Charles CHUNG

Student of The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Exchange to Monash University, Australia

Adventure to the land downunder

I went on an exchange to Monash University in Australia for one semester from July to December 2013. As a mixed degree law student, there were not many eligible choices for us, due to course structure and credit loading policy. Yet, the choice to go on exchange to Monash in Australia is probably the best choice ever in my life. The territory of Australia is enormous, with spectacular natural landscape, wide variety of wildlife, and it is at the same time literally a melting pot of different cultures. Here, in Australia, I am happy.

Monash University is one of the top Australian universities located in a suburb called Clayton in Melbourne. The university is renowned for its high entry score, excellent law school and strong academic research performance. In Melbourne, besides local Australians, there are many other residents of different ethnic groups, in which Asian, especially Asian Chinese, is the second largest group dwelling in this city. The same applies to Monash as well, the city and the school are truly famous for cultural diversity.

Thanks to the organization and arrangement of Exchange Club (“MOVE Club”) of the school, many events, outings, social gatherings and supportive services were arranged by the club exclusively for international and exchange students: I have made most of my friends of exchange on the first day of orientation activities! The supportive activities of this university really helped incoming students a lot to better adapt to this new place and campus.

In Melbourne, or even in Monash, the best thing is that you may encounter people from all over the world. Australians are not the sole majority in the city and school campus. Students here learnt to be respectful to indigenous culture of Australia while embracing globalization in the 21st century. In many occassions, Australian Aborigines were invited to perform their national instrument – didgeridoo. The history of this aboriginal culture is introduced to every incoming students and it is a country-wide education on anti-racism. Despite the diversified culture, there are still many unique activities, culture and language (slangs) developed in this country. Australian footy (officially “Australian football”), as distinguished from ruby or U.S. football, is the famous sport activity in this country that almost every of my friends grown up here would know the basic rules and techniques in playing this game. We have sometimes been offered with free tickets sponsored by different footy clubs and Monash to feel the passion of Australians towards footy games. And we were lucky to experience the atmosphere of the whole country when it came to the Grand Final day of AFL season in which Hawthorn got the championship! While you may notice, Australians love to use abbreviations or short forms for words and phrases, they call themselves as “Aussies” instead of Australians, “footy” for football”, “Maccas” for Mcdonalds. The language culture in Australia is interesting.

Of course, excitement of an exchange student largely comes from their traveling plans. Throughout the exchange semester, we have been to different cities to explore this country, including Sydney, Alice Springs, Brisbane, Gold Coast, and even to Queenstown in New Zealand as a post-exchange trip! Each of the places mentioned above has demonstrated their uniqueness, among which the trip to Alice Springs and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. That was our first time to go to desert area and we even managed to finish an impressive 3-hour walk in the national park, under strong sun and almost 40 Degree Celsius weather. We have also tried our first sky experience by joining paragliding activity in Queenstown, New Zealand. Exchange is all about exploring, acquiring new experience and breakthrough, isn’t it?

Going on overseas exchange is indeed a personal enrichment that can make one grow and learn. After long years of study in Hong Kong, students should be given a chance to go overseas and build up international exposure, it helps boost my selfconfidence and enhance my ability to communicate. Going on exchange gives me an opportunity to see things from different perspectives: students from all over the world share their thoughts and ideas in the host country, you can know Hong Kong and China in their eyes; their ideologies on work and life; their aspirations to achieve innovative goals. All these would really blow your mind and it is time to think, “is the life you currently leading really the life you want, or it is what society want you to have?”. I would like to express my gratitude to Cheung Kong Group and Australian Government for giving me the invaluable opportunity to understand myself, Hong Kong, Australia and even the world in a better way.

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