Lol, he’s created her own “little Wales” in Australia, compares himself to a White settler, but then complains that his local Christmas market back in Ceredigion feels like England. It is always a bizarre reaction, immigrants complaining about other immigrants, they don’t see the irony?
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing, OP.
In my opinion, if you aren’t prepared to stay and work to make Wales a better place, you don’t get to preach from abroad. Yma o hyd the author is not.
This is just an awful article. When I was 15 in 2007 we moved to Australia for a few years to a rural town in Victoria for 3 years before returning as my dad had a job.
The grass is not greener. Australia has its own problems. Socially and economically. if you’re well off you will like it there and if you are not you won’t. This is very similar in Wales, the quality of life in Merthyr is staggeringly worse than for those in somewhere like Crickhowell.
Does he not think there are zero opportunities in Norway and Australia and Germany for those born at the bottom?
Person who specialises in translation and communication discovers they can get paid more for their work in other countries: “Because Wales offers nothing to the ambitious or talented.”.
Meanwhile, my apparently unambitious, untalented, just defended my doctoral thesis in Biochemistry in CU ass is just living in small minded squalor in Cardiff. Not to mention my also PhD-possessing migrant partner who has been lucky enough to live and work all around the world (including Japan and the states) – and also comes from the tiny island of Cyprus – saying that her job in industry and our life in Cardiff now is the happiest she’s been in terms of work-life balance, job satisfaction, and QoL.
We’re happy. We’re talented, and we’re ambitious. If you’re not happy with your choices then that’s fine. But don’t generalise and condemn my home because of your choices – Australia can keep you. Hopefully your fragile ambitions and talents feel appreciated there and you never come back. What a bloody joke!
The funny thing is, all the really ambitious Australians come to Europe!
I know a few, related to others, Oz is not the place to make a fortune there are better opportunities elsewhere.
This is such a naive view of australia
Grew up in Aus, so many people in the UK seem to have a fairy tale image of Australia. There is dire underdeveloped communities there just the same as in Wales. Cost of living there is astronomical, and job wise you’ll usually have to live 1-2hrs away from city work just to be able to afford it, so it can end up being 4hrs commuting each day.
Wales has traditionally sent her sons away to earn a living – t’was ever thus
A weird article which jumps around quite a lot. Some of it is spot on. Calling out the nepotism in Welsh media and the over reliance on public/third sector in the Cardiff economy are entirely accurate.
Other parts have glaring hypocracy though. They make valid observations about the increasing English influence in Ceredigion, and calling out the exceptionalism of celebrating Patagonia. But then also talks about how nice it is that they’ve created little Wales in Australia? Isn’t that exactly that you just called out others for?
“NGO-ladened” … :-{
>Australia is the sixth country I’ve lived and worked in, having previously resided in Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, and China.
You don’t need to be a psychologist to see what has happened here.
Our guy grows up never having any intention of staying in Wales from an early age, moves around the world needing to retain a Welsh identity to make up for the lack of a local one, feels guilty about it, rationalises the feeling by blaming Wales for forcing him out.
Just needs to final chapter (eventually coming home) to complete this tale as old as time (quite literally – Luke 15).
Writer sounds a bit up their own arse to be honest.
Australia is painfully expensive yes you may earn more but if everything is more expensive it evens out.
Never go full ex-pat
What a nob.
Flame bait article really
If these are the brains that are being drained then I think Wales will be OK.
There are clearly some issues with the economy in Wales, average salaries and private sector opportunities/investment, but this guy sounds like a right twat.
He’s knocking the lack of private sector opportunities here, and he’s moved to the other side of the world to end up in the public sector?!
Can’t blame people for leaving wales. Many public sector jobs are reserved for Welsh speakers. Hence why the majority need to leave to get on in life.
Brain drain is a bullshit term created to mask actual issues. Wales has been so neglected in almost every way. All our major industries have been eviscirated, our educational centres are constantly being extruded for profits, our employment prospects are abysmal and the North especially has essentially been religated as a glorified retirement home. The largest employer is the NHS and even that is being slowly parsed out to private entities which constantly makes maintaining sustainable employment even more egregious. Our homes are completely unaffordable due to an artificially inflated market geard towords bringing in wealthier people from other western countries for second/retirement homes. And all of this is done by our own councils and government at the behest of the British government simply to extract profits.
What you may call brain drain is actually the effects of decades of political neglect, privatisation and corpratisation at the expense of the Welsh people. And, even if your Welsh, if you for one moment start to blame the Welsh people for this, go fuck yourself you victim blaming pos.
