Simon’s Opening
I sat down with the woman in this article for a two-hour conversation at the Newstars Beijing office. What struck me most was her extraordinary journey:She had applied for nearly every common visa type I’ve encountered in my career — and the outcome was a refusal almost every time.What moved me even more: she is still pressing forward. She is close to succeeding — perhaps next time, she will.
I encouraged her to write down her turbulent story, because it holds real lessons for others still on the journey. I hope you will take the time to read it through to the end,
Stefan Zweig wrote:Every gift of fate carries a hidden price tag.
Some people seem to glide through life effortlessly, while others must endure hardship and push through thorns — and still may not reach where they hoped.
Whether the pursuit is worth it in the end is something each of us must decide for ourselves.
How Many Decades Does a Life Hold?
“How many decades does a life hold? Do you remember, before I went back to China, when we sat on Bondi Beach in Sydney and imagined what our lives would look like ten years from now?”Setting down her coffee cup, my friend Nina across the table posed this heartfelt question, as much a reflection as it was a challenge. We’ve known each other since we were 11 — she’s now 35. We came to Sydney together to study in 2008, then she chose to return to China to build her career while I chose to migrate to Perth.My mind drifted back to the distant days of late 2008.
573→572→573
Where the Dream Began
Before deciding to study in Sydney, I had considered Finland, Canada, and even more seriously, the United States. But in the end, persuaded by my private IELTS tutor at the time, I somehow landed in Australia. Together with my old friend Nina — mentioned above — and her now-husband Ben, we left Beijing one after another to do postgraduate studies in Sydney.Fresh out of university, I was full of enthusiasm. I had never been away from home for so long, nor had I ever been to a city so far away — everything felt new and full of possibility.Having studied arts all along, my English was never particularly strong — even back at the Gaokao. But I was fearless. Despite having attended a second-tier university in China, I didn’t hesitate tochoose the University of New South Wales (UNSW) as my destination. With an IELTS score of 5, I was placed into a full 50 weeks of language preparation. My parents were supportive — they wanted me to settle into my new life and studies in Australia as quickly as possible, so they sent me off without hesitation.
I arrived in Sydney on a student visa (the postgraduate-category 573 visa). After 10 weeks of language classes, I found myself beginning to waver about my future direction.My degree was not in a migration-friendly field, but once I arrived in Australia I found everyone talking about migration, so I got caught up in it too. Word was that switching to TAFE could lead to migration faster. So young and impressionable, I was tempted. Why bother with a postgraduate degree? I was never really cut out for academia. Better to focus on migration,so without a second thought I changed my 573 visa to a 572.And off I went to study at TAFE, happily enough,but I had actually been misled by my migration agent at the time. I thought I was enrolling at NSW TAFE — the state government’s public TAFE — but the institution I actually attended was a private TAFE located right next door to the NSW TAFE Central campus. I even walked into the wrong building on my first day.
After one semester, when I returned home for the Lunar New Year, my parents accidentally discovered what I had done — and they were furious. They insisted that when I returned to Australia, I had to go back to the language programme and then complete my postgraduate degree. If I wanted to study at TAFE, I could do that after graduating, not by abandoning my current studies without a thought.Under pressure from my parents, the following year I changed my 572 visa back to a 573, settled down to finish my language studies, and changed my major to enrol properly at UNSW.The rest of my academic journey went quite smoothly — I never failed a subject, made steady progress each semester, and my professors were pleased with how I had developed after changing my major.
573→485?→573
Skills Assessment — a New Obstacle
Before I knew it, I had finished my postgraduate degree. I looked into the migration policy and found that my field of study was on the long occupation list, with skills assessment being the very first step towards migration,but the requirements for my occupation meant I needed at least one year of relevant work experience. My classmates and I asked our migration agent about it — they just shook their heads. It would be difficult, they said,because most job opportunities in our field were tied to government roles, and government positions required you to already hold PR to get in.And so the classic chicken-and-egg dilemma landed squarely in front of me and my classmates. The agent advised that regardless, if we wanted the Subclass 485 visa, we should complete another one-year programme and combine it with the existing 1.5-year qualification to meet the two-year course duration requirement.And so my classmates and I chose Western Sydney University for our second qualification — to meet the Subclass 485 visa requirements.
While I was studying for my second qualification, my boyfriend at the time — a local white Australian from Western Australia — suggested that I move to WA to live with him and prepare for marriage.So I decided to give it a try — and left Sydney for Perth on the west coast.
573→572
A New Life — Or Was It?
