸条，与他给的钥匙和门卡一起留在他桌子上，带上房门，就拖着两个行李箱乘出租车去了新租的房间那里。对新加坡人的几天免费招待我心存感激，但当时他家里并没有电话，所以从此也就没有再联系了，其实心中还是挺遗憾的。 如今四十年过去，不知这位老兄是否仍在悉尼啊？ 衷心祝福祝愿他这些年及今后一直安好。

In the morning of Dec. 27, 1987, my flight on Australia Qantas airline landed at Sydney airport. I boarded the plane the previous night from Vancouver airport, carrying my Chinese passport with an immigration visa to Australia issued by the Australian Consulate in Vancouver. In the airport corridor where Asian faces were seldom seen at that time, I met a Singapore Chinese man at his 30’s, similar as me. When he learned I was a mainland Chinese coming to Australia as an independent immigrant he was quite surprised and felt happy to meet me. We chatted in English for a while. As he learnt I haven’t had a place to stay in Sydney yet, he invited me to stay with him in his apartment, since he was living alone. I thanked him and felt grateful for his generosity since all along the flight I had been considering how to find an accommodation once arriving in Australia. The year end Vancouver airport and the flight across the ocean had very few passengers around and everyone seemed to be very sleepy so hardly any verbal communication happened.

The Singaporean man had a slightly darker complexion and relatively short height. He lived in a high rise apartment in Bondi Junction. The building had a light dark red external colour, several dozens storeys, security access with swipe cards for residents —— from today’s viewing online it could probably be the 79-81 Grafton Street, Bondi Junction building that still stands close to the Westfield shopping complex.

The apartment the Singaporean owns has three bedrooms, showers, bathrooms, toilets, kitchen, balcony, etc, plus intercom for communicating with downstairs visitors. He told me the apartment had a value over $300k, which I had little understanding since at that time Sydney’s realestate market was totally unknown to me.

Singaporean man told me his father back in Singapore was very rich and also quite dictatorial. He himself admires the HongKong merchant tycoon Ka-shing Li and aspires to become a similarly successful merchant, etc. It was my first close encounter with a Singaporean and his English accent sounded a little bit strange for me, however we mostly chatted along smoothly. When he learned I will be starting job hunting soon he said he will help me find computer programmer job the next day or so, which I appreciated but understood that might need some effort and procedures as I experienced in Canada in the previous year.

The apartment was very simply furnished with beds and sofa plus a few chairs and tables. Kitchen was rarely used so looked quite new and clean, I then cooked instant noodles a few times there. I don’t even remember he had a telephone at home. Apparently he didn’t have a female partner, nor visitors either during those days when I was there. In the daytime he went out to meet people or handle his usual business so left me alone at home. He trusted me quite well by leaving me entrance keys and security swipe card(although honestly speaking there were very few valuables in the apartment, apart from the TV set probably?)

I was a total stranger to Australia at that time. Choosing to come to Sydney was purely because it was the largest city of the country so I reckoned here it might be easier to land a job. All I had with me were luggage suitcases and a $3000 plus traveller’s cheque that I purchased with all my remaining money in Canada (then Canadian dollar and Aussie dollar had exchange rate of 1:1).  When looking around for accommodation initially I couldn’t even identify property’s address correctly, since many streets share same names such as George, High, etc. There are many suburbs that divide Australia’s cities and countryside so locating a property’s address its street no. and name need to be combined with its associated suburb name plus the postcode. At that time Sydney’s rental property market was very tight with very low vacancy rate, plus the year end/new year start was holiday season so relatively few rental properties were on the market. There were even rental property agents then who were charging people money by simply showing you potential rental properties: often several potential properties will be offered to you after you pay the agent some fees. I didn’t pay money to these kind of agents, but started looking for new rental properties by browsing through newspapers’ advertisements. Public telephones were my main tools to talk to potential landlords who advertised on the newspapers. Since my lack of geographic knowledge of the Sydney metropolitan area, sometimes I went quite faraway from the city centre to inspect a rental place. Once I went to the suburb Cronulla where an Australian lady had a room for rent, that was very clean and quiet. However considering the train travelling distance and time I didn’t take that. I also once travelled to Granville to inspect a rental property, and to the suburb Rockdale. I particularly looked at near CBD inner west suburbs such as Petershsm, Stanmore etc. I remember when I mentioned Petersham the Singaporean started discussing with me if there was bus service there to the City etc.

The Singaporean man’s trust on me made me quite grateful. However I did feel it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to overstay too long in his place free of any possible payback, so  once I locked in a rental room in Petershsm suburb along the Crystal Street with a weekly rent below $100, which in comparison with the rent in Canadian city Victoria BC was much higher (I was paying C$175 per month for a single room in 1987 whole year), I packed my luggage suitcases and prepared to leave. I wrote a thank you note to the Singaporean and left it on the desk, together with his security swipe card and door keys. Closing the apartment door then taking a taxi downstairs, so I left the Bondi Junction building with some regrets, since the Singaporean wasn’t at home that entire day. Unfortunately ever since then I haven’t had a chance to meet him again. Thirty eight years on today I do wholeheartedly hope he has been faring well, and wish him well in all future years. Maybe you are still living in Sydney nowadays, brother?

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1988年一月我在悉尼第一次租房子