I Really Want to Visit Australia, But Not for the Reasons You Expect

Since I was a teenager, I’ve visited most European countries, including Russia and Iceland. I’ve lived in the UK for a decade and spent even longer in China. During my doctorate, I also travelled to the US, Taiwan, Morocco and Japan. On top of that, at age 12, I visited North Korea. Despite such extensive global travel, I see Australia as an utterly mysterious place—not because I’ve never visited the Southern Hemisphere, but because everyone who has ever travelled or lived there gives me completely different impressions.

My first impression of Australia came from my Year 7 Geography textbook. Although my homeland’s educational doctrine discouraged students from openly acknowledging the development of Western countries and Japan, our textbooks still presented certain facts honestly. For example, Australia’s GDP per capita in 2005 was listed as US$35,000. Interestingly, the textbook also noted that Australia lacked “advanced industries” compared to other industrialised nations like the US, UK, Germany, France, etc. If wealthy Gulf countries weren’t classified as “developed countries” due to their reliance on single-product economies, why was Australia recognised as developed?

Years later, acquaintances returning from Australia brought me dietary supplements and medical products made there. Many of these products turned out to be more effective and healthier than their counterparts from Germany or Switzerland. The internet also informed me that Australian medical research institutes were world-class, surpassing many in Europe. Additionally, Australia reportedly excelled in hypersonic technology thanks to knowledge inflows from the US and UK. At that moment, all this seemed quite counterintuitive.

Regarding Australia’s standard of living and lifestyle, the information I’ve received from different people has been starkly contradictory. My first piece of personal insight came from a relative who studied in Queensland for several years. He described Australia as a country without proper food supply—for instance, despite being surrounded by water and having major cities along the coast, local supermarkets rarely stocked seafood. Public transport was inaccessible even in large cities like the one he lived in. His most significant complaint was about Australia’s “lazy services”—important mail, including documents to embassies and banks, frequently went missing. In short, Australia, according to him, was a wealthy country with poor services and limited availability of goods.

I fully believed my relative’s description until I met an Australian student shortly after. He was on exchange at my university, studying astrophysics. One day, after visiting Hampton Court Palace, we searched for a lunch spot in Molesey, a typical village outside London. Having lived in the UK for four years, the restaurants seemed reasonably priced with appealing menus to my friends and me. Surprisingly, our Australian companion remarked, “Just pick whatever restaurant you like. They all seem expensive and unappealing to me; restaurants in Australia offer better food at lower prices.” He was from Melbourne—perhaps Melbourne’s standard of living differs greatly from Queensland’s?

Even opinions on urban public transport varied dramatically. Two friends from Hong Kong offered contradictory reviews about the same Australian city. One praised its metro, train and bus systems as cheap and convenient; the other complained of long waits and limited routes.

Now, my picture of Australia is like Rashōmon: everyone is an insider, yet everyone has given me entirely different impressions. And this intriguing contradiction is precisely why I want to visit Australia.