I've been here for around half a year now. So far so good, haven't get a any racism remarks (and hope never will). Then again, its the case of grass greener on the other side. Neither Malaysia nor Australia (or any other countries) is perfect. Not like you never seen racism in Malaysia. Before I got to aussie, lots of my friends told me be careful might get aim for no reason, but until today I haven't seen anyone kena racist remarks.. yet.

But if you talk about culture, experience, money, etc. I would say Australia seems to have the upper hand. A simple example. Fresh grad malaysia 2.7k-3k and Aus roughly the same. Malaysia you buy iPhone one month salary gone. Australia you buy iPhone $1k. same price but your purchasing power stronger.

Culture wise, Malaysia *ahem* guy keep saying 1Malaysia, but in Sydney its even more diverse. There's Mainland chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Caucasian, Europeans, Malaysians, Indonesian, etc etc. and the seem to get along better than we do

Experience wise, it totally depends on yourself. I would say some I like, some I don't. You can't get everything.

My advice, got chance go oversea, try it out!

my friend just started work in Sydney pay on a dollar to dollar basis is higher than msia but the cost of living ($ to $) is higher as well.. clothes there are not 3 times cheaper!!

A close friend who migrated last year with more than RM10 mil isn't enjoying life though.. diff ppl have diff experiences.. My family there is alright although its not easy to find a job in Aussie(unlike Malaysia)

I think aussie is alright other than the exorbitant cost of living due to the high minimum wage.

If you did the most brilliant piece of analysis at work, and only you knew about it, did you actually do the work? Answer: The answer is no you didn’t. If no one knows about your work, if you don’t share it, tell people about it, no matter how technically brilliant you are, in everyone’s mind, you and your work don’t exist. This isn’t about shameless self-promotion which I know is what the majority of you are thinking, this is about communicating. I was hired for this function, I did this work, and it probably is valuable. Now I need to be proactive about sharing that work, rather than just sending an email to my boss, or waiting for my boss to tell me what do . The reality is, culture and the Malaysian education system brought most of you up to obedient followers and not question anything. Just do you work and speak when i tell you to speak.

The reality is that in many parts of Asia, the system allows  people to steal other people's idea and get away with it. This could be the primary reason why Chinese are 'kiasu'.Eg.  Several years ago, my cousin did the donkey work...research and type up the report. Her supervisor read it, erased my cousin name, put his name on the report, signed it and passed it off as his own. My cousin was livid. It was between her  vs the supervisor . Guess who the senior managers sided with and who was shown the door for being the trouble maker??? Cousins working in Singapore are also saying the same thing

my friend just started work in Sydney pay on a dollar to dollar basis is higher than msia but the cost of living ($ to $) is higher as well.. clothes there are not 3 times cheaper!!

A close friend who migrated last year with more than RM10 mil isn't enjoying life though.. diff ppl have diff experiences.. My family there is alright although its not easy to find a job in Aussie(unlike Malaysia)

I think aussie is alright other than the exorbitant cost of living due to the high minimum wage.

As for the point about bamboo ceiling – I think this is a cop out. I am starting to believe this is a byproduct of Asian Confucius culture i.e. respect, not question elders, savings face and all that. There are a bunch of successful Indian CEOs in fortune 500s (Pepsi Co, Microsoft, McKinsey). No yellow faces. Why? The corporate world isn’t just simply about being technically competent and expecting to be promoted every 2-3 years because you do the same thing day in day out (like maybe in Japan). It’s about building personal relationships which is hard for Malaysians to do I Australia because there is little cultural commonality that allows you to build that most basic link in the first instance (what’s cricket and afl?). Question: If you did the most brilliant piece of analysis at work, and only you knew about it, did you actually do the work? Answer: The answer is no you didn’t. If no one knows about your work, if you don’t share it, tell people about it, no matter how technically brilliant you are, in everyone’s mind, you and your work don’t exist. This isn’t about shameless self-promotion which I know is what the majority of you are thinking, this is about communicating. I was hired for this function, I did this work, and it probably is valuable. Now I need to be proactive about sharing that work, rather than just sending an email to my boss, or waiting for my boss to tell me what do . The reality is, culture and the Malaysian education system brought most of you up to obedient followers and not question anything. Just do you work and speak when i tell you to speak. I always tell this anecdote to illustrate this point. I was waiting in the autogate line at the LCCT. There were three machines. One was clearly out of order. One had no line behind it. The remaining machine had a small but growing line. I joined this line. Not wanting to wait, I asked the gentleman in front, do you know why no one is using that machine is it broken? He said he didn’t know. I waited another 30 seconds, during which time more people joined our line.  I decided it was worth trying to use the machine with no line. Guess what? It worked. Everyone just assumed it was broken. As soon as I got through, the single line split in two. Believe it or not, Australia is far more of a meritocracy than Malaysia will ever be, where if you work for anything remotely government related, you will eventually hit a bumi-ceiling. So yes, that does mean if you are a bumi, you would be unwise not to stay and take advantage of all the advantages the system provides whether explicit or not.

hold water? U mean hold the whole dam.

