[hahs_63-68] Re: SECOND GENERATION ORSTRALIANS

Hi Geoff,

Next time you're in old bonny Scotland, you could try eating haggis for a month.

Let's see how rooted you are then.

Cheers,
Tony

On 18/03/2012, at 4:17 PM, Geoff Goodfellow wrote:

> Bonjour, Salut  gentlemen
>  
> Max I suspect anyone who has travelled in any country (including France.... 
> particularly France) for more than three weeks will agree that there comes a 
> time to try another form of cuisine other than the local stuff. 
>  
> I recall eating full English breakfasts every bloody day for a month in B @ 
> Bs through England, Scotland and Wales and it took me a long time to face 
> bacon, eggs, sausages, baked beans and fried bread again.  Same as France.  
> You eat too many of their butter soaked saucy, garlic ridden dishes day after 
> day and you would probably have clogged arteries in a fortnight.  In Germany 
> after 3 weeks you'd pay anything for a big plate of fresh vegetables - every 
> German meal is laced with huge lashings of meat, but very few veggies - 
> lovely tucker, but there comes a time when enough is enough. 
>  
> So yes I agree, when in France certainly eat French food (I will - let's face 
> it I ate reindeer and Elk every day for a couple of weeks in Finland), but 
> if, after a couple of weeks, I spot some other more interesting tucker, 
> particularly something healthy and light like a Vietnamese vegetable dish, 
> bugger the Frogs, I'm up for a change in diet.  I will probably force myself 
> to stick to French red wine though and forgo the temptation to try too much 
> Vietnamese plonk on the streets of Paris.
>  
> Peter, I agree with Max - that was a really thoughtful yarn.  My roots are in 
> Scotland, and even though it was two generations ago, bagpipes still always 
> manage to stir something in my soul.  When at the council I re-wrote the 
> citizenship pledges to get rid of all the jingoistic crap and encourage new 
> citizens to embrace what is good about Australia, but to not ever forget 
> their own country and what was good about it.  Mind you it would have been 
> telling them how to suck eggs, because nobody every forgets where ther grew 
> up, but it needed to be said. Actually Richard you put it more eloquently 
> when you suggested welcoming new citizens to Oz was like welcoming your wife 
> into the lounge room.  When people say Australia is a melting-pot of 
> different cultures I prefer to think of it as a smorgasbord of cultures, 
> where you get to sample individual bits rather than a khaki mixed-up soup of 
> a thing, but that's also a bit corny too isn't it?
>  
> Come to think of it Richard, if you are letting your good wife roam about in 
> the loungeroom perhaps you've made the chain from the kitchen and the bedroom 
> a tad too long. 
>  
> Now that should elicit a response from someone.
>  
> À bientȏt.
> 
>  
> Goodfella
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Max Cochrane
> To: hahs_63-68@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2012 1:35 PM
> Subject: [hahs_63-68] Re: second generation Orstralians
> 
> Peter,
> 
> I am pleased to have read your email. Thankyou for the contribution. It 
> always pleases me to interact with people from other places who have immersed 
> themselves and embraced Australia as home.  Noone should forget their roots 
> unless they choose to. 
> 
> Some of the people I come across in business and pleasure are now second and 
> third generation living here and it is so good to call them Australians when 
> they accept this as home. Some of the nicest people one could meet. 
> 
> What I find hard to tolerate is people who move here and want to make it a 
> suburb of another country, and often want to cause problems, and sometimes 
> recreate some of the issues they left behind. There is room for everyone who 
> wants to live here provided they accept the way of life. 
> 
> I am still wondering why anyone would want to go to a Vietnamese restaurtant 
> in France?  You can do that here, or in Vietnam.   
> 
> Best ,
> 
> Max
> 
> From: peterbarda@xxxxxxxxxxx
> To: hahs_63-68@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [hahs_63-68] Re: second generation Orstralians
> Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:18:44 +1100
> 
> Richard and others
>  
> I'm an accidental Australian. My parents spent 3 years in various displaced 
> persons camps in Germany after WW 2.
> In 1948 they could choose between a few countries that were taking  refugees, 
> Australia amongst them. They couldn't agree on where to settle.
> Eventually they agreed that Australia would be the honeymoon (Dad wanted to 
> get as far away from Europe as possible), and then after a few years they'd 
> move to Canada (Mum's choice).
> One of the great lies/unfulfilled promises - Mum never got further than 
> Melbourne in the 54  years she lived here.
>  
> So, English became my second language, and I salute the Australian flag.
> Language could just as well have been German, Swedish, Spanish (Argentina was 
> an option in 1948), and I might have marched in Vietnam moratorium demos in 
> the USA rather than down Broadway and George Street from Sydney Uni.
>  
> I have more family in Latvia than here. My father had been married before the 
> war to another woman,  something he and Mum chose not to tell us.
> We did not know that until I was close to 20, when someone who had known Dad 
> before the war asked my sister after Dad's first wife and 3 kids.
> The Russians got between the family in Latvia and Dad in Germany.
>  
> My first trip to Latvia was in 1999, when I met the extended family (half 
> brother, half sisters and their progeny) and Dad's first wife.
> She was an agronomist, as my father had been.
>  
> Long story to make a couple of observations.
> From my earliest memories we spoke Latvian at home, and understood that the 
> language was the culture carrier. Once it stopped being used, our Latvianness 
> would disappear too.
> My 2 sons speak no Latvian and have no interest in the place - although they 
> have finally made time in their busy schedules (!) to visit Latvia with me 
> this year.
> So, no language, no culture, no interest.
>  
> My blood is Latvian, and even though I have been there only twice, I feel a 
> considerable sense of connection.
> There's a cemetery in the small town my father and his forebears lived in, 
> with ancestors buried back to 1753.
> No less powerful a link than (I guess) our aborigines' sense of connection to 
> country.
>  
> For the first 2 or 3 days of my first trip to Latvia I found myself 
> translating Latvian to English before framing a response.
> After that, the translation thing stopped and it was as if there was only one 
> language - I found myself thinking in Latvian.
>  
> At the risk of courting a rebuke from Stu Cardwell about the perils of 
> xenophobia, you can't deny the claim of blood or language.
> (In my view!)
>  
> Cheers
>  
> Peter Barda
> 'Bigpond'
> 755 Sandy Creek Road
> Quorrobolong   NSW  2325
> T: +61 (2) 4998 6251  F: +61 (2) 4998 6154  M: 0418 438 550  E: 
> peterbarda@xxxxxxxxxxx
>

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