Quote:
Originally Posted by jjjnettie
My family were originally from Wollongong. .... Keeping their values, their customs and most importantly, their cuisine alive.
Marvelous!
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Ah yes, the food. I joke more than half seriously that the best way for a migrant group to be accepted is to open a restaurant. When I was young fast food meant fish and chips, hamburgers or pies. In the mid-seventies the anglos suddenly discovered pizza and pasta - yum. When the Vietnamese refugees arrived in the late 70s they seemed a weird mob. Within a couple of years there were 2 vietnamese restaurants in town and we found out just how civilised they really were. (If you make nice food you must be civilised - right.) Now the restaurant strip also has Thai, Korean, Indian, Iranian, Mexican etc etc. Culinary and cultural life is now so much better than it was.
Grant, apart from what I said about the city in general, where I work is like the UN. Yesterday I was given a lift to work by a Kurd from Iraq (he saw me at the bus stop). What I've found is that in things that matter people are really really similar. All parents love their children and want the best for them. People want democracy. They are just as honest and hard working as the rest of us. Mostly they don't bring