If it weren’t for this pandemic, I might have considered a career change. Considered, but not actually followed through, because I do actually love public health. The prime contender for an alternative career would have been becoming an airline pilot, of course. Many of you are probably well aware of my love of flying and moving between airports and time zones. But then again, this year, we had actually employed a number of out-of-work Qantas pilots as contact tracers here at the NSW Ministry of Health, so maybe even if I had actually made the career change, I would have ended up doing similar things.

I imagine that if I were a pilot, I’d choose to be based in Sydney, and then I’d get to fly the Sydney approach over and over again. Sydney is truly a stunning city in terms of its harbours, bays and waterways. It’s something that I really hope I’ll never get over or take for granted.

I missed being in the air so much that a few weekends ago, I went to Lady Robinsons Beach (apostrophes aren’t allowed in all place names in Australia, in case you’re wondering), on Gadigal land. It’s probably the beach with the best view of the two long north-south runways at Sydney Airport. The northern end of the beach had to be modified and shortened in the late 1940s to early 1950s to allow the longest runway at the airport to be built. Just as well that they didn’t stick with their original name of 7-mile beach. Because “the recently shortened 6.5 mile beach” doesn’t sound too appealing for tourism. Its other appeal to tourists is that according to Wikipedia, it has the “most whitest sand” of all Sydney Beaches. I’m not so sure I trust the qualifications of that reviewer. But I guess the sand there was quite light in colour, so I guess it didn’t disappoint. Where the trip did end up being a disappointment, though, was the lack of aeroplanes. There were only 2 takeoffs in the whole time I was there.

But that was OK. Because in the weekend that had just gone by, I finally flew back to Melbourne to see family and a few friends too. That trip had to be postponed from January, when the state borders within Australia were closed at just the wrong time. I was pretty nervous about this particular trip from that point of view. Every time I received a promotional email from the airline, I froze at the thought that maybe they were about to tell me that they were cancelling my flight. Unfortunately, contrary to what some people were thinking, in my public health job I don’t actually get any special privileges when it comes to being able to pass through closed state borders. In fact, I probably have to be a bit more careful compared to many other people to make sure that I am toeing the line at all times.

It felt a little bit strange being back in Melbourne (Wurundjeri land). In so many ways, it felt as if I had never left, even though the last time I was here was before the pandemic was anywhere near being a big deal here in Australia, and people weren’t wearing masks on public transport. It seemed that the pandemic hadn’t been able to take away this familiarity that felt like muscle memory. That crack in the footpath outside my parents’ place was still there. My parents’ convenience store was still running, and had done so throughout all the Melbourne restrictions and curfews. It’s kept them busy though, having to adjust their inventory based on people’s hoarding behaviours, and on purchase quantity restrictions at the big supermarkets. They’ve also had so many customers forgetting to put on decent “going outside” clothes to come and buy milk and bread during home quarantine. Apparently negligee nightgowns have made a significant number of appearances over the last few months. They’ve suffered racism too. Dad told me a story of how he offered to help a customer carry her purchases to her car, but she wouldn’t let “an Asian” touch her groceries. He then offered her a cardboard box to put everything into, but she wouldn’t accept it because he had touched the box. Instead, she proceeded to throw her purchases, item by item, out of the open front door of the shop, onto the footpath in front of her parked car. And then she went outside, opened her car door, and spent some time gathering all her items up from the footpath. I’m not sure that she realised that his Asian hands stocked those shelves in the first place.

Luckily, my parents are fairly resilient people, having endured many years of both subtle and overt forms of racism being Asians in Australia. I wouldn’t say that Melbourne is particularly more racist than the rest of Australia, but this weekend I did experience somebody on a Melbourne tram calling me out for being Asian and telling me to go away. Against this background, this last week I gave a university teaching session, along with a couple of my Indigenous classmates, on working with First Nations and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse communities in managing communicable diseases. I was far more nervous than usual before the talk. Usually in my medical life, I don’t give talks that are as emotionally charged, or have as much personal significance. It was not as bad as I had feared … but then again, my fears had included being heckled by people I might have made angry.

Anyhow, I’ll end the post with some nice things. Like hipster Melbourne coffee from Brother Baba Budan, an icon that’s been around for so many years now that I’ve lost count. And here’s also some freshly baked fruit toast from the Wild Life Bakery in Brunswick East.