In the week-plus that we've arrived in our new home Australia, it's been an eventful one which we experienced juxtaposed weather patterns, fantastic public toilets, gorgeous forest trail drives, below-par Chinese food (sorry, just because you slapped on "Han's Delights" doesn't fool the palette), wonderful reunions with our dogs at a top-rated quarantine facility (under two more weeks now until they get to come home!) amongst a blitz of programmes and distractions.
Unfortunately (depending which side of the globe your batting pendelum swings) the Australians lost the Ashes this week to England and that brought up a distant discourse from the banks of memories that we had from our travels in which we had some clever discussions regarding "what is being Australian?" with some local well-read and travelled mates from Down Under who remained until today, as good friends of ours. Of course having spent a great deal of my adult years in South Australia, I have become quite enamoured with all things Adelaidean and her wonderful cousins outside the 'burbs. And that includes my admiration for "our" legendary Sir Donald Bradman. That was a debate of a quality that suggested healthy disparaging opinions, quite entertaining beyond the appalling peanuts and beers that we had in the little sail boat that kept us hostage for three nights in the middle of a really big China river. After all, we were adults that commanded a decent level of respect for one and all, irrelevant of which camp you bet on in cricket and all things immigration.
Which is the reason I have become suspiciously intrigued with the ongoing observation that came fleeting at first, only to build up to a crescendo of obvious apparent presence from the intensity of it being discussed in the mass media, subtle side news clippings notwithstanding.
Of course it would be premature and tempting to throw the baby out with the water and conclude that it's really all but a malaise endemic to Western Australia. Instead I am adding on our previous trips to this great state, onto now, our first step into settling down in Australia through this gateway, as part of the experience I have accumulated from studying, living and working as a full-fee and tax-paying individual since the day I stepped onshore South Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria. In short, I have a mere close decade of getting to understand and enjoying embracing the lifestyle I have come to love in Australia. Call it innocence but I have chosen a route that allowed me to approach each face and fact as an open blank page. Yes, there were times when it was hard to resist comparing but I have always been proud of myself that I can reel my senses back to the fact that I have chosen to come to Australia and this is home now, one that wrote a giant chapter of my life, gave an instrumental guide in my tertiary education and provided a brighter future for my initiatives and effort.
So, yes, it did strike a personal surprise when I saw a group of cyclists (one of my most favourite people on Earth) bearing a huge banner "Love it, or leave" cutting through the pristine waters of the Swan River's path. Disturbingly, I could not ignore more blatant car stickers hooning on the same message. More worrying news of massive drunken assaults in the public. Fashion of shoot and run. Is the bogan / hooner / alcohol-fuelled culture coming up as an alternative for a growing number of Australians? Panic is talking, you may cite.
I do understand our world has changed and we do live in a fairly more complicated mix of (insert your preference)-phobia, suspicious unidentified black bags in public places culture, and a refusal from a number of percentage from the visiting / migrating community to mix and learn from their new home country.
Believe me, nothing frustrates me more than seeing my own "kin" (read: Asians) keeping to their own level of superiority complex and being unadaptable to a new code of conduct and morality in complying to what works and what not in Australia. Trust me that I will be the first one to speak up - purely because this is not a question of loyalty but one of social respect and common sense - be it that this happens in my own native country or my new migrant country. Hear me, as this can be a simple as a fundamental question as requesting this careless South Asian lad to thank a white senior Australian lady, not because I think we are of an inferior lot but basically it is a matter of courtesy.
(note: This example above happened in a train station in which, giving the benefit of the doubt, the young lad hadn't realise that he dropped his train ticket and the lady picked it up for him and handed it over. Unfortunately, part of an inherent (deeper social discussion could be hinted in my previous blog entries in my observation in the gender-imbalance from some of the countries that we had travelled to and observed) culture that had seeped into the Australian system as exemplified by one migrant here alone, no thank-you came back)
I am not writing this to spark up a "whose wrong is it?" or go on an endless fruit chase down the Alice-in-wonderland-rabbit-hole-path to point a finger at any side (Australian or otherwise). I do not believe that we sleep better any night by playing judge and jury to persecute one guilty party to hold all the charges. Life just doesn't work out that way.
In this one short week we had been moving about, we did keep to being as civilised and observe a manner to watch and learn from how things are being done here. Goes without saying too that we bring with ourselves the good behaviour and public courtesy that our family upbringing had incultivated in our daily dealings with the people we have met across the service industry, odd shoppers around the malls and shops, and people sharing the walking paths along the parks. Plainly speaking, no different from the respect that we would exude and expect when we travel within Malaysia, the greater region and around the many exotic cultures around the world.
A shocker came when we became "victims" of comments to "move ahead" because we were sharing a two-lane pathway and the father and son were deeming it that we were too dim-witted to give way. Another shot back a "you don't have to be in my way" when we were stopping at a traffic path before crossing to the other side of a busy street albeit there was enough space for a group of lateral queuers side-by-side. Mind you, all sounded minor, but said with a hint of discriminatory tone to it, it's an entirel different ball game.
Life stress, anyone?
