Breaking Away From the Template

I grew up in the Philippines and moved to Melbourne in 2018. My family went on holiday here and I had no idea what Australia looked like. We visited Melbourne first and I was like ‘huh this place is cool’. I am a chef, so seeing the culinary side, I realized Australians embrace Asian culture more than America. I think one of the only challenges when I first came here was I couldn’t really understand how they speak. It’s more slang. That’s what I find hard. I was like ‘I understand how to speak English, I understand how to speak English!’ I had to look up some things but then I began to expose myself to the locals to gain a better understanding. I work here as a chef now at Chin Chin. My family is in line with cooking and my family’s business, importing meat products, is connected to food. My path was sort of laid out for me. In Asian culture, we have this kind of timeline we set ourselves to. So by the age of 25, college has to be the thing you’re doing, and then you have to be established financially. By the age of 30, you have family and a house. After Covid, I had a bit of depression because I was pressuring myself to follow this course and now I’ve realized fuck that. Europeans and Americans, they’re pretty chill. I guess what I’ve learned in life, the more that I travel and expose myself to one’s cultures, is that I don’t have to follow this template. <a href="https://medium.com/blue-hens-down-unda/breaking-away-from-the-template-deb9e7c5efeb">Read More</a>