Differences Between Work-Life Balance In Eastern And Western Cultures

Posted on 16 November 2017 by Mabel Kwong

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When it comes to work-life balance, Asian and Western cultures usually have different ways of discovering it.

For many years in Australia, I’ve juggled working a day job, chasing a writing career and making time for things on the personal and home front. Sometimes it feels like I’ve got too many things work and play-wise to do.

Work to play or play to work. Or both | Weekly Photo Challenge: Experimental.

Finding a work-life balance is arguably about juggling needs and wants. According to Safework SA, work life balance is ‘the relationship between your work and the commitments in the rest of your life, and how they impact on one another’. Finding a work-life balance often means organising time for things you want to do, and have to do whether you like it or not because it may impact the former and vice-versa – and trying to discover that ever elusive feeling called satisfaction all round.

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What Are Some Of Australia’s Favourite Hobbies And Pastimes?

Posted on 12 May 2016 by Mabel Kwong

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When it comes to hobbies and pastimes, Australians have quite a few of them. One way or another, there’s always something we can do to fill our leisure time in Australia.

In this world, there are so many places to see and explore in our free time | Weekly Photo Challenge: Earth.

Depending on our personalities, each of us has our own ways of enjoying our spare time and time outside of work.

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Why Some Of Us Are Neat And Tidy

Posted on 4 December 2014 by Mabel Kwong

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It’s a habit some of us have: being neat and tidy. A neat freak. That is, some of us like things to be in a certain order or place.

I’m one of these neat people, always making sure to put things away things I don’t need for a while. A few years ago I had an Asian colleague called Mandy the Magician and she is a neat person too. One day she finished all her work for the day and decided to tidy our office – sorting a plastic tub full of paperclips, a plastic tub the size of your average rectangular pillow, sorting silver paperclips from the coloured ones.

Neat lines of trees. Not one of them out of place | Weekly Photo Challenge: Converge.

Being neat is a trait that transcends cultures. People all over the world are neat. Perhaps it’s a personality trait, a choice to be neat.

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Why Asians Do Everything Fast

Posted on 13 November 2014 by Mabel Kwong

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When it comes to work, a lot of Asians are fast and efficient. Sometimes scarily fast and efficient (when compared to others). It’s like a super power that some of us have.

I’m generally a fast worker. Some years ago I worked at a processing job: I stamped forms and divide them into batches of 100, which takes me around five minutes per batch. But that’s not as fast as my Asian colleague, and let’s call her Mandy. Watching Mandy grab a stack of papers, flick the papers up by their corners and count each one until the 100^th one in a matter of twenty seconds is like watching a magic show – the papers flick up in a blur, actually disappearing for a second.

If we move too fast, we might just miss the finer things in life. Bolte Bridge, Docklands | Weekly Photo Challenge: Minimalist.

Maybe some of us Asians do things fast because we want to be first, first to cross the finish line. Coming out on top and getting titles and rewards is admired in Asian cultures. When I was younger, my parents nagged at me to finish all my homework as soon as I got home from school so I could start the next set of questions in the maths revision books. I did that, because back then I naively thought keeping ahead of the pack made us truly happy.

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