On being Australian

You can take the woman out of Australia, but you can't take Australia out of the woman.

It's corny, but you know it's true. There is something about one's homeland that is etched into their identity, a part of their very being, the essence of self. I know this is the case for me, at least. I love my homeland, I'm proud to be Australian, proud that the people and nation I identify with are strong, tough, honest and friendly. Even though I no longer have a home here, Australia is my home.

We have a friend who escaped from Vietnam. He has never been back, and has no desire to. He wouldn't accompany his wife when she went there on a holiday, because he doesn't want to go. In a way, I find it strange that he doesn't want to “connect with his roots”, but in another way I understand. He is Australian. He might look and sound Vietnamese, but this is his homeland, the place he identifies with. I appreciate that.

We have been in Australia for nearly two weeks. But as with all breaks away, it doesn't feel like that long. The time has been a rushed and stressful scurry from place to place, crossing tasks off the long list as each was achieved.

Besides the 21^st birthday party for our son (the primary reason for this current pilgrimage to our homeland), we have visited family and friends in both Brisbane and Cairns, and made visits to banks, solicitors, accountants, tenants, stores and businesses to organise services and products that we can't access readily by phone or internet from home. In between, we have continued to manage the visa application process in Kuala Lumpur, and it seems that we have finally been approved for a working visa, though it has been a drawn-out and somewhat pointless bureaucratic exercise, and approval was not granted before we had already paid yet more money to Air Asia to extend the stay. Our bargain $500 tickets have ended up costing us twice that, as we also had to change the flight leaving Malaysia so we could leave two days earlier than originally booked. This was necessary because our most recent “visa trip” was not entirely successful. We had left Malaysia before the expiry of our visas with the plan of gaining a new three-month visa on our return, however the immigration official at the desk the inventor approached was reticent to allow him to return at all, and eventually only granted him 28 days. We have heard of many people who leave and return regularly on visitor passes, and believe our difficulty was the result of previously being granted a one-month extension on our visas at the immigration office in Ipoh.

So, we had an extra day at the start of our trip and a few extra days at the end. This has given the inventor time to see his electro-cardiologist and time to complete jobs that he hadn't managed to finish. He returns tomorrow, but I won't follow for another week, staying behind here to do more jobs and help the number one offspring to pull together the pieces of her life after a relationship break-up and a few months living with us in Malaysia.

It's lovely to be here with family and friends and Australia is so home-ey, but Malaysia is home for now. I miss my home and look forward to fiddling with the awkward padlock, entering the leather-scented lounge room, strggling up the narrow stairs, turning on the aircon and collapsing into our delightful six foot square bed. We have work to do, a life to get on with and great things to achieve. As we leave our daughter to start the next, exciting chapter of her life journey, we too must go and finish what we started.