Let me address some of the points that have been discussed on this thread. By way of background and for context, I am a Malaysian Chinese who grew up in Australia. I am pretty much an ABC.

Firstly to anyone who mentioned Frankston – this is considered a low-socio economic part of Melbourne. Low-socio economic meaning less, educated, not as open minded. Translation, more likely to be racist. I have only ever lived in the inner east of Melbourne and spend my leisure time/work within a 15-20km ring of the city. I have never experienced racism in my 26 years in Australia (got here when I was six). So if you go to these areas, yeah you’re probably going to get remarks. Just like if you go to certain parts of KL at night, there’s probably a high chance of you getting rob. If you look at Melbourne CBD or Sydney CBD, it’s basically one giant china town. So many Asians you would think you were in Singapore.

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.

Anyway, these are just the random thoughts of an ABC. Make of it what you will.

PS. My dad struggled to get a job here like most first generation migrants. First generation migrants from Malaysia always have the toughest time getting a job based on\ what I have observed in my friendship group. Their children who grew up here, have a far easier time.

EDIT: To the poster who implied degree = job, this mentality stopped being true when everyone started getting degrees. A lot of people have Masters degrees from the sandstones. Reality is, Australia's market is so tiny it can only handle so many service jobs. Believe it or not, it's not just overseas graduates who are struggling, local graduates are struggling too now. Unemployment is 2-3 times the national average in the 19-24 demographic.

This post has been edited by maxmillion: Aug 31 2014, 08:37 AM

Not disputing what happened to your cousin, and whether it was wrong or right.

Let me challenge your thinking slightly though. If a CEO comes in and turns around a company, do you think he did it alone with his own ideas? No, he succeeded because of everyone else's ideas and people doing donkey work. His value add, was recognizing great ideas and empowering people to do the work. A CEO (even a lowly team manager) cannot be successful by him/herself. You don't climb the corporate ladder from stealing silver bullet ideas here and there. Getting to the top and being successful at the top is so much more than about having these single grand ideas. There's a much more significant social component which Asians just don't get and misjudge as company politics.

Are there bad managers who don't give credit where credit is due? Absolutely. Not disagreeing. Sounds like what happened to your cousin. But by that same token, what does whinging and complaining about it get you? Absolutely nothing. That's why you have to share and talk about your work with many others. Not do the work, give to your boss and wait for him to tell you what to do next. If you were socially attuned to what your boss was like, you could have taken pre-emptive steps to socialize work for feedback, for sharing, and to protect your domain.

At the end of the day, you can view the corporate world in two ways

- A series of transactional, adversarial zero sum interactions (if one person gains, another must lose). No such thing as generosity. Only for angmohs and the weak. I contend most asians view life this way. Truth be told, if I was raised in Malaysia, I would be bitter like this as well. God we love to complain about everything, even me. Unapologetically.

OR

- You can view life as a series of continuing relationships where you dont necessarily have had to have had the upperhand every single time. If you live life sharing without the expectations of being rewarded, I guarantee you'll find life much more bearable and people will view you far more favorably.

I know you now probably think I'm full of doggy do at this point. But you know what man, that's cool. I've lived my life in the second manner, both in Australia, and while working in KL and Jakarta. It has served me well. Just sharing my perspective on life.




This post has been edited by maxmillion: Sep 1 2014, 07:23 PM

Hey thanks for sharing. Never heard of that saying.