Suet Wa Cheung (Amy)

From Hong Kong to Paynesville

I like Australia very much. The air quality here is very good. The people here are also nice. I am happy living here.

I am from Hong Kong. I was born in Shanghai, China, but I lived in Hong Kong for 30 years before arriving in Australia.

I think Hong Kong and Australia are very similar. Hong Kong is very prosperous, and the government is very good. I like governments that care for the people, and the people love the government. Both the Hong Kong and Australian governments treat children and older people nicely and respectably.

I still have a daughter and a son who live in Hong Kong. They have stable jobs and no plans to come to Australia, although they do visit me.

My eldest daughter is in Melbourne. My little sister is here too. I’d often holiday here to visit them both, and I ended up moving too.

I met my Australian husband, Bill, through a mutual friend. We married a year later in 2015 and I moved into his home in Paynesville, a holiday town surrounded by the Gippsland Lakes.

We have a dog named Ned – he is named after Ned Kelly. Every time I visit my daughter in Melbourne, the dog misses me and I miss him very much.

Bill and I each have three children. They all come to visit. My daughter comes to visit from Melbourne often, and I have claimed Bill’s children as my own.

I speak both Cantonese and Mandarin, and I’m still learning English.

Initially when I was up here, I was a little lonely. I have since found that people are very friendly towards me, and now I have confidence.

Bill was president of the local Lions club for a year, and I spent a year as the president’s wife. I meet the Lions ladies every Saturday morning for coffee. I often have lunch with our neighbour and visit Bill’s sister in Bairnsdale.

I like travelling to small towns, meeting friends for coffee and heading out on the water. The coffee is very nice here. Every day, I go on the water.

Every time I go to Hong Kong and to Melbourne, I miss our home and our dog a lot. Yes, I call Paynesville home. I want to stay in Paynesville for the rest of my life.