Koreans and their names

There are 2 koreans who work with me in the Phoenix shopping centre.

"What are you planning to do after this?" I asked from Seo.

He says something in korean to another guy, who gives his phone to Seo and Seo translates something in it and shows me a result: "Archeologist".

"You wanna become archeologist?" I asked.

"Hmmhmm", he nods.

"Indiana Jones", says another guy and laughs.

"So you like digging?", I asked and realised that it wasn t appropriate question.

"History, lots of history in Korea", he tries to explain what he is into.

"You like to dig gold? Silver?" 

"Yes, yes"

Finally I figured out he also wants to go to school, to become an archeologist. It costs 24 000 dollars to study archerology in Korea, (South Korea).

"Very expensive in Korea," he repeated.

"You want to earn to money, save it from here and study in Korea and become archeologist?" I asked  to help him out from explaining.

"Yes, yes, thanks", he was laughing.

"24 000 dollars  for studies!

"Yes, yes," he kept repeating.

I met another korean guy one year ago up in North Queensland. He also earned money for studies.

I stood up and said good bye.

Saw him later and asked his name.

"My name is Seo in korean, but in english it is Fetri."

"Fetri. Fetry?. I just felt it s not really english. More like korean or, italian? Well, but definitely not english.

I asked why he changed his name.

"My paren, parent, parents..parents told me I need to change name for english."

I didn t quite understand why his parents asked him to change or was it his parents who commanded to change. It almost sounded to me that he had to change because his parents told so.

I might got him wrong too.

But it wasn t Ferri. 

"So your name is Seo in korean and Fetri.."

"Yes, Pee, a.." he spelled.

"Wait, is it Patrick?"

"Yeah- yeah-yeah, Patry."

"Ah, Patrick, not Fetry.." we laughed.

"Ok, see you later."

I don t know why they always change their real names. You never get to know their real names unless you actually ask for it.

But I like them, they are cool. Very friendly always.

Black spoke polish

Today was/is Sunday. 6 th  of May. 2012.

I was working at Coles in South Perth today and I m happy my shift was there today- yesterday I was in Phoenix shopping centre that is way bigger and is very busy, when South Perth is very slow. That s good. 

  When having another break, I got to know my workmate, well, more like Coles mate, who is working in shelves. His parents are from Poland and he, too, can actually speak polish. 2-3 years ago he visited Poland for month or two and got to know more about these people. He said they ve got quite a lot of gypsies. I don t know much about them, only when I lived in Hungary, in Budapest, just before I travelled to Australia, I saw them in Budapest. They don t have very good reputation and it s the same in Poland according to my Coles mate Robert. I m not surprised. But I was surprised in a good way that he knew polish and said he wants to go back to Poland one day. I said something in russian, but he didn t recognise that. Russian and polish are similar, but can be still different enough to misunderstand each other.
 At home he basically talks in polish and that s good, he s bilingual. I would speak also estonian at home if my future mate would be estonian and if I would still live in a country where the official and main language is english or something else. But yes, I liked him. That s funny, because in Estonia I wouldn t relate myself in anyway with polish or Poland. There s just no connection between us and them, but for western world there would be. For them we would be eastern european countries and for some reason I felt connected to him, that s funny, because he s not even from Poland. He s from Australia, but to be honest, when I looked at him after figuring out his routes, I saw it on his face. He was eastern european, I mean, his blood is. 

 That was interesting yes. I think I realised that first time in Australia. I think I even sensed that he was almost like talking about home or some lost and found treasure, when he was talking about Poland. 

 There was one thing that surprised him, when he got to Poland. 

"I heard black man talking polish, that was just so weird", he became a bit excited. 

"I saw maybe only 3 blacks in the whole time I was there and no asians", he added. 

No asians! Wow. I think we would have few in Estonia, at least in capital? Or I ve been away for so long that I can t even remember anymore. But we would also see more blacks in Estonia I think.? At least tourists.. we have quite a lot of tourists in summer time(from May- Aug). But yes, that s true, Eastern Europe wouldn t get that much blacks and asians and other ethnicities, only white caucasians or however it is called in english. 

 From tomorrow I am working at Woolstores shopping centre, that is in Fremantle, close to ocean, beach and probably for the whole next week. 

 I don t know if I m gonna see Robert again. He said he wants to become accountant, but haven t finished studies yet. Doesn t have even Facebook. Everybody has, but he didn, t, and I didn t ask any other contact. Anyways, the whole next week I ll be busy at work. That s good. Can save some money hopefully.

That s it. Finito for now.

My visa status and Anissa.

It s 4 th of May, Friday night. I haven t been very busy lately. Pretty relaxed and loose especially comparing to my house mates and people from the YWAM base, though, I m still living at one of these houses they rent. It s pretty good to live here. I couldn t find any place in the city according to the cost and conditions of course, but also people here. No one is allowed to consume alcohol here, no drugs, no alcohol. Nothing gets lost or stolen  I can really trust people here, even if I forget something somewhere, I know I can get it back.. It s really convienient in that sense.

 I went Aussijobs today. It s a workagency and for some reason estonians have a good reputation there. Ave recommended me to go there and mention that I know her and Brigitta. That was my second time there and Anissa, woman, who is running the agency, was happy that I brought news from them. She just asked them yesterday to bring a present to another estonian guy, who works in Williams too.
 I was sure that I m on bridging visa and that s what it says, when I look at my online status, though it says both, but I couldn t say what it means.
 Anissa asked her assistant to call to Immigration again. After explaining on phone that I have been to Perth Immigration department many times already and have sent many letters too, the guy on the phone told me to send them one more letter, to explain that I m not studying anymore, just in order to get on bridging visa. Actually, I don t even need it. He told me that it ll go to bridging once my student visa expires, which is on 23 Aug unless Immigration doesn t cancel it before or put me on working holiday visa. So it seems like I ve got plenty of times to prepare myself for what I d actually like to do or so..Also I know now that the conditions that I had on student visa, will remain also on bridging visa, if, I ever will be put on it. So I can work only 20 hours a week until I, whenever it happens, get on second working holiday visa.
"Are you working somewhere now?" asked Anissa.
"Eeh, it s kind of random."
"Call me on monday, I ll find you something in my garden."
 I smiled.
"Ok, I call you on Monday" and left the room leaving at least 20 backbackers in there. Why not I was thinking. It s always better to have more options.

Africans are more laid back than australians?

 Some people ask if I miss home, if I miss Estonia. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don t. I met one guy from Uganda, Joseph, he s really cool guy. He told me how he would love to get work on mining site, save some money and definitely go back to Uganda, build nice house and live there.
"It s very nice in my country, it s beautiful, people are very friendly in rural areas. The more rural you go, the more friendly people you meet."
We also talked about family structure and how is it different from Australia to Uganda and I told him how is it in Estonia.
"In my country you don t see old people rushing home from work, old people don t work in my country, they work when they are young. Here you can see even old people rushing.." and he did this grimace on his face and was laughing but showed disappointed grimace.
"Really, you see that here? I thought people are laid back here in Australia. You should come to Estonia and see how is it there!" I laughed.
"You work when you are young and you help your parents and you make sure that when you are old, you don t have to work anymore, you give orders and your children help you", he explained.

 I ve never been to Africa, but it seems like africans are really laid back, according to what he explained. I m sure it s not laid back in Johannesburg and in some other big cities, but when I was thinking of how he was talking about his home, it was clear to me that he misses his country, he wants to go back there.