Tiffany with the Laidlaws

I Am Lucky Enough to Meet Them

Looking back on my journey, there were many difficulties, but there was also lots of happiness thanks to the love and generosity of my Australian family.
Taiwan, Eastern Asia

Story by Tiffany Ko. Edited by Melaina Dyck
Published on May 30, 2021. Reading time: 4 minutes

This story is also available in cn kr tr



When was a turning point in your life?

For me, it was when I first came to Melbourne, Australia.

At age 16, I saw a poster in my high school about Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE). RYE sponsors high school students to study abroad for one year. My school was seeking a student to represent our school in the RYE program My teacher recommended me because I was always ranked top of all the students in English class. Her recommendation gave me confidence to apply.

After a complicated application process, I was accepted to study in Melbourne, Australia. On July 23, 2014, I flew from Taoyuan International Airport (Taiwan), leaving my hometown by myself for the first time. I was full of excitement, looking forward to my new life in Australia. Although I had good grades, I spoke little English and did not know much about Australia, but I was more excited than scared because I was finally released from the Asian-style education that I was sick of.

My host family, the Laidlaws, made me fall in love with Australia. They accepted me for who I was and treated me like a part of their family. Our home in Melbourne was beautiful with a big yard and a colourful garden. My host dad, Andy, is a garden designer. He liked to show me around his precious garden, including his plum trees. One of my favourite things was going to the plum trees after school and picking beautiful plums to put in my mouth. I loved hearing the stories from Andy about his plants.

I enjoyed helping my host mum, Sarah, with dinner and talking with her. She was a good listener. I also enjoyed the running-up-to-the-hill workout with my host sisters, Phoebe and Jessie.  Phoebe was my best friend; we always had a good laugh. Green grass, warm breezes, cows and horses, beautiful nature and lovely people: All these small things brought me simple happiness.

I love my Australian family. They gave me the family love I had never experienced.

I am an only-child from a single-parent family with a busy mum. I went to school, did homework, and ate dinner by myself.  I had no one to talk with about my day. Before I went to Australia, I was an unhappy, lonely Taiwanese student hating exams and studying and the expectations of being “a good student.” I was like most Taiwanese students—striving to get grades but not knowing why. The only thing I knew was that I would get more attention from my mum if I did well in my exams. In Taiwan’s education system, students are defined by their grades. They lose themselves and lack confidence and social ability. In Melbourne, I took classes I did not have in Taiwan, including drama, project design, and poetry. After school, I had the evenings for family or sports, instead of constantly studying.

When I returned to Taiwan, I missed Australia a lot. In February 2016, I started my bachelor’s degree at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.

Life is an ongoing journey, with many ups and downs. My life didn’t just switch to be all good because I moved to Australia. However, when I think about the Laidlaw family, I know I was the lucky one. The Laidlaw family loved me beyond our language barriers and cultural differences. Through hugs, picnics, and bike rides, I saw the beautiful scenery of Australia and the loving hearts of people. They gave ordinary me extraordinary love. For that, I am beyond grateful. 


How does this story make you feel?

Follow-up

Do you have any questions after reading this story? Do you want to follow-up on what you've just read? Get in touch with our team to learn more! Send an email to
[email protected].

Talk about this Story

Please enable cookies to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Share your story

Every story we share is another perspective on a complex topic like migration, gender and sexuality or liberation. We believe that these personal stories are important to better understand what's going on in our globalised society - and to better understand each other. That's because we are convinced that the more we understand about each other, the easier it will be for us to really talk to one another, to get closer - and to maybe find solutions for the issues that affect us all. 

Do you want to share your story? Then have a look here for more info.

Share Your Story

Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter

Stay up to date with new stories on Correspondents of the World by subscribing to our monthly newsletter:

* indicates required

Follow us on Social Media

Tiffany Ko

Tiffany Ko

Tiffany is a primary teacher and a Taekwondo coach in Taiwan. She has lived in Australia for 6 years and graduated from the University of Queensland. She loves to share her passion for sports and education. Also, Tiffany is interested in languages and she can speak fluently English, Mandarin and knows some Korean. She makes YouTube videos sharing her training, teaching, travel, and life.

