The confession of an "outdated" international student

——Comments by the author of "Time Gone with the Wind".

It has been eight years since I came to Australia in a blink of an eye, and it has been more than six years since I said goodbye to my study abroad career. As a member of the "Going Abroad" movement, I am glad that I have enough courage and perseverance to record my troubled years.

There are hundreds of millions of overseas travelers, and I believe that everyone will have their own unique story. But as this unique species, the difficulties to conquer are mostly the same. Take the TOEFL IELTS, say goodbye to loved ones, work and study, graduate with difficulty, find a job, get married and have children, return to your roots or die of old age. Almost all overseas Chinese are repeating this eternal old path, which is why some people can see themselves in miniature when they read my story.

The original intention of writing the semi-autobiographical novel "Time Gone with the Wind" was threefold, one was to give an explanation to the first half of his life that was not very good, and at the same time, he also wanted to give an explanation to his parents and even the parents of all overseas travelers. At least let them know how their children live and work hard abroad. Then I want to re-examine how I transformed from a boy who didn't know anything about the world to a man. I hope that when I get old, I will look back at my youth, maybe some places are not satisfactory, but it is also a good memory in my life, so as to prove that my years have not been wasted. The third is to give a little advice to the brothers and sisters who are about to embark on the road of studying abroad, not that they will take fewer detours, the detours in life are their own valuable life experience, which cannot be avoided, but I just hope that they can get something useful from the experience of their predecessors.

The character of Wendi Zhang in the novel is actually a microcosm of some of my own daily life, and about 75% of the events in the novel are my own personal experiences, and a small part is taken from the stories that happened to my friends. The supporting characters in the book are also real in Australia, but they are just fictitious names. Perhaps some of the plots in the book are very novel or even incomprehensible to domestic readers, but they are very common in the state of life in Australia. I believe that all international students will experience these so-called "culture shocks", and we will have to accept them or we will not be able to integrate into the local society.

Some readers have emailed to complain that the characters in the book are too dark, but in fact, this is closer to reality and the cruel youth of overseas students. We are alien in foreign countries, and we will be treated unequally to a certain extent, and if we want to succeed, we will have to work harder. Although everyone likes to watch the stories of heroes, I still hope to reflect the most realistic portrayal with the most realistic setting.

The original ending of the novel was not set to be a happy ending that everyone sees now, my original intention was to set a tragic ending to let the protagonist repay the debt he owed at the beginning, but I felt that the tragic ending could not resonate with readers, and it could not be better connected to the sequel of this book, so it was revised to the happy ending that everyone sees now, but I promise that this will not be the final result, more confusing plots, and more sadistic romance, will be presented to you in the sequel.