I am not highlighting these two examples to henpick on the rare individuals who may have provoked a racial suspicion. What came as a complete eye-opener is the lack of compassion that I had come to accept as common Australian warmth from my time spent in this country in the past. I had seen violent racial confrontation only to be comforted by Australians - complete strangers on the street - and I have seen fathers standing up against bad behaviour because they didn't want their children to learn and accept that bullying, of any sort, against any creed, colour, religion, physical form and education level, is just that - wrong. I have many friends and colleagues who supported anti-racism in its simplest form - it is wrong. Hence, it dismayed myself a little when I experienced, although directly given at my husband, whom at the moment, probably (as un-PC as it sounds) belongs to the flavour of the moment when it comes to massive immigration infiltration and as a result of his skin colour, becomes the unwilling poster boy for all things anti-South Asian. If I have been here a few decades earlier, perhaps I would be the flavour of the moment too. Vietnam. Boat people. Remember? That's until another race and culture bring with them, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
There could be plenty I can rant about. An easy way to justify the ill feelings surfacing from a racial slur, mild as it may be, could be to quickly generalise it with the state of people it came from. I could immaturely classify Western Australia as a resource-rich state (quote) with an 11-pm bedtime and drinking culture inherited from the 70s and 80s (end quote), or Australia as a desperate player of the bigger global community wanting to carve a piece of identity for itself in the new arena and risking sinking itself into the same pool of inconsistency that Switzerland and France had in their dealings and reaction in relation to Islamaphobia, which in my humble opinion, still stem from a staunch finger pointing the blame and gathering all logic behind the face of the veil as a representation of all things evil, without understanding the deeper culture of the purdah.
The presentation of the new show in Afghanistan, "The Mask" was not done to propel the individuals who are daring to push the boundaries of the past and present a more hopeful present and future for freedom of speech. Instead, disappointingly, the show here fell flat as a three-day old pancake in missing the point. It is not about how many women are still suffering from oppresion in Afghanistan. Yes, it is still humiliatingly high but the point here is that her people are wanting to speak up and they can push the fences further. I fear that that local show has only successfully showed that Afghanistan is still hell on Earth and everyone that came off the boat from this country ought to be deported. I admit I was once guilty of such ignorance until the blessed chance to meet the people of some of the most remote and misunderstood regions in the world had changed my perception. I am speaking and sharing up here so that you don't have to walk my previous path. I am no saint but think about this: they are no different from you and me. We all share the same aspirations for a better world for our children and a dash of positive hope for ourselves. Yes, we may differ in our choice of utensils when it comes to devouring a roast chicken but heck, in a year's time, does that really matter? I am standing on a holy ground of more crucial matters - respect, values, concrete tipping points that can make us an uglier judgemental person or one that chooses to understand and help to educate. As a mother-to-be, I will teach my child that his / her allegiance is towards her country of birth, which is Australia despite their having a Chinese-Indian culture and parents born outside of this country. Our child will bring to Australia his / her abilities enriched by the fact that our families have chosen to come together above differing cultures. It's not about being genetically "better" but it's really about a much more diverse platter of goodies that we can bring to the room.
I am not citing that Australia has to change itself to adjust to the incoming boat people. But there are also hardworking migrants (like us) who chose to build a new future here. We paid good money and uprooted ourselves from a familiar background because we believe Australia is one of the best countries in the world to start a new adventure, despite faults of generalisation that "all migrants are here to get free rent accommodation and social benefits". I have to look for a job. I will look for a job happily because I want to contribute to Australia. I don't whinge about the high taxes because I choose to see that Australia gives back in the forms of great social facilities such as something you may find as banal as a parents room in a shopping mall, public health care, superb animal rights, care for the less well-off. I believe that what I pay out will go to helping the greater circle of less fortunate ones in the system. I want to travel outside the city areas because I want to learn about my new home, her indigenous flora and fauna, her people, her history. I do not want to judge because I believe I can learn more in approaching things more openly. Most of all, I want to keep opening my mind and negate old perceptions so that we will learn to better ourselves from old mistakes.
With that, I hope to see some form of reciprocal effort from my fellow Australians. It's not about knowing who Sir Don Bradman is or Phar Lap's record. Australia is more than a few innings and a bush pub. The fabric of her society is changing, come hail or shine. Australia cannot continue to want to be a player on a global platform yet refuse to embrace its complexities. It's more than just a word of sorry. The world is watching and a time in the future will surely arrive in which Australia just cannot stand alone. Then what? How do we define ourselves? What if we are in need of an outstretched hand but refuse to clasp it because we couldn't get over our own confusion in our identity?
This is not about White or Non-white supremacy. It's not about first in best dressed (otherwise I would be going non-stop on the rights and recognition of what's indigenous and what's native, the boat people and an entire can of worms will wriggle out). I am not going to ask anyone to leave because I don't see any point in aggression. I believe in awareness and how we can bring all to the table. It starts with a handshake. It begins with education. It's heck of a lot more work and angst but in the longer future, this is worth it.
Because by asking someone to leave, we are really taking something away from ourselves.
