Brexit or not, one place in the UK still welcomes foreigners
In 1985, we had a dream of a better world, a world that came together like Captain Planet’s Planeteers to solve problems. We, the human race, joined hands across the oceans and saved not just the lives of people in need, but “our own lives” at the same time. Because, as dozens of rock stars told us, “We are the world”.
In this more ironic age, the USA for Africa song seems more insipid than inspiring – but it was a time where people really did believe in common-sense international solutions. Sure, many of those people were rock stars, who tend to solve any problem by inserting themselves into it. And looking back, it was sometimes difficult to discern the line between selfless acts of charity and a career-enhancing stadium gig.
But Live Aid made a difference, both in terms of awareness and fundraising. And We Are The World’s writer Michael Jackson and his band of idealistic musos seem far removed from a Presidential nominee who’s more interested in building walls than solving hunger.
But there was a time when Britain did believe in internationalism, and in people from around the world coming together to make things better. I know because I lived bang smack in the middle of it.
In 1985, the year of We Are The World, my family and I moved to Britain and lived in the heart of central London, in a place called William Goodenough House. (The surname never stopped being amusing, especially since the whole place is now called Goodenough College. It’s more than good enough – it’s really nice.)
The place was founded by a bunch of bankers who wanted to give promising lads from the colonies a chance to come and experience the Mother Country, while the building I lived in had been built with funds raised by the Lord Mayor of London to thank the Commonwealth for its WWII food parcels.
For a 9-year-old kid from what was then a relatively white-bread part of Sydney, this was a mindblowing experience. Suddenly I was living alongside Canadians, Africans, South East Asians, West Indians and even some Americans who’d somehow been allowed in despite not being in the Commonwealth.
There were even New Zealanders, which meant that for the first time, I heard about the notorious underarm incident. And then I heard about it again, every time I met a New Zealander.
There were regular parties hosted by students from various countries. Banquets were cooked, songs were sung, national dress was worn, and all were welcome – I’ll never forget my first smell of durian at a Singapore National Day event. It was a place where diversity was not a buzzword, but an everyday reality
We kids had access to a room with a snooker table in it, endless corridors to sprint down before getting told off by a staff member, and our own enormous private park with a locked gate to keep us safe. And we enjoyed them all with friends from all over the world. It was an idyllic experience.
I went and stayed back at the college in May for the first time since we left in 1987. These days it welcomes students from every country, and over the years the College has been in operation, many of them have ended up getting married. Some of their kids have come back to study themselves.
Walking around the pristine grounds of Goodenough College last month, watching a kaleidoscope of students breakfasting in the café and dressing up for a formal dinner, I realised how lucky I was to have grown up there myself. We lived among so many people, who looked and talked so differently from one another, that there really was no “normal”.
My visit made me wish that I’d studied overseas myself, and had the chance to build a fresh network of friends from around the world as a grown-up. And I hope that if I ever have kids myself, I’ll be able to give them that same practical experience of discovering that the world is full of many kinds of people, and that we all have an enormous amount in common.
Specifically, being better at football than me was something that every other kid had in common. But we still all got together after school to do it, and I still loved every minute.
More than three decades after We Are The World, our planet seems more divided than ever. But I still believe that we can work together for a common cause, even if it’s just beating me at football. And at an early age, I grew comfortable living next to people who don’t look or talk like me, and learned that the wider your experience of the world, the richer your life is.
I’m still so grateful that Britain first gave me the chance to experience that. And for my childhood in a part of the country that’s still more interested in opening its doors than slamming them shut.
Rocking out in Thainatown
Once upon a time, the pubs of inner-city Australia were full of music. Or so we’re told by those lucky enough to have lived through those halcyon days. Global names like Midnight Oil, INXS and Cold Chisel blazed a trail for local heroes like Regurgitator, the Whitlams and, for all I know, Frenté (hey, they were big when I was in high school). And they packed out many a local from the Seventies through to the Nineties.
Then the pokies came. Publicans decided that live music and the beer its audiences consumed weren’t lucrative enough, and cordoned off part of their establishments to become windowless dens full of banknote-devouring ‘gaming’ machines.
In a pokie room, the only original compositions you’ll hear are the dinky electronic bleeps played on the rare occasions when players defy the heavily-stacked odds and win something. But nobody ever took home an ARIA Award for a pokie jingle.
The profits were so great that there was no need to lure in the public with live entertainment, and the hotel business changed so that serving alcoholic drinks became merely a means of getting a pokie license. The opportunities for new bands shrank away, and nowadays live music in a hotel is an occasional indulgence.
