When you live in Brisbane as a migrant, your friends are the closest people you have. They are as close as family. Most of us didn't bring the aunties, the uncles and the cousins with us. So when a friendship ends here, it hurts more than it would have back home. I felt that recently, with a friendship that lasted twenty years.
I talked this through first on my Cantonese podcast, Brisbane真好. The video has English subtitles.
Why are friends as close as family when you migrate to Brisbane?
Because the family stayed behind. Unless you brought your whole family over, we are on our own here. The closest people are always our friends.
You see it on every form. When it asks for your next of kin, the name and phone number you write down are a friend's.
You don't feel it much in the first few years. You feel it once you've been here a long time.
In Hong Kong I had a whole crowd of aunties and uncles, and my mum's side was even bigger. Call one relative and several would turn up. It was a big family in the old way.
So as a kid, friends didn't matter that much. There was always someone around.
Who were the older generation's best friends?
Often, their own brothers and sisters. A lot of the older generation grew up with many relatives, and the closest friend was usually a brother, a sister or a cousin close in age. They didn't have to go looking for friends.
Here that is really hard. Very few people bring the whole family across. So friends matter a lot, much more than they did for my parents.
Why are school friends easier than friends you make as an adult?
It depends on which friends. The ones you met at school are purer. As kids there isn't much at stake. The biggest drama was two boys liking the same girl, and once you're married, even that is in the past and doesn't matter.
Friends you meet as an adult are more complicated. Adults think about things in a more complicated way. Later friendships come with more small tangles, and you don't always know where you stand.
It doesn't happen to me often. But some things still hurt.
Can a 20-year friendship still be fragile?
Yes. Looking back lately, there is a friend I have known for twenty years. Not a girl, and not an old crush. Just a friend.
He was part of many big moments in my life. My wedding. My kids being born. He gave me a lot of emotional support.
The friendship lasted a long time, but it was always a bit special, because there is an age gap. When we met, he was already working and I was still studying. We thought about things a little differently from the start. If we had been classmates the same age, maybe it would be different.
Then a few small things happened. Twenty years of friendship, and now I don't think we will keep in touch. Once we chatted all the time. Now we don't.
What if your friend saw you differently than you saw him?
That was the part that stayed with me. He is older than me. I think he was looking after me, and I was treating him as my best friend.
I needed him. I saw him as my closest friend. But maybe, to him, he was just looking after a little brother.
I don't think either of us was wrong. He was kind to me for a long time, and that was real. We just held the same friendship from two different ends. Our circles are different now, and a lot has changed. Something unhappy happened, so we can simply not keep in touch, and let it go.
Sometimes friendship is like that. One or two things and it's gone, even after twenty years.
Can an old friendship come back after a falling-out?
I don't know what will happen. Twenty years gives a friendship a foundation. Sometimes two people fall out over something small, make up, and become close friends again. That could still happen.
Is the retirement village dream with friends realistic?
My friends here sometimes talk about it, and it is a lovely dream. We came over with similar backgrounds, so maybe we just stay together for decades. Grow old together, retire, buy into the same retirement village and live like family.
I like that dream. But I also think friendship is still friendship, and friends are still friends. They are not real brothers.
I used to say a friend was "like a brother". But the word "like" is in there for a reason. It tells you it's still one step short.
So what do I do with that?
I still value my friends here, maybe more than ever. In Brisbane they are the closest people we have, as close as family. But I try to remember that a friend is a friend, and to leave some room for old friends to come back.
Have you lost a long friendship after moving to Brisbane or anywhere else? Did you ever make up? I'd like to hear from you on the contact page.
More about life in Brisbane: Why the Same Culture Doesn't Make You Friends, What Every Middle-Aged Man Carries (But Won't Say) and Raising Kids in Brisbane as First-Generation Migrants. For a quiet walk, see the UQ Lakes jacarandas gallery.
This is a personal reflection. The images were made locally with Qwen Image 2.1, and AI helped me edit the English.
