Last night, I came across Willson&Wenty's blog on the differences between settling down in Australia & Singapore. I myself am a very big fan of Melbourne. Throughout reading his page, I thought it would be fun to write one with comparison on Medan & Melbourne. Since I've so been missing Melbourne lately, this could be a very good temporary outlet.
I'm not a very good writer, so I'll just copy & paste Willson's points and start from there. Please feel free to add your 2cents on this matter. I'm quite curious wat society thinks about this :)
Work:Melbourne: Higher salaries, better environment (shorter hours and more leaves), workers have more rights. Howard is doing his best to take them away though. (Quoted from Willson)
Medan: The salaries are quite attractive at very2 few companies, but more often than not, you can't really survive just by 'working'. If you work on the average salary and don't own a business, hmmm... I think the simplest way to tell you how bad it is to 'work' in Medan is this. The 'legal' minimum base salary in Medan is around Rp.925.000,-/mo. (+-AU$110,-/mo). You do the math. However, I heard it is much easier to build a business here in Medan compared to Melbourne since things are easy here, as long as you got money to help you slip your way through the rough paths. So I don't think it's even valid to compare 'work' in Aus & 'work' in Medan. But businesswise, I guess more opportunities to rise in Medan?
Housing:Melbourne: Obviously much more expensive. You have to pay taxes very very accordingly. Medan: Houses are much much less pricey. No one pays taxes as they should *grins.. 1 point for Medan!!!
Food:Melbourne: Has authentic foods from all over the world, by authentic I mean the chefs who prepare them are either from those countries or descendant of migrants from there. (quoted from Willson). I might also add, desserts are unbeatable, both Oriental and Western styles. Medan: Cheaper foods. Hardly any decent western food restaurants here. But all the local Chinese & Indonesian-originated foods are very very very good. Hygiene-wise, I don't think there's a need to verify further. Oh also, desserts are near hopeless. I am raising my hopes on some new cakeries here thou.
Overall, 1 point for Melbourne (The hygiene & desserts factors kill Medan right-on)
House chores: Melbourne: Labor is expensive, you have to do everything yourselves unless you are filthy rich! (quoted from Willson)
Medan: You surely don't have to be filthy rich to hire 'helps' around the clock. On average, every house has at least 1 housemaid and 1 chauffeur. You could also very often find a house with 2-4 maids, more than 1 chauffeur, a landscape technician ('tukang kebun'), a 'bibi cuci' (yes, some ppl hire an extra 'maid' to do their laundry at home) , and 1 babysitter for each baby. And you don't have to be 'filthy rich' to enjoy all that. All that luxury mentioned above only add up to something like AU$700-AU$900 a month. I guess it's an undisputed 1 point for Medan here?
Transport:Melbourne: Car is slightly cheaper, public transport is wayyyyyyyy better than Indonesia. Petrols are wayyy more expensive though...
Medan: *sighssssss........................... I don't think it's even worth the discussion, unless you think becak, sudako, damri, are anything near decency.
1-1
Health care:Melbourne: Everyone (citizens and PRs) is covered by Medicare. Waiting list can be long for non life threatening surgeries under public system though so many people have private health insurance anyway. (quoted from Willson)
Medan: Health insurance is provided by very few companies. No such thing as Medicare I believe? Oops sorry, I guess they have Jamsostek here? Is that thing even functional? Never mind, I don't think anyone would mind me scoring 1 point for Melbourne here.
Government:Melbourne: Democratic government, freedom of speech, people can openly criticize and complain against the government of the day without fear of reprisals. (quoted from Willson)
Medan: Hopeless... In this so-called 'democratic' goverment, I don't think knowing your governor's name is even necessary. Here's an idea of how bad it is. Our latest Walikota & Wakil (Mayor & the vice) are currently in jail for some corruption matters. (can't even care less about the details). SOLID 1 for Melbourne. Crime Rate: Melbourne: Pretty safe, I have never been robbed/assaulted/burglared in my eight years here (touch wood). It does happen though, and certainly more often than in Singapore. (quoted from Willson)Medan: MINUS 100 points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Racism:
Melbourne: My worst experience is limited to minor inconvenient like having a couple of idiots yelling racist taunts as they drive past. Under Howard and his fear mongering policies, Australia is becoming more mean and less tolerant though. His fear mongering is currently directed at Muslims so it doesn't really affect us yet. Considering our economy is highly dependent on resources export to China I can't imagine him driving his fear policy against Chinese anytime soon, but you never know. (quoted from Willson)
Medan: What was the 1998 hugely tragic riot all about again? (MINUS 1000 POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Migrant treatment: Can't compare AT ALL! No one migrates to Indonesia... This must be most invalid point of all, Wills..
Taxes:Melbourne: One of the highest income taxes in the world. It obviously depends on your incomes, deductions etc. You can expect to pay up to A$26k tax on A$100k annual salary in 2008/2009 financial year. GST is 10%. (quoted from Willson) Medan: No one pays their taxes accordingly. I doubt a lot of people would know the official income tax rate here. Anyone?
Travel: Melbourne: Far from everywhere, airfares alone are so expensive. Very strong A$ stretches further when traveling overseas. Plenty of domestic holiday destinations. (quoted from Willson) Medan: As Willson pointed out, "Exotic destinations in their backyard within S E Asia." But damn the never-strengthening Rupiahs! 1 point for Melbourne!!!
Weather: Melbourne: 4 seasons in a year, heck Melbourne is renowned of having 4 seasons in a day. We get the snows in the mountain and the ocassional crazy 40+ degree days in summer. (quoted from Willson)
Medan: They say we have 2 seasons here, the hot season & the rainy season. I think the more precise way to put it is, we have only 1 season here, the hot season. Then you categorize the hot season into two sub-seasons, the hot-hot season, and the rainy-hot season. Objection, anyone? So I guess if you are a person with heat-resistant nature, vote for Melbourne straightaway then go away in summers, or buy the coolest aircon available in the market.
Social life:
As this is a very relative subject, I'll do my evaluation based on my own social background. Melbourne: Fewer friends, but I was there for 4.5 years, so I made quite a few very good friends :) (PS:Miss you very much guys...) The Ozzies in general are very friendly and talky. They are the sort of people who would smile or say 'hi' to strangers, (or rather, 'G'day!'). Plenty of nightclubs, a lot of decent cinemas. BUTTTTTTTT, shoppings close at 5PM except on Fridays and Thursdays in some suburbs. Medan: 95% of the people I know live here. Sometimes, people 'care' about other people too much (if you could sense my writing 'tone'). Some really do, most just 'do'. People tend to have similar lives. You get born, you finish high-schools, finish college, get married and have a big wedding attended by hundreds of strange faces, start a family, do business for life, travel just for the sake of it, then die without any accomplishments other than those in family business. The options for variations in life are not many too. Since if you don't do business, you can't really survive most of the time. And to do business, you'll need to sacrifice a big fraction of your life. At the end of the day, you don't have much time to explore new things anymore.
