Waqar Khalid arrived in Australia on 18th February 1995 from Qatar as an 11 year old with his parents and six siblings. His parents are originally from Lahore, Pakistan.
"I remember I ran around the school and I had, like, this little recorder that I took from my dad ... I knew I was leaving so I’d make fake interviews ... I've kept [the tape] because it's, like, memories – it reminds you of something – of this is what I’d left behind."
"In Qatar ... even the English that, like, we used to speak ... was all learned from books ... it was all written ... it wasn't, like, experienced ... so we didn't have any slang English ... Coming here, the first thing I noticed was that I'm going to have to learn, like, how to speak ... normally, not speak from books. ... 'Shall we go to dinner?' It's, like, yeah, 'I'm hungry. I want to eat!'"
"I remember the day we landed and I asked my mum, like, 'Where are we?' And she goes, 'We're in Sydney.' ... I didn't even really know what Sydney is. ... Is it a state? Is it a city? What is it?"
