Topic: Philip Yeung
Topic Type: Person
This is my journey in the past 13 years in Hamilton, New Zealand
My name is Yeung Yu Ming and I am from Hong Kong. In Chinese, surname comes first. In New Zealand and the Western world, surname comes last. In most cases, people put my name down as Yu Yeung and quite a few others format. As for pronunciation, there are many versions, but I like the sound of ‘young'. As I tell people, I don't mind if they call me ‘Young Philip' as my surname should come first.
Fortunately, I have been using the name Philip since I was 11 years old. It makes my daily life a lot easier. I still remember the date I started year 7 (form 1) in a boys' school. The English teacher came into the classroom and gave us each an English name, "you name ‘Simon', you name ‘Paul', you name ‘Peter', and you name ‘Philip'". That's how I got my name ‘Philip'. I have only added the name ‘Philip' in my passport three years ago because I couldn't get on the plane with the ticket issued as Philip Yeung.
Many people asked me, "Why you left Hong Kong? Was it about the China took over?". My answer to that was because of the education system. We wanted to have a better childhood for our daughter. Back in Hong Kong, there're no times for leisure activities. Studying was the only thing in her daily life. Since we moved to New Zealand (when she was eight years old), she learnt violin and played badminton. Another reason for the move was about the life style. My wife and I were both working in travel agents in Hong Kong. It was a very busy industry with a great deal of pressure on our family life.
We arrived in New Zealand on 10 April 1996. Our friends moved here a year earlier than us and settled in Hamilton. We were staying at their house for about a month, while we were looking for suitable accommodation.
We were the same as other immigrants, we set priorities. We found the house, registered our daughter at school, got a car and organised all other basic necessities. When it came to searching for job, that's when the problems started.
With my 16 years of travel experiences and New Zealand being a tourist destination, I had a perception that I could find a job in a travel agent pretty easy, I was wrong. The type of work I had in Hong Kong was very different with those travel agents in Hamilton. There is no inbound and outbound agent here. If I was to stay in Auckland, that would have been a different story. After two to three months of searching, my expectation of finding a similar job as I got in Hong Kong was fast fading. I started to down grade myself to those lower level works. At one stage, I was looking at the burger places.
One day, I was over at K-Mart and I spoke to a real estate agent. Waikato Real Estate had a shop in the shopping mall. I joint the training and became a licensed real estate sale person. I was selling property for about 5 months until my ear gave me the problem. I started to spin around and vomit. At first, it happened about once in every two to three weeks. It became more frequent and it was up to about twice a week. I couldn't take people to view property and even not suitable to drive. The problem was caused by the two sacks of fluid behind my ear were mixed, perhaps under some sort of pressure or the secretion and absorption of fluid were not mended properly. I was having an ear operation at the Waikato hospital five months after the problem was first discovered. I was o.k. ever since the operation.
I was not able to work during the time I had the balancing problem for about half a year. I met a family from Hong Kong and they were operating a fish and chip shop at the food court in K-Mart. I was invited to join them to run the shop together. I pulled my resources to take on some shares and started my two and a half years of miserable life in a takeaway shop.
Why I used the word ‘miserable life'? For the last six years when I was in Hong Kong. I was an operation manager of a travel agent with 16 staff. I organised big tour groups to Hong Kong and tour into China. I think you can imagine how difficult to work in a totally different environment. I went home everyday with my glasses filled with oil vapour, my hands were burnt with boiling oil and my back was sore as the kitchen sink was so low. I was standing at the bottom of the mall every morning saying that "I don't want to go up there".
I knew that's not what I do for the rest of my life. I studied part time with Auckland University of Technology and Waikato Institute of Technology, a joint course in Liaison Interpreting, a level three interpreting certificate. It was about the same time that the shop was sold. The main reason was my business partner decided to move to Australia and we wouldn't be able to run the shop by ourselves. Besides, I really didn't want to carry on working there.
I started working as an interpreter at hospital, police station and the court. I interpret English into Cantonese and Mandarin and vice versa. It was a very interesting job which I enjoyed every moment of it. Since the demand for interpreter was not much, it can only be look upon as a side income.
I joint the ESOL Home Tutor Waikato and trained as an ESOL Home Tutor. At the same time, I joined as one of their committee members. Combining the above two together, that leaded me to my current job at the Hamilton City Council as the Ethnic Development Advisor.
It's funny when you are looking for jobs, you couldn't find one. All in a sudden, I received three job offers. K-Mart called me to see if I was still interested to work there. Work and Income offered me the job as a call centre staff and Hamilton City Council offered me the job as Ethnic Communities Coordinator (it was the old title when I first started). It's an interesting journey to get to where I am right now.
Even though I worked as an interpreter, it didn't give me enough income. I was never stopping searching for jobs. The one I got from K-Mart was an application to their Human Resource when the fish and chip shop was sold. I didn't hear anything from them for quite some time. When I applied, I told them that they needed someone who was able to speak Cantonese and Mandarin to handle their Chinese customers. Eventually, they did.
The one I got for Work and Income was an interesting journey. I applied for the vacancies at the call centre. I completed a form with about 12 questions and sent to their HR department. About a week later, a lady called me and asked for a phone interview. I thought it was appropriate as the job was a call centre staff. She asked me 10 questions. About another week later, someone called and asked me to go up to their office for a computer test. I went there and they gave me a calculator to calculate some benefit payments. I was sitting in-front-of a computer with the headphone on, while someone pretended to be a customer calling from the next room and I have to do some forms and filling. I was contacted again and asked to go up for a final interview. I went there and there were five interviewers, each asked me two questions. At that moment, I was thinking if they were employing a general manager or someone at the call centre. Anyway, I got the job offer.
The last job offer came from Hamilton City Council. The previous Ethnic Communities Coordinator left for more than three months. The vacancy was advertised on newspaper, which I applied and got the job. A lot of people said I was lucky to get this job, but I always told them there is no luck in two things, studying and finding jobs. After I applied to Work and Income, I went to their service centre on Victoria Street. I grabbed all their pamphlets and brochures to read and study. It's the same as the job at Hamilton City Council. I went up to the 4th floor a week before my interview. The lady (Irene) at the reception desk asked what she could help. I told her about my interview and I need all materials about Community Development to read. She helped and gave me a whole bunch of stuff. Unfortunately, Irene passed away after an accident four years ago. She was a very nice and helpful person and I surely missed her.
I have been working here since 23rd October 2001 and the title was changed to Ethnic Development Advisor three years ago. My role is to look after the social, cultural, and economic well-being of the ethnic communities including immigrants and refugees. I enjoy my work very much. I don't call it my job as I am working with people just like me, am immigrant from overseas. I never ask people what's the problem, I have gone through all those ups and downs in my first five to six years in Hamilton.
I was appointed as a Justice of the Peace in May 2007 and I am helping a lot of other people, in particular, ethnic communities. My daughter is having her final year at Massey University in Wellington and hopefully, receives her engineering degree by the end of 2009.
I am enjoying my life here with my family and I wish everyone can do the same.
