Why our young people are being overlooked in building closer ties with our (Indonesian) neighbours!
My next door neighbours who went to live overseas last month were nice people. They had lived next door to us for many years and we knew them quite well. Or sort-of ‘quite well’ that is. We would meet at the front of the house when watering the garden or moving the cars, and always it was pleasant and cordial. We were on first-names basis, but that was it really. And as we look back, only now I realise that maybe we didn’t have a relationship that was deeper and more embracing of really nice people. Don’t get me wrong; we did get on ju…
Bali. Is the party over? Tourist arrivals fall in January 2013
The number of Australian tourists flying into their paradise island of Bali have fallen for the first time in almost eight years. In January, 58,588 Aussies landed at Bali's international airport. This compared with 64,418 for the same period in 2012, representing a fall of 9.05%. So is the party over for Bali? It's too early to say, but it should be noted that overall tourist arrivals into Bali were down 14.35% for the same period helped along by a significant decline in numbers from China, as Chinese citizens stayed home for thei…
Why Nicola Roxon needs to hide under her bed in shame
So our former attorney-general, Nicola Roxon has stood down after 12 years in parliament because.."I need to spend more time with my daughter" ...and "..if I stood for another term my daughter would be in high school before I retired and spend some time with her.." How touching and sweet! ... Well, Nicola, just ask most other mum's in the real world,who are working, if they would like to retire at 46 years of age to 'spend more time with their children' whilst receiving a tax-free cheque from the gove…
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie..Where do I belong?
I shared a coffee with a friend of mine late year and he was recounting an all too common story of being tailgated by a young 'hoon' in a hotted-up ute with 'mag' wheels. At the traffic lights, the music was blaring and the young man was proudly flashing 'tatts' on his sun-bronzed arms and played with his 'goaty' beard as he tapped the steering-wheel aggressively. As the lights turned green, the ute raced-off, wheels screeching. Stupid! My friend and I agreed that whilst this sort of behaviour is indeed ‘s…
Kids caught between cultures
...They live everywhere, but belong nowhere. It is perfectly normal to feel foreign in a foreign country. What is not normal is to feel foreign in your own country. “Going back ‘home’ was the hardest journey of all because I didn’t belong, and felt even more alienated than going to a completely new land .”- Jason from Canada. Welcome to the world of the Third Culture Kid , or TCK as they are now known. So what is a TCK and what are the positives and challenges of finding oneself as a ‘Global Nomad’? A TCK can be defined as a p…
Australia must also share methanol blame
Magic mushrooms made me sick. It was 1972 and I was sitting on an almost deserted beach called Kuta watching two sunsets at the one time, thanks to the effect of the ‘magic mushrooms’ that I had consumed. It was a stupid thing to have done, but I was 20 years of age and living in this paradise called Bali. As many baby boomers who travelled overseas in the seventies would know, as a traveller in those days, you were very much on your own and being in Bali was no different. There were no flights between Bali and Australia, no iPa…
Happy New Year From Iconic Cottesloe Beach in WA
New Year’s Eve, 2012. A lovely still, balmy night and one of Australia’s iconic beaches: Cottesloe. We arrive at ‘Cott’ around 10pm to see young people splashing in the calm waters below us and other kids playing cricket on the sand under the lights. The beachfront lawns are packed with families sitting on rugs, enjoying a glass of wine and food; either fish ‘n chips Aussie-style or some of the delicious ‘hawker’ food being sold by the vendors who had been given council approval to bring their food-carts to the beach for th…
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