Saying farewell to the friends I had made over three years, I left Sydney — the city where I had lived and studied for three whole years — and arrived in Perth, Western Australia, in late 2011, ready to start a new life. I initially lived with my boyfriend’s family, but given our different cultural backgrounds and daily habits, I eventually moved out to live on my own, with my boyfriend visiting occasionally. About six months later, as I was nearing completion of my second degree,and preparing to apply for the Subclass 485 visa,the agent advised me not to apply for the Subclass 485, but instead to briefly extend my student visa — because in roughly four more months I would be eligible to apply for a partner visa through my de facto relationship with my boyfriend.If I applied for the Subclass 485 at that point, the waiting time alone would be around four months or more.
After discussing it with my boyfriend, we agreed — no Subclass 485, I would renew my student visa instead. But here came the problem: my second degree was on a 573 visa, which covered university-level courses. The renewed student visa would need to be a 572, which represented a step down in course level — technically a reversal, and while applying onshore was easier than applying offshore, it still carried a risk of refusal. Even so, my agent at the time said they were confident they could manage it.And so once again I changed from a 573 to a 572.
572→457 →820
Perhaps Everything is Fate
While waiting,I gradually came to realise that my boyfriend’s father had serious racist attitudes. Having grown up in a first-tier city in China,I had zero tolerance for racism. After a series of confrontations and difficult conversations, my relationship with my boyfriend came to an end.
The migration question was now squarely back in front of me, but the skills assessment hurdle in the skilled migration pathway remained unsolvable. From late 2012, the 457 visa was in its golden era — countless people were using it to gain permanent residency. I was swept up in that wave too. Through a friend’s introduction,I found a fellow Chinese national who ran a local migration and education consultancy. Looking at my TAFE certificate, he patted his chest and assured me he could absolutely handle my case — after all, we were from the same place, and helping each other out was only natural.And so I went to work at his company. But what I did not expect was thatdue to his incompetence, my 457 visa application was actually refused.Holding the refusal letter, I felt like I had been struck by lightning — utterly powerless.
I started running between migration agents and solicitors’ offices, trying to find a real solution. Through a friend who had already successfully migrated, I was introduced to a Singapore-based lawyer of Indian background. He reviewed my case and was direct with me:he told me to find work related to my postgraduate field of study, and apply for a fresh 457 visa — bypassing the earlier 457 application that had been tied to my TAFE diploma.Because my degree was in a relevant field, he also advised against applying directly for a Subclass 186 or Subclass 187 visa — that would increase the risk of refusal. The safer path was to first get the 457, then transition to a 186. I was sceptical but had no better option. Following his advice, I lodged an appeal with the AAT. While awaiting the outcome, I could continue making arrangements onshore. Then, to buy more time, I reached out to my ex-boyfriend and asked for his help. And so, going round and round,my visa changed from a 572 to a Subclass 820 (temporary), while I kept working hard to find an employer sponsor.
820→457
Caught Deep in the Wheel of Fate
Spending every day in pursuit of an employer sponsor, I finally found hope in an old newspaper job advertisement from that year:I tracked down a business owner I had once thought about working for casually when I first moved to Perth. He heard me out, happened to need someone at that very moment, and was willing to help — and just like that, I had found employer sponsorship.
But after everything I had been through — especially the period following the refusal — I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I had no idea how much longer I could keep going, and no idea whether the lawyer was truly reliable.And so I told him I wanted to go back to China for a while, firstly because with a refusal record I genuinely could not lodge a new application onshore, and secondly because my Subclass 820 (stage one) visa would allow me to re-enter Australia at any time — but mostly I was just completely worn out,and I thought to myself: if this 457 was refused too, I would seriously consider returning to China for good.
And so on 30 June 2014, I returned to China to await the outcome of my new 457 application. In the meantime, I found new work back home, and life settled into a normal rhythm.One day in early September, I opened my email to find a message from the lawyer — and the very first word was congratulations. In that moment, I burst into tears. I had done it. My new 457 visa had been granted — a four-year visa!I instinctively leapt to my feet in excitement — my colleagues around me had no idea what was happening. I resigned from my job in China and returned to Perth before Christmas 2014. As soon as the new year was over in 2015, I started work.Everything felt like a fresh start, and everything was full of hope — just like that young girl who arrived wide-eyed in late 2008. Once again, I greeted the rising sun with full confidence.
457→186
The Path You Choose, You Must See Through
Life gradually settled down. In mid-2015, I met the man who would become my husband. He is from Hong Kong, China, and had come to Australia on a working holiday visa — by some twist of fate, he ended up staying in Perth. Later, with help from my parents, I bought a house, and we married in mid-2016. The lawyer advised that my husband should not be added to my 457 visa as a secondary applicant just yet — better for him to study English on a student visa first,and then we would include him when I transitioned from the 457 to a Subclass 186 PR visa in early 2017. So my husband extended onto a student visa after his working holiday visa expired, studied English for a period, and then in early 2017 we applied for the Subclass 186 visa together.
