While visiting my husband's business friend, we discussed about migration. Our friend is a business man in his thirties. His maternal uncle migrated to Australia. While it is a wonderful country to stay in, the working opportunities for a man approaching fifty are limited. This uncle of his ended up running a small shop offering goods(daily necessities) like Seven Eleven. His auntie is a teacher, she could only part-time as a substitute teacher. To this family, their living standard dropped significantly. The only good thing is that their children received excellent education for very little amount of tuition. It is interesting that every member of this family chose to become Australian citizen. They did not mind living on one third of their assets - when they convert their cash to take over, the exchange rate is almost 3 to 1 favoring Australia.
For my husband and I, we have missed all our boats. Our friends are still leaving, church members are either going or praying about it: mainly considering Canada. While the highly educated are migrating, the poor poured in from Indonesia and every other poor nation. Others still see my birth place as a land filled with gold. I suppose it is all a matter of perspective. We have warm weather, excellent food, friendly people, granted the traffic is congested, folks being stressed up in the city; it is still a nice place to live in. For those who have left, very few actually return. As to whether they are really happy staying in their adopted land, only the nearest and the dearest would know!
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