To find more, please click the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6owz3fpmutD4enBj4QEXrQ

Topic: Migration




Get involved

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

Share Your Story

Community Worldwide

Correspondents of the World is not just this website, but also a great community of people from all over the world. While face-to-face meetings are difficult at the moment, our Facebook Community Group is THE place to be to meet other people invested in Correspondents of the World. We are currently running a series of online-tea talks to get to know each other better.

Join Our Community

EXPLORE TOPIC Migration

Global Issues Through Local Eyes

We are Correspondents of the World, an online platform where people from all over the world share their personal stories in relation to global development. We try to collect stories from people of all ages and genders, people with different social and religious backgrounds and people with all kinds of political opinions in order to get a fuller picture of what is going on behind the big news.

Our Correspondents

At Correspondents of the World we invite everyone to share their own story. This means we don't have professional writers or skilled interviewers. We believe that this approach offers a whole new perspective on topics we normally only read about in the news - if at all. If you would like to share your story, you can find more info here.

Share Your Story

Our Editors

We acknowledge that the stories we collect will necessarily be biased. But so is news. Believing in the power of the narrative, our growing team of awesome editors helps correspondents to make sure that their story is strictly about their personal experience - and let that speak for itself.

Become an Editor

Vision

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

View Our Full Vision & Mission Statement

Topics

We believe in quality over quantity. To give ourselves a focus, we started out to collect personal stories that relate to our correspondents' experiences with six different global topics. However, these topics were selected to increase the likelihood that the stories of different correspondents will cover the same issues and therefore illuminate these issues from different perspectives - and not to exclude any stories. If you have a personal story relating to a global issue that's not covered by our topics, please still reach out to us! We definitely have some blind spots and are happy to revise our focus and introduce new topics at any point in time. 

Environment

Discussions about the environment often center on grim, impersonal figures. Among the numbers and warnings, it is easy to forget that all of these statistics actually also affect us - in very different ways. We believe that in order to understand the immensity of environmental topics and global climate change, we need the personal stories of our correspondents.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender is the assumption of a "normal". Unmet expectations of what is normal are a world-wide cause for violence. We hope that the stories of our correspondents will help us to better understand the effects of global developments related to gender and sexuality, and to reveal outdated concepts that have been reinforced for centuries.

Migration

Our correspondents write about migration because it is a deeply personal topic that is often dehumanized. People quickly become foreigners, refugees - a "they". But: we have always been migrating, and we always will. For millions of different reasons. By sharing personal stories about migration, we hope to re-humanize this global topic.

Liberation

We want to support the demand for justice by spotlighting the personal stories of people who seek liberation in all its different forms. Our correspondents share their individual experiences in creating equality. We hope that for some this will be an encouragement to continue their own struggle against inequality and oppression - and for some an encouragement to get involved.

Education

Education is the newest addition to our themes. We believe that education, not only formal but also informal, is one of the core aspects of just and equal society as well as social change. Our correspondents share their experiences and confrontations about educational inequalities, accessibility issues and influence of societal norms and structures. 

Corona Virus

2020 is a year different from others before - not least because of the Corona pandemic. The worldwide spread of a highly contagious virus is something that affects all of us in very different ways. To get a better picture of how the pandemic's plethora of explicit and implicit consequences influences our everyday life, we share lockdown stories from correspondents all over the world.

Growing Fast

Although we started just over a year ago, Correspondents of the World has a quickly growing community of correspondents - and a dedicated team of editors, translators and country managers.

94

Correspondents

113

Stories

57

Countries

433

Translations

Contact

Correspondents of the World is as much a community as an online platform. Please feel free to contact us for whatever reason!

Message Us

Message on WhatsApp

Call Us

Joost: +31 6 30273938