But there’s one place where live music is still a drawcard. Any night of the week, you can hear five or six-piece bands performing until the wee hours of the morning. And even at 1.30am on a Tuesday, the fans are out in force to enjoy it.
You won’t see these bands on the Australian charts or touring the world, and I don’t feel I’m being uncharitable if I suggest that they won’t become household names, at least in this country. Because the bands, most of the audiences and much of the music that they play are Thai.
What’s surely now Sydney’s liveliest music scene can be found in the Thainatown region of Sydney, along Pitt and Campbell Sts in Sydney, between World Square and the Capitol Theatre, and to a non-Thai like myself, it’s an incredible thing to perceive.
There are roughly a dozen bars and restaurants where bands chug away each night in a range of genres from the power ballad to the crooned ballad – and sometimes with a power-chord rocker thrown in the mix as well. The bands play long sets of covers, reading the chord charts and lyrics off iPads. The songs are mostly in Thai, but there’s an occasional English-language track too.
A couple of weeks ago, my wife, brother and sister-in-law went for a late meal on a Thursday night. Despite it being 11.30pm, At Bangkok, a restaurant in the food court adjoining the Capitol Theatre, was still packed full of customers enjoying stir fries and noodle soups.
Bands play here more or less nightly, and when we were sitting a table away from them, tonight’s troupe of six musicians were kind enough to vary the Thai pop with a few songs we knew, including a version of ‘Fix You’ by Coldplay so heartfelt that it would have had Gwyneth Paltrow consciously recoupling. They even gave Crowded House a crack, in honour of their and the band’s mutual adopted country.
I particularly enjoyed the wholehearted Guitar Hero soloing moves from the lead guitarist, who deserved to be playing his axe behind his back in some packed stadium somewhere instead of pumping out the jams while people slurped tom yum goong. There was a sense of playfulness which meant that the musos really added to the dining experience, and it wasn’t so loud that we couldn’t chat as well.
We walked back past similar groups playing in the Chamberlain Hotel, Mr B’s Hotel, Khao San and a few other eateries along the strip. It was about half-past midnight, and every venue was full of customers.
Thai pop probably isn’t for everybody, given the prevalence of ballads whose delivery is roughly as sugar-laden as a sticky rice and mango dessert. But it’s heartening to see that at least within Sydney’s Thai community, performing live is still valued, and musicians are finding work.
The crowds these bands pack in late on weeknights is a reminder of what used to be commonplace elsewhere in our cities. And perhaps if café and restaurant proprietors visited Thainatown and saw these bands in action, they’d be inspired to bring back live music as a drawcard for their own establishments?
This area was the stomping ground of some legendary Australian bands – the Civic Hotel was a famous rock’n’roll venue in its previous incarnation, regularly featuring the likes of INXS and Chisel, and the ABC recorded Midnight Oil’s gig at the Capitol in 1982, next door to where we saw that Thai band play.
Maybe if more venues took a plunge on live musicians, it’d help develop the next generation of Australian bands? The way things are looking, there’s every chance that some of our next wave of rock gods will have built up their chops playing Thai covers.
What I learned getting naked in public
I was 20 the first time I was invited to get naked in the company of other men. I was in Fukuoka, Japan, accompanying my parents to a conference, and we had been invited to a fancy dinner by the professor who was hosting us.
Before the formal kaiseki meal, our host and his colleagues – nearly all of whom were men – planned to bathe together before changing into bathrobes for the meal. Apparently it’s customary to chillax in the hot tub before an umpteen-course meal, and donning a yukata (a thin robe) afterwards means it’s easier to loosen than your pants as your stomach distends.
But when we were asked to arrive early for a dip, my father and I exchanged a quick glance of terror. We hadn’t shared a bath since I was a toddler, and it definitely didn't seem the ideal time to start, let alone strip off in front of a dozen or so strangers.
Dad made his excuses on behalf of both of us. They were accepted with good grace, and probably put down to foreign eccentricity.
On the night, we arrived to find the bathers lobster-pink and rather jolly, probably thanks to bath beers. I vividly remember how delicious the food was, and how extremely comfortable I wasn’t as I tried to sit cross-legged for several hours – another skill we Westerners tend to lose as we grow older, like communal bathing.
At the time, I was relieved to skip the bath, but in hindsight, it was a mistake. Because I’ve subsequently learned that immersing oneself in steaming hot water is a delightful thing, whether or not you’re in the company of friends – or even substantially older Japanese men, many of whom have limited English.
