Minako Duffy (Minako Sakuraba)
English Dept., Graduate 1985
It has been nine years since I moved to Australia to live on the Gold Coast. I graduated in 1985 and I found a position to work at my Alma Mater, Sapporo University and spent about seven happy years helping my juniors. During that time I met my future husband in Sapporo who was from Gold Coast and it is why I live in Australia now.
Gold Coast is a large city with a population of 240,000 on the east coast of Australia, and is located at the south end of the Queensland State which is famous for its beautiful Great Barrier Reef. We live in Burleigh Heads which has a national park that grips the coastline rounding the ocean shores. The beach is so beautiful, and it is also one of the most popular surfing spots. Our sandy beach always has lots of people, from young to old, enjoying walking along it in bare feet. As the climate is very mild here, people come from other parts of Australia and from overseas, and it is just like a huge residential area rather than a 'city.' Also, many people from Japan come and stay here. Many of them are tourists and also we have a lot of senior citizens who enjoy a relaxing time in their holiday houses. There are also many young people on Working Holiday visas or studying at schools here to gain overseas experiences along with enjoying marine sports.
Australia is a multicultural country which accepts a lot of migrants from overseas. The Government offers a special English program called Adult Migration English Program for the migrants whose mother languages are not English like me, so that they can start a new life in this country easier. I had attended this course and found it very useful because we could learn English with interesting topics like Australian culture, history and customs. And I could make my own friends there as we could meet people from various countries and many of them were in a similar situation like me.
My next step was going out into the society―meaning getting a job. I had experienced a few jobs here and the most interesting job was working at a department store. I have always liked working with and meeting people, and it was the best work place to brush up my English skills. We served local customers in English each day with excellent service to meet customers expectations, and our common language among staff and managers was English. My job there was working in a big homeware department and sometimes in the customer service area, and then I had more work in planning and ordering some special stock, and coordinating staff rosters to assist our department manager. I remember that I really enjoyed my job and couldn't wait to go to work each morning.
Unfortunately, the company closed the store when I worked for three and half years, and I got a new job at a local bank. But I stopped working because I had a child. Now I have been concentrating in raising our child. Our son is now 22 months old and we attend two weekly play groups. One is mainly for kids from families with a Japanese background like us and the other is an indoor group with mostly Aussie family members. Both are very helpful for me as the parents can communicate with each other and exchange useful information along with letting kids play in safe environments.
My life has been changing through a lot of experiences; study, work and raising a child and so on during the last nine years, and I still have a lot of things to learn. I can say that my life here has settled down little by little through those experiences. And next, I will face the Australian education system as my child grows. It is controversial if we should choose private or public school for getting quality discipline and education for kids, and I have already started discussing it with my husband. To get tertiary education, the system here is easier than in Japan because reasonable study at high schools guides students go to reasonable universities automatically according to the results of some statewide tests during the last year. I believe this system would be better for children to grow with less stress.
We have seen more young Japanese people around the Gold Coast than before. They remind me myself of nine years ago when I was full of expectations and worries, and then I always encourage them in my mind. I believe that many students at Sapporo University hope to go overseas to work or live in the future. If you ever get that opportunity, please be active and get into the local life and customs and enjoy yourself. And I wish you will be able to have lots of good experiences. If you work hard, you will surely be rewarded. Take a deep breath!