All right, so how can I help you today?
Rif is 22 years old and comes from Bangladesh.
He met his girlfriend Praia in Malaysia and they both came to Sydney to study.
Rif recently completed a media degree at Macquarie University and got a temporary job working
in a call centre with Datacom.
Good morning, you've reached Datacom.
My name is Rif.
Can I please start with your first and last name?
He and Praia know a lot about cardboard boxes.
So far in Sydney they've moved house eight times.
At the moment they live in a flat with two girls from Norway.
We work at the same place so that's one of the main things.
We also come back home, watch the laptop, go down to the shopping centre, The Macquarie
Centre, watch movies.
Yes, she loves window shopping.
I can't like ... some of the times I will be tired and I want to go home but she will
drag me to every shop.
I guess all girls do that.
Every day at the gym for about two hours I do about an hours worth of cardio and another
45 minutes of weight.
My main interest is just keeping my body looking good, that's the main interest so that's what
it started off as.
And nowadays, after like, ever since I was a kid and I watched Brue Lee I've really been
into martial arts so that's the main thing.
It's just martial arts and weight training.
Right now I'm not playing as much guitar as I would normally do but I'm working more on
electronic music production.
Because it's much simpler.
I can just put on my headphones and be on the computer.
Whereas the guitar I'd have to set up the whole amplifier and people would get annoyed
with me.
I always watch the people that do the busking and if they're really good I will sit there
and watch them for a little while.
I always liked performing and busking is probably one of the most interesting forms of performing
because you're just doing it just for the love of actually performing.
You're not doing it for - most people at least are not doing it for getting the money out
of it - they're just doing it just because they love performing.
I'm excited.
I want to see how it goes.
Yeah, I want to see how everything plays out.
I don't know if they have this busking culture in Malaysia.
I've never seen this, this kind of thing, I guess it's mainly in the more western countries
that you see this kind of thing happening,
maybe in England I've seen buskers and out here I've seen buskers.
Malaysia, no.
Bangladesh, no.
Nice sunny day today so I think that's a good thing.
There's some pretty nice buildings out here.
The Town Hall building was really nice.
There's also the Tower.
That's a really nice building.
Just generally just looking around and seeing what the place looks like.
I do get a real buzz out of performance.
It's unlike anything else I guess, like just if it's in front of a big crowd
that's like probably the most fun you can ever have in your life because you just feed
off the energy and it's a really interesting feeling.
Hi, how are you?
I want to apply for a busking permit.
Okay, great.
Have you filled out the paperwork?
Yeah, I have.
Excellent.
Okay.
So you've got your passport there.
I'll just take a copy of that for our records.
Okay, so you're just playing guitar?
Yes, playing guitar and vocals as well.
Fantastic.
Okay, that's ten dollars thank you.
Okay, that's all fine and we'll just take your photo now.
If you'd like to take a seat just here
and that's great.
Here you go.
You're all done.
Thanks a lot for that.
You're very welcome.
I think my next step is to find a spot and just set up and start busking.
I guess I'll see how people on the street will react to a person of my background just
standing there and playing.
I mean I'll be playing stuff that probably most people wouldn't play when they're busking.
Yes, I saw another busker over there.
He had a really interesting instrument.
I've never seen that before.
I've seen an upright bass, electric bass but he was playing it like a cello kind of.
So, yeah, that was pretty interesting.
Yeah, I'm not really worried about much.
I'm pretty confident in my playing ability.
It's mainly my singing ability that I'm a bit nervous about.
Yeah, this is a very, a really interesting song.
It was written by my dad initially.
It's a protest against institutionalised religion.
It's based on how people have warped religion to a certain degree.
That was awesome.
I loved it yeah.
I was a really nice feeling to just be outside and playing.
Initially I thought there'd be a lot of people walking up and down.
It kind of dried up when I started playing.
Maybe it's something to do with my playing.
So maybe we'll try a different spot.
When there wasn't any people passing by it didn't really affect me that much because
I was just playing and doing my thing
so I didn't really care that much but it would have been better to have a bit more people
though.
Next place I went to was Martin Place.
There was a lot more people there and so there was a bit more of a crowd.
There were more people listening.
Again, I didn't really get that much of a reaction.
I blame the camera crews.
It did put people a little off.
They didn't know how to react.
They didn't know whether we were shooting a music video or what we were doing so they
wouldn't come in line with the camera.
They'd just kind of walk away but it might be my music as well.
There you go man.
It felt pretty nice.
Somebody actually paid money to hear me play.
It was awesome.
People were kind of wandering off so I decided to go down to Pitt St Mall and the walk down
there was really interesting.
There was a lot of buskers over there.
And there was also a really, really young kid playing the saxophone.
And the dollar I made, I gave it to him.
Pass the buck along I guess.
We had a guest coming in.
His name was Vijay and he came in and we had a little jam, a little blues jam.
Hey, Rif.
How's it going?
Hey, Vijay.
Nice to meet you man.
Nice to meet you too man.
How's it going?
Pretty all right.
It's been an interesting day.
Yeah, really.
You've got your licence there man.
That's cool.
Yes.
yes.
It was all kind of on the spot so it was interesting.
It was fun.
We made I think, it was $3.50, something like that.
Yeah, we got some money at least man.
These guys have a hard job.
You see them and they have coins in their cases or their hats but it doesn't come by
that easy, is what I figured out.
Like after what, I did about three or four hours and made about four dollars so
yhese guys, for them to actually make $10, $30, it's hard.
You know there's enough for one beer but not two.
We'll go halves man.
Yes, Rif and I didn't exactly make millions busking but,
as any musician will tell you, it's not about the money man.
Thanks for watching My Australia.
Here's what's coming up next week.
Ken goes to a quiz night to experience a unique Australian tradition
Acky swims with a huge fish on the Great Barrier Reef
and Sarge has a go at ballroom dancing.
I'll see you then.