A decade later, on another trip to Japan, the opportunity presented itself again. We were near Kyoto, staying at a traditional inn called a ryokan – think futons, tatami mats and paper screens. The attendants told us it was time to bathe before dinner, and so we split up, divided by genders. Three gentlemen and I found ourselves disrobing and sinking into the hot spring water for what turned out to be a long and very pleasant chat.
While it was odd at first, bathing dos and don'ts were clear and commonsense: no splashing, no pushing. What was not clear, though, was whether you’re supposed to look, avoid looking, or simply try to ignore the whole nudity thing, which was my approach – it soon seemed unremarkable. We ended up staying in there for well over an hour, until our fingertips and toes grew crinkly and we dragged our bodies out of the water, as red they’d be after a bad sunburn.
I later explored some of the onsen and sento (non-hot spring baths that used to be the only option before modern plumbing) in Tokyo, and came to realise that in Japan, Korea and the other parts of Asia that share this bathing culture, it must be a normal thing to know what all of your same-sex friends – and, more bizarrely, your work colleagues – look like naked.
You’ve all been at the bathhouse together, squatting on those little plastic stools as you rinse yourself with a shower nozzle in preparation to enter the tub. And you’ve noted your friends’ various imperfections, but you have different ones yourself, because really, who among us doesn’t look ridiculous when naked?
In my experience, once your gear is off, other social barriers drop, as well.
By missing out on this, Australians often miss out on not only a brilliant way to relax, especially during winter, but on a quality bonding experience. I’ve never been to Scandinavia, but over there it is common, apparently. It’s not surprising that there, and in the colder parts of Asia, there’s a culture of regularly spending time in an extremely hot space. And here in Australia, we’re only used to changing together for high school sport. It doesn’t have to be weird.
Don’t get me wrong – it is weird, at least at first, but it doesn’t have to be.
A few years ago, a few dozen friends and I went to Sydney’s now-defunct Ginseng Korean bathhouse for a buck’s night. It had several different pools, including a freezing plunge pool, and both a sauna and steam room. Again, it was strange at first, but as a stopover between lawn bowls and the pub, it was a beautiful moment of male bonding. I vowed to become a regular, but unfortunately it closed shortly afterwards.
I’m no exhibitionist, but I wonder whether the Puritan prudishness that’s so common in the West has deprived many Australians of an experience that many of us would come to enjoy. Because in my experience, once your gear is off, other social barriers drop, as well.
Forget mind-altering drugs - learn a language
Australians have grown lazy about studying languages while our own has spread inexorably across the world, but we should make it a national priority.
I’m regularly astonished by the multilingual skills of my Indian relatives. Their first language is Tamil, but they were educated in English, and switch between the languages constantly when they talk among themselves, sometimes forgetting that I can’t understand the Tamil bits because the mix comes so naturally to them. (Either they forget, or are joking about me – I’m not quite sure...)
They also speak Hindi because it’s the national language, and some Sanskrit, too, because it’s the language of the Hindu scriptures.
India’s an extraordinarily multilingual country – it’s the second-largest market for English-language books nowadays – but there are many others. English is widely spoken in Western Europe, and in our own region, most Singaporeans and Malaysians tend to have two or three languages.
In the Philippines, most education is conducted in English and even the laws are written in it. Reading the local newspapers is always a fascinating exercise – the articles are in English, but drop in a few bits of idiomatic Tagalog, on the assumption that their readers are comfortable in both.
But we native speakers miss out when we float through the world in our English-speaking bubbles. There are millions of people out there who can swap between languages as rapidly as Aussie backpackers exchange empty tinnies for full ones.
Whenever I travel overseas, I feel lucky, and not just because the local media never, ever reports what Shane Warne’s said on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. When I visit a country where another language is spoken, I’m reminded how fortunate I am to have grown up speaking English.
Every airport has signage and forms that I can read, and even in remote corners of the earth, there’s still a good chance you’ll get by with a smattering of simple English words.
Sure, there are other options – you can always use hand gestures and mime, and one of my friends once managed to communicate which sort of restaurant he wanted to visit in Hanoi by showing his cyclo driver a picture of a dog. But English is nevertheless a handy language to speak.
French used to be considered the international language of diplomacy, but nowadays the most conspicuous place you’ll find it in international relations is when a few stubborn countries insist on making that awkward switch to “douze points” during Eurovision voting.
Pop singers from all over the world drop English words into their hits (check out Utada Hikaru’s J-pop classic ‘It’s Automatic’ for one especially tasty example), and garments across the world feature English words that make minimal sense to anyone who can comprehend the language – I particularly like this sweater, also from Japan, with ‘Benign’ written on it. The global reach of the internet seems likely to keep English on top for the foreseeable future.