20 comments
Lol, he’s created her own “little Wales” in Australia, compares himself to a White settler, but then complains that his local Christmas market back in Ceredigion feels like England. It is always a bizarre reaction, immigrants complaining about other immigrants, they don’t see the irony?
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing, OP.
In my opinion, if you aren’t prepared to stay and work to make Wales a better place, you don’t get to preach from abroad. Yma o hyd the author is not.
This is just an awful article. When I was 15 in 2007 we moved to Australia for a few years to a rural town in Victoria for 3 years before returning as my dad had a job.
The grass is not greener. Australia has its own problems. Socially and economically. if you’re well off you will like it there and if you are not you won’t. This is very similar in Wales, the quality of life in Merthyr is staggeringly worse than for those in somewhere like Crickhowell.
Does he not think there are zero opportunities in Norway and Australia and Germany for those born at the bottom?
Person who specialises in translation and communication discovers they can get paid more for their work in other countries: “Because Wales offers nothing to the ambitious or talented.”.
Meanwhile, my apparently unambitious, untalented, just defended my doctoral thesis in Biochemistry in CU ass is just living in small minded squalor in Cardiff. Not to mention my also PhD-possessing migrant partner who has been lucky enough to live and work all around the world (including Japan and the states) – and also comes from the tiny island of Cyprus – saying that her job in industry and our life in Cardiff now is the happiest she’s been in terms of work-life balance, job satisfaction, and QoL.
We’re happy. We’re talented, and we’re ambitious. If you’re not happy with your choices then that’s fine. But don’t generalise and condemn my home because of your choices – Australia can keep you. Hopefully your fragile ambitions and talents feel appreciated there and you never come back. What a bloody joke!
The funny thing is, all the really ambitious Australians come to Europe!
I know a few, related to others, Oz is not the place to make a fortune there are better opportunities elsewhere.
This is such a naive view of australia
Grew up in Aus, so many people in the UK seem to have a fairy tale image of Australia. There is dire underdeveloped communities there just the same as in Wales. Cost of living there is astronomical, and job wise you’ll usually have to live 1-2hrs away from city work just to be able to afford it, so it can end up being 4hrs commuting each day.
Wales has traditionally sent her sons away to earn a living – t’was ever thus
A weird article which jumps around quite a lot. Some of it is spot on. Calling out the nepotism in Welsh media and the over reliance on public/third sector in the Cardiff economy are entirely accurate.
Other parts have glaring hypocracy though. They make valid observations about the increasing English influence in Ceredigion, and calling out the exceptionalism of celebrating Patagonia. But then also talks about how nice it is that they’ve created little Wales in Australia? Isn’t that exactly that you just called out others for?
“NGO-ladened” … :-{
>Australia is the sixth country I’ve lived and worked in, having previously resided in Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, and China.
You don’t need to be a psychologist to see what has happened here.
Our guy grows up never having any intention of staying in Wales from an early age, moves around the world needing to retain a Welsh identity to make up for the lack of a local one, feels guilty about it, rationalises the feeling by blaming Wales for forcing him out.
Just needs to final chapter (eventually coming home) to complete this tale as old as time (quite literally – Luke 15).
Writer sounds a bit up their own arse to be honest.
Australia is painfully expensive yes you may earn more but if everything is more expensive it evens out.
Never go full ex-pat
What a nob.
Flame bait article really
If these are the brains that are being drained then I think Wales will be OK.
There are clearly some issues with the economy in Wales, average salaries and private sector opportunities/investment, but this guy sounds like a right twat.
He’s knocking the lack of private sector opportunities here, and he’s moved to the other side of the world to end up in the public sector?!
Can’t blame people for leaving wales. Many public sector jobs are reserved for Welsh speakers. Hence why the majority need to leave to get on in life.
Brain drain is a bullshit term created to mask actual issues. Wales has been so neglected in almost every way. All our major industries have been eviscirated, our educational centres are constantly being extruded for profits, our employment prospects are abysmal and the North especially has essentially been religated as a glorified retirement home. The largest employer is the NHS and even that is being slowly parsed out to private entities which constantly makes maintaining sustainable employment even more egregious. Our homes are completely unaffordable due to an artificially inflated market geard towords bringing in wealthier people from other western countries for second/retirement homes. And all of this is done by our own councils and government at the behest of the British government simply to extract profits.
What you may call brain drain is actually the effects of decades of political neglect, privatisation and corpratisation at the expense of the Welsh people. And, even if your Welsh, if you for one moment start to blame the Welsh people for this, go fuck yourself you victim blaming pos.
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