He then entered a lengthy bridging visa period while I continued to work on my 457 visa. We thought the final victory was almost within reach,but in September 2018, after 17 long months of waiting, what we received was a refusal letter.I thought the grounds for refusal were very thin — essentially, because the business owner’s turnover had been declining year on year, the Department felt he was no longer in a position to adequately sponsor me, and so the visa was refused.I refused to accept it and lodged an AAT appeal as quickly as possible, but faced with the refusal letter and the financial statements that couldn’t be changed, my employer no longer had the courage or confidence to help me fight the AAT case. I pleaded with him not to withdraw the appeal — just give me some time to work out what to do next.
600→572→590
Back to Square One
I visited several solicitors and migration agents. When they saw the journey I had been through, they all just shook their heads in dismay. I then turned my attention to Western Australian state nomination,the old problem of work experience for the skills assessment had by now become much easier to resolve,but the language score requirements had risen sharply, and the points-based system felt almost mythical in its demands.I was no longer young, and I truly had no other options. But fate had one more big joke to play on me:although my occupation was on the WA state nomination list, it was not under the General stream — only the Graduate stream — and since I had completed my postgraduate degree in New South Wales, not WA, I was ineligible. Furthermore, because I had only studied for one year in WA, I did not meet the requirement for two years of local study in WA for state nomination either,so I could not immediately apply for WA state nomination.
To work towards state nomination, I completed my skills assessment and sat a new English test, but because my visa time was running out,there was simply no way around having to apply for a student visa again, and this time it was the 572 category again,which made it significantly more difficult this time,but regardless, because of the refusal record on file, I had to depart Australia first — just as before — and then re-enter to lodge the application.
With a spirit of trying anything at this point, my husband and I tidied up the house briefly,and around July 2020 we left Australia, and I returned to China,where I then applied for a visitor visa — only to have it refused as well. At the same time, my husband — holding a Hong Kong SAR passport — was able to apply online and entered Australia without issue. In September 2020, one of us successfully entered Australia, while the other was left behind in China.With my student visa application clearly going nowhere, we changed our approach: my husband would apply for the student visa instead,but because of the previous Subclass 186 refusal on record, his application was also risky. The agent advised that when he lodged the student visa, he should not include me — wait until his visa was granted, then add me afterwards.So my husband applied for the student visa on his own, received his grant around February 2020, and formally enrolled in the cookery programme at TAFE in March. But while I was waiting for the accompanying family member visa under his student visa, the global pandemic erupted, and I was stuck in China indefinitely.In April 2020, my guardian/accompanying family member visa was granted. After all the refusals I had faced, I once again held a valid visa to Australia.
590→485→?
The Long Way Round
From July 2019 to the end of 2021 — two and a half years apart — Australia introduced a new policy with preferential conditions for holders of Hong Kong SAR passports. Holders of the Subclass 485 who lived in a regional area for three years, or a non-regional area for four years, would be eligible to transition to permanent residency, and I as a family member could be included.
So the current plan is for my husband to graduate and apply for the Subclass 485 around March 2022 — after which, whether to take the WA graduate state nomination pathway or the Hong Kong special stream is something we will decide then.
20
22
For the Rest of My Life, I Will Keep Fighting on This Land
To borrow the words of my friend from the opening: how many decades does a person’s life hold? After going through 573 to 572, back to 573 then back to 572, then 457, refusal then AAT appeal, then Subclass 820 stage one, back to 457 then Subclass 186, then another AAT appeal, then a visitor visa, then a Subclass 500 student visa, and now Subclass 485, or Subclass 491, or Subclass 190…
more than a decade of my life has been replaced by one visa code after another.But life goes on. I never imagined I would have this much fight in me. Yet the relentless pressure of KPIs and rankings I was raised on has driven me to keep climbing to where I am today. You might say — is it really worth it? What’s so great about Australia? Honestly, Australia isn’t perfect. But there is something deeply ingrained in us — Chinese people grow up steeped in competition and rankings, driven from childhood to outperform,and somehow, if this thing doesn’t have an ending, I just can’t let it go. That’s just my personality.
So for the rest of my life, I will keep fighting on Australian soil.
Simon’s Closing Remarks
In the past, when I heard about difficult migration journeys, the word that often came to mind was “tragic” — but having read through this particular story,I would describe it as “heroic sorrow”. Behind each seemingly understated sentence lies a piece of real, lived pain. Human joys and sorrows are never truly shared — no one can ever fully understand another’s experience,setbacks in life are never themselves the treasure — it is the reflection on those setbacks that becomes the treasure,and for all the admiration this story evokes, neither you nor I would want to live through it.
So to those who are still on the same road, what I want to say is this: along the way you will encounter countless crossroads — fast-track pathways, special windows, whatever they may be — but without sound, holistic planning and the right people by your side, what looks like an opportunity can turn into an uncontrollable spiral.
For 2022, we wish everyonealong this journeyas few detours as possible.
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