But I learned enough to know that visiting a country is profoundly different when you can talk to the locals. I’ve been able to discover that many French people share my love for long, abstract conversations about the meaning of life that end up magnificently unresolved. I’ve also discovered that they all have at least one cousin living in Bondi.
Plus, when I speak French, I can also quickly dispel the instant assumption that I’m English. This immediately improves how people treat me, especially if I pretend that I’ve been surfing with their cousin Armand.
I do believe that, in general, multilingual people have richer lives. It not only adds enormously to the pleasure of travel and allows us to empathise with more people whose backgrounds are different to our own, but it exposes us to vastly different ways of thinking. It’s mind-expanding in a way that a yoga workshop never can be.
(Oh, and your yoga workshop? Full of Sanskrit.)
For instance, our relationship with our Indonesian neighbours isn’t always a comfortable one – how much better would we be able to understand our regular differences with them if we were literally able to understand them? It’s not just understanding the words, it’s understanding the culture, with priorities and assumptions that aren’t always like our own.
When Kevin Rudd spoke in Mandarin on his visit to China, he sent a potent diplomatic message to the Chinese leadership that he literally understood them. He may have somewhat undermined that message a few years later with those rat-related comments, but he’s nevertheless proof of the lifelong benefits that language study can bring.
Not only is being able to speak languages other than English invaluable for business connections, but it will enrich your life in many other respects, too. You can read Proust in the original French, and better still, you can tell people you can. Who knows, it may even lead to you becoming UN Secretary-General someday?
Originally posted at SBS Life
We should share housing for longer
Unless you’re an impossibly wealthy plutocrat, or a smug baby boomer who bought in the 90s (much the same thing), browsing a real estate website is incredibly depressing. It’s like listening to Adele while watching this video of a sad kitten and peeling onions into the shape of Nicholas Sparks.
Until the bubble bursts – which may never happen – huge numbers of Australians below the age of 40 will struggle to buy their own place. For many of us, a house with a backyard, or even an apartment with enough rooms for a couple of kids, is out of reach unless we go to regional areas or live on the outskirts of major cities.
A recent study found that home ownership for 25–34 year olds dropped from 56 per cent in 1982 to 34 per cent in 2011, and for the same age group, the mean debt to income ratio ballooned from 115 per cent to 241 per cent. Those numbers are nearly as shocking as the price of an uninhabitable terrace in Sydney’s Surry Hills recently.
Clearly, the Australian dream of a house on a quarter-acre block is a long way off for many of us. So what’s to be done?
One option is to load yourself up with debt, and hope you can make the repayments. Except many young people, even university graduates, face significant career instability these days.
Fortunately, there is another way, even if it involves abandoning, or perhaps deferring, the Australian dream.
Share housing has traditionally been something we do when studying, or entering the labour market – but given the cost of housing, it’s probably something more of us should do for longer.
After all, the idea that we all need to move into owner-occupied homes is a relatively recent one in our cultural history.
Sharing sometimes is more a bed of dust mites instead of roses, of course. But it’s a lot easier to get out of a lease than a mortgage.
When I look back at all the years between moving out and settling down, I definitely have the fondest memories of my years in share housing.
When I lived alone, I had plenty of space and time to myself, but I didn’t do anything especially worthwhile with it. In hindsight, I should probably have stayed sharing with friends until I got married, which, of course, has provided me with life’s ultimate fulfilment – a permanent share house.
And let’s not forget that there are other people we can share with. Our parents and grandparents are the ones who’ve benefited from the dramatic boost in property prices, with many of them becoming paper millionaires. So maybe they should share some of those sweet, otherwise-empty rooms that they bought on the cheap?
In many other countries – India, for instance – married couples traditionally keep living with one set of parents, generally the groom’s. While this might not provide much in the way of the West’s much-desired personal freedom, it means low living costs – if any. You share your meals, there’s built-in childcare, and ultimately, it offers a solution for aged care too.
Plus, if the proximity gets a little stifling, you can simply hand the kids over and go out to blow off a little steam. And while you’re out having a few drinks and venting, I can guarantee that your friends will be biting their tongues so they don’t make a scathing remark about the free housing you’re getting.
Growing up in Australia, it’s hard to fight against the notion that success in life means having your own place. But if you keep sharing until later in life, not only is your life likely to be richer, you will be, too.
Which makes it far more likely that you’ll be able to save up enough to get a place of your own someday. If you ever need one.
Originally posted at SBS Life