MAI Curiosity

Sydney, you should know

I have been living in Sydney for only 10 months so I still have very little experience about this exciting and big city. But 10 months may be enough for a mature woman and a journalist to make comments.

I’m always a curious so I watch Sydney and its people whenever I leave home for my Uni, to go shopping, to the supermarkets and to hang out with friends. I watch Sydney when I walk, on the bus, on the train, from my friends’ car; when I talk with friends, strangers, shop assistants, police..etc… I mean, whenever I’m not in my home. I watch Sydney with the eyes and mind of an outsider from a poor country, of a journalist who travel overseas a couple of times but watch abundancy of things on TV, of an individual who is critical and demanding. The reason is that this is my first time I have ever lived in a developing country for such a long time. I have to face with daily troubles of housing, money, relationships…

I mean, what I will write about Sydney is objective and honest because my words will be about the not-good aspects of Sydney.

• Sydney has many homeless people. My Australinan friends said that those homeless people are maily the mentally-ill people and the Government has closed the centers for the homeless. The old homeless in badly torn clothes and dirty hair are in many streets. Some speak to themselves, some hurry around the street without any reasons while some just sit quietly in a same place day after day.
• Electricity blackout. Don’t think that electricity blackouts only happen in Vietnam. Sydney has. We went home from the Carol Domain on Sat night (Dec.20) without any electricity light in the Marrickville Road and our apartment. We had no matchbox at home and my daughter were so excited to experience the Blackout until she fell asleep (?!)
• Too many women smoke. It’s great to enjoy fresh air in any buildings and offices in Sydney. But when you walk out of the building, smoking people are a lot, most of them are young beautiful girls. I should change my mind that smoking is for men. No, women and men are equal so smoking is also equal. But that equality is really bad because smoking does terribly harm to the future babies of women.
• Wind, wind and wind. Sydney is very very very windy. I know I’m living in a coastal city but the wind is still too much for me. The wind is unpredictable and it occurs very oftently. It will relax you when you are hot but it will be disastrous when you where short skirt. I come from a densely populated tropical country with high humidity so the wind is only common in winter and storms. But in Sydney, it’s windy all the time, everytime and anywhere. Don’t forget to bring a jacket if you don’t like the wind.

I may add some more points to the above list till the last day in Sydney because those only things I’m sad about Sydney. The remaining, which is uncountable, is a wonderful Sydney where you should live and study.