U only got one example. I got ten thousand examples. Like my cousin who is a master grad from Uni of melb, but can't get hold of an engineering job for 4 years counting. He currently works as a waiter.

Then I know a former classmate who was a top scorer in his SAM, then went on to work high position in two MNCs in Malaysia...came to Australia for his kids education, 6 months can't get a job. Last i heard he was a librarian.

For every success in Australia, there's probably 10 failures.

Come on, there's gotta be some common sense. What is Australia really riding on???? On drugs ! Mining sector boom ! Where the heck is the job creation? Its not as if USA could come up with Silicon Valley and Space port, to create new job sectors. Or Malaysia, due to our low exchange rates were able to attract foreign manufacturing plants in the 80s and 90s...to create jobs...still present today.

Australia still have the some old, reliance on service sector. Why do they need migrants? Probably their workforce are too lazy? orthey moved up the value chain, nobody willing to take up their banggla jobs, so they take us migrants to do their dirty work.

Australia GDP may have grown...into a benemoth but it hasn't really translated into anything intrinsic. Their closing down their . manufacturing due to high exchange rates...they are offering waiter, toilet cleaning, garbage man jobs to banggla migrants. They don't have enough manpower for their farms, shopping malls and restaurants. But over the years, those white collar jobs that is what the migrants really aim for, Australia haven't done anything creative to create more of those jobs. Instead migrants have to compete with Australia for these positions. You have to be really damn smart to beat the Aussie for the role.

I think the above is not something exclusive to Australia. It happens everywhere in the world even in Asia (places like Malaysia, Singapore, HK, etc). Its something very generic. That is why in every society you will find that people who can "toot their own horns" tend to get promoted faster/bigger bonus/fatter increments or fatter paychecques" and these people tend to be the more talkative ones while the quieter ones are confined to one corner regardless of their capabilities.It happens everywhere not just in caucasion countries.

I also think this is also partly due to culture as Asian usually observe humility and any attempts to "toot your own horn" might be construed as being boastful, which is frowned upon in asian society. Also a saying in Asia still rings true which goes something like " the nail that sticks out gets hammered down" which essentially means one conforms with the majority instead of speaking out which compounds the problem.This is stark contrast to the general caucasion / Indian culture of acceptance of one being individualistic or having one express themselves.

the list of people who wanna migrate, if this is their intention (they should not go):

Yup, stand true. I interviewed 3-4 Malaysian engineers whom wanted to come back to Msia as they felt that mining business is dying there.

Its your life, if you want to move, just move, if you dont want to move, don't move. Everyone has different life situation and starting points, don't have to try to force your opinions down each others throats

talking bout gross... and she's making a managers salary back in msia... when she moved to aus, she got pushed up 2 bands above her msian paygrade.. lucky her

more than 6 figures aud, in msia not even 6 figures myr p.a.

typing this from melbourne suburb. frankston is nearby (like PJ and Klang) from my place. what i can advise you is that, the outer you go from city, the more weird stares you get from locals. because its kinda kampung ady (country side). frankston is considered as kampung by locals living in city. and in kampung you dont find everyone educated enough, do you? but if you live closer to city or inner suburbs as they call it here,  its better. more asians, educated locals, peaceful pipu. (I DIDNT READ ALL THE REPLIES FOR THIS POST. SO IF I REPEATED WHAT OTHERS MIGHT HAVE ALREADY TOLD, SORRY)

you said it exactly what i think abt many of their kampung type of pple but our tourist agencies here do not want travelers to know.

you said it exactly what i think abt many of their kampung type of pple but our tourist agencies here do not want travelers to know.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Melbourne was recently voted as the World's Most Liveable City again. It is a wonderful place to live and work in as the Aussies emphasize alot on work-life balance, but ultimately i returned to Malaysia as many of my friends failed to secure their PR and it got kind of lonely over there. Hope this helps.

I sort of agree. I know a friend who work in singapore but lives in a banglo house in jb, but he wants to migrate to Australia. He says its for the kids education. I tell him, if he cares for his kids, then when his kids are big, why not send them for university education and have them to migrate there? After all with his superior SGD he can afford.

He just senyap. At end of the day, he is just making excuses cause he wants to migrate there himself.

Migrants who come back, usually do it senyap senyap. They don't advertise their "failure", because of the Asian culture of shame. I know 2 migrants who came back, ask them why, they just keep mum.