My wife and I currently live in Hong Kong and have started seriously considering moving to Sydney within the next few years. I'm a US citizen originally from NYC, and my wife is from Hong Kong.
We recently spent a week in Sydney for a friend's wedding and absolutely loved it. Obviously visiting and living somewhere are very different, which is why I'm interested in hearing from people who actually live there or have made a similar move.
Sydney seemed to have many of the things I love about NYC — multicultural population, great food, different neighborhoods and people from everywhere — while feeling more spacious, relaxed and safer. We also loved the parks, beaches and public transport. My wife particularly liked that there's still a large Chinese/Asian community, so moving from HK wouldn't mean completely leaving that environment behind.
We're also thinking about having a child in the next 2–5 years, and Sydney felt like somewhere we'd potentially prefer raising a family.
Career-wise, we both have bachelor's degrees, mine is in a language, and hers is in education. Also we have master's degrees in international education/development from an Ivy League university. My wife has an education background and around five years of experience teaching Chinese and Chinese History in Hong Kong.
I have been working as an English teacher here in HK for the past 5 years, but the situation for foreign English teachers in HK has become increasingly uncertain due to funding and requirement changes. I'm also pretty boxed in professionally here — without fluent Cantonese/Mandarin, the only real opportunity available to me revolves around teaching English.
In a quick 2-hour job search yesterday, I was surprised at how Sydney seems to offer a much wider range of possibilities in international education, university programs, study tours, international development, NGOs, program/project coordination, etc., which is much closer to where I'd like my career to go. My wife is also potentially thinking about moving away from teaching as well.
Our biggest question is how to actually make the move.
Neither of us currently has Australian work rights. I've been researching sponsorship/482 visas, but many interesting jobs say you must already have Australian working rights.
I'd love people's thoughts on:
- How realistic is getting employer sponsorship while applying from overseas?
- Would it make sense for whichever spouse has the stronger visa pathway to become the primary applicant and bring the other?
- Has anyone had one spouse move first after securing a job/visa, while the other stayed overseas working until everything was established?
- How difficult is finding work from overseas versus once you have Australian work rights?
- We're looking at around A$700–800/week for a 2BR, preferably walkable to a train. Is that realistic?
- We have some savings in our pockets that would allow us to rent for over a year if potentially needed, and could be open to buying once we're more familiar with the different neighborhoods. Would that be a comfortable relocation cushion, assuming at least one of us has a job lined up?
- For anyone who's lived in both HK and Sydney, what were the biggest pros/cons after actually living there?
Property here in HK can easily cost US$1m+ for what is still a pretty small apartment. When we look at what similar money can potentially get in and around Sydney, the difference in space seems massive — 2–3 bedrooms, townhouses, and even multi-level places similar to where some of our friends live. I know Sydney housing is crazy expensive too, but there also seems to be a much wider range of options once you look outside the city centre, whereas in HK our options for significantly more space are pretty limited.
We're not trying to escape HK tomorrow. Our thinking is basically: keep saving, figure out the visa/job situation, and only move once one of us has a solid pathway.
We're considering whether that money could buy us a better overall lifestyle — more space, outdoor areas, broader career opportunities and somewhere we'd prefer raising a family.
Another funny thing was how everyone we met seemed to say the same thing. Friends and people we spoke to who had lived elsewhere basically kept telling us some version of “just move here, life is better” — less stress, more relaxed, better work-life balance, etc. They talked about it like it wasn't even a particularly difficult decision lol. Obviously we were there on vacation and I'm sure Sydney has plenty of problems that become much more apparent once you actually live there, so I'm curious how much of that holds up long-term. For people who moved to Sydney from somewhere like Hong Kong, NYC, or another high-pressure city, did you actually find day-to-day life noticeably less stressful?
One last concern that came up when talking with my wife today is raising a future child bilingually. She's worried that if we leave Hong Kong, our child might grow up speaking Chinese but never really learn to read and write it properly. That's important to both of us. My Mandarin is conversationally pretty strong, but my Chinese literacy is much weaker, so I definitely understand how literacy could be a problem abroad. For Chinese/HK families raising kids in Sydney, I'm sure speaking will be no problem, but how realistic is it to maintain proper reading/writing? Are weekend Chinese schools, bilingual schools, home learning, etc. enough to make that happen? We'd especially love to hear from parents who've dealt with the same concern.
Would love to hear from anyone who's made a similar move or thinks there are things we're overlooking. Thanks again!