Ram A Melon Ey
>>>>>>>>>>> Post 01/01/2024 <<<<<<<<<<<<<
Some old pre-Blogspot.com posts, recycled.
Important because as I was preparing this historical repost I'm listening to Fire Bomb on ABC Radio Podcasts and they've just mentioned the Chung Wah Association. I never realised how much activism they must have entered into to beat down Perth's terrorist organisation run by the asshole Jack van Tongeren. Hats off to all those lovely people that shared their New Year with me.
Monday, January 26, 2004
Monkey Business
Thanks to my newest intern (work experience student to us Aussies) Trish and I were invited to the WA Chung Wah Association's New Year celebrations on the 25th. It was simply one of the nicest events I'd been to in a long time. I enjoyed everything. (Except the speeches by our local politicians... Hey that's always the way, who listens to those guys anyway?)
At the gate a gentleman asked if I was of the Police force, 'no' that I ha' anything to worry abou'..' and directed us to a parking spot near one of the biggest lanterns (3 metres tall) that I have ever seen, and overlooking a landscape scarrred by a VERY recent fire, some of which was still smouldering.
Oh yeah - I forgot to mention that the Chung Wah Hall is in probably one the most ethnically diverse blocks of inner suburbia, sharing the block with Macedonian Park, the Macedonian Centre, the Sicilian Society, and others. It's a small clue as to how much integration takes place in Perth. Oh yeah, we still have ethnic gangs, and oh yeah, there are areas where you find a more ethnically-focussed population, but on the whole the place is just 'oh yeah!' about it all and you'll find one of Perth's best dim sum restaurants two doors from Perth's best continental food supermarket and (until recently) flanked also by the best Lebanese cafe and just across the road from the Hare Krishna Food For Life kitchen...
The Chinese community here in Perth have a lot of talented people, as shown by the Lion dancers, the ribbon dancers, and over a dozen musical acts, all of which were in a word brilliant. A 'light luncheon' was served (but I still ended up as full as the proverbial boot) and then it was out the door and back to the reality that we were in WA not Szechuan or Canton...
We took our seats (and I mean literally took them, not too many free chairs so we carried ours to a likely looking spot after asking the row behind if this was okay) and during the opening speech we discovered that not only were we at the roundeye end of the hall, we were also amidst all the aforementioned political figures. Hmmm maybe not all *that* integrated...
Being sat next to the Commissioner for Police and his wife did tend to dampen some of my more exuberant exclamations, and I'm sure Trish was similarly a bit more wary of her flanking dignitary, whose name eludes me at the moment. Both our neighbours presented speeches, in any case.
This year it seemed that every local politician included a thankyou to the Nyungar aboriginal community, upon whose land apparently Perth is situated. I felt like standing up and yelling "hey there was a war here and they lost!" but as I said, sitting next to the CoP gave me pause enough that the feeling passed... Hey I never said I was politically correct, I am Austrian by birth and Australian by upbringing with a large slice of Arabic childhood and I think I stand just on the wild side of Hitler politically... %)
And it's the year of the Green monkey. also (it looks like from various almanacs) a Wood year, so yes it should be great for innovations and business - and I'm born so close the the start of the Tiger month that I'm part monkey part rooster, so we'll see what happens. It's the first year I've ever been given any red envelopes, %) and they are symbolic of money and success, so let's see if this year, I can make symbolism a thing of the past and reality of some of my ideas...
Watch this space...
These are random blog posts I recently rescued from a text dump of my earliest recorded blog posts from Ye Good Ole Days of writing stuff in Notepad and using some weird software that basically uploaded your entire blog every time you added a new article or edited an old one.
I'm shamelessly adding that little mini-banner graphic with links for you to donate, check my newsletter site, and generally get more entangled in my weird world.
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