Hello.
Iím Vijay Khurana.
Welcome to My Australia, the show about people from overseas having Australian experiences.
On todayís show
Weiping goes water skiing,
Raisa tries her hand at beach volleyball
and Kema has the ride of his life in a racing car.
First up we meet Weiping as she has a go at the difficult sport of water skiing.
Now I donít think I, with my flabby arms, would be very good at this.
You have to hold on pretty tight.
Letís see how she goes.
My name is Weiping.
I live ... back home I live in Jingpo which is two hour drive distance from Shanghai,
China.
I have been living in Adelaide for three years.
At Adelaide Uni I studied law and accounting.
Later on I applied for a PhD at University of South Australia.
So I got accepted and got a scholarship for three years program.
Adelaide is a little, cosy place and itís handy.
You always know where you go and not very cramped.
You know, you always have the Parklands.
People are very nice and friendly.
Thank you.
See you later.
See ya.
I live in a very big house.
I live downstairs, and my landlords, they live upstairs.
Well done.
Wunderbar.
Well done.
My housemates and I we usually come and help Margie with cooking and you know, even sometimes
we go shopping together.
Which is your favourite?
Italian food of course.
Thatís because you've got Peter next to you ...
I like sports.
I like to cycle, go across the Linear Park and I like swimming.
I just like water so anything to do with water I like it.
I like you know, go to the sea, go to the beach, yeah, anything to do with water, I
like it.
I never did water skiing before and I am really looking forward to that.
Hopefully I would be really good at it.
Hello, Weiping.
Yes.
Nice to meet you.
My nameís Shaun.
This is Grant.
How you going?
Nice to meet you.
Out for a water ski?
Yes.
Fantastic.
Iím very nervous now.
I have to go to the toilet first.
Okay.
Weíll show you where the toilet is.
Hi.
Hi, how you going?
Oh, I was worried about my language and I was concerned about my social life as well,
how I was going to communicate or assimilate ... assimilate with local people.
The first thing is youíre going to be holding onto this,
and then, once the boat starts to go youíll just rock forward and then weíll slowly stand
up from there.
Okay.
And then youíll be water skiing.
Okay.
I think possibly I would make a fool of myself.
Okay, here we go.
Let that bottom slide forward.
Perfect, yeah, well done.
Well done.
A little bit higher, little bit higher.
There, great.
Well done.
I am very nervous, but I think I will be fine.
I can't wait to get out on the water.
Do you want to leave the shirt on?
Are you ...?
Yes, leave it on.
Leave the shirt on.
So, you know what?
I reckon youíre about ready to go.
Cool, letís do it.
Okay.
To the boat.
Oh my God!
Itís pretty fast isnít it?
Yes.
We won't go this fast for you but this is how a professional skis.
My God!
If I can stand on the skis itís going to be a little achievement for me,
you know because I never, never done that so Ö
You know, you never know because I went rock climbing, I was a bit worried but afterwards
it was a totally success.
It was so much fun so I thought, you know, water skiing would be the same.
Heís very, very, very good.
Heís been doing it for a little while.
I just hope I can hold on to the rope.
Youíll be right.
People are nice here so I feel very comfortable.
The instructor, heís very informative and I think he helped me to kind of understand
the process.
Um, itís hard but I think I can manage.
If you donít want to ride any more you just let go.
Okay.
Yep.
Okay, I will do that ...
No.
often.
You've got to hold on for a little while though.
You come back and ...
Youíve got to do it for a little while.
I hope I donít fall off in the first place.
I can hold on to the strings.
Yep, so now put one foot in the water, probably your right foot first.
And so, your left footís got to go in there too, so probably sit back up here to begin
with.
In you get.
Itís cold.
Itís so cold.
Youíll be right.
Just think of the fun youíre going to have when youíre water skiing.
I can't stand it.
Itís too cold.
Itís getting better now.
Yeah, it is getting better.
Use the bar to pull yourself around there and bring those skis out so theyíre nice
and tight in front of you.
So thatís really good.
Thatís perfect.
I want you stay like that.
So just be really relaxed and I wanna see that bottom slide forward okay.
Let the bottom slide forward, let the bottom slide forward.
Let go.
Let go, and let go.
Okay, fantastic, nice crouched up ball.
And we really wanna keep, see the tips of your skis?
Yes.
You wanna try and keep them in front of you, okay.
Itís pretty hard because I never get any board before like even snow board or you know,
on the beach.
Because I didnít grow up with water, I mean like beach, so it was very hard for me to
manage,
although I like water, swimming pools and stuff but I didnít grow up with waves or
you know, it was difficult.
Itís all good.
Weíll go round again.
Iím gonna be really happy when you get up because itís gonna look fantastic.
Itís gonna be really good.
Yeah, but it takes time.
It does take time
There we go!
There we go.
There we go, thatís good.
Thatís good.
Let go.
Yeah!
Really good.
Almost there.
My feet donít listen to me.
I hardly could manage like control my feet.
And my stomach muscles not strong enough to pull me up, I think so, I think because my
physical is not strong enough to do that.
Did you have fun?
Fun?
Yes, I very appreciate that you guys were so patient with me.
Thatís all right.
As we said, we do it all the time, so thatís normal.
I think I was pretty bad.
No, you were fine.
You got up on the water.
You were doing good.
You got up.
I just couldnít ...
Everyone that starts off struggles, like, thereís not a single person Iíve seen just
come out and magically learn to wake board or to ski.
Because the most advantageous thing in Australia is you have wide open space and you feel like,
you feel you own this place.
Sometimes when I go down to beach I feel like no-one on the beach, only me.
So, like, I feel good.
Never mind Weiping.
Maybe with a few sit-ups youíll be pulling yourself up onto those water-skis again soon.
Letís move on to another sport now, one where you donít get quite so wet but you do get
some sand between your toes, and sometimes in your eyes as well.
Letís join Raisa for a game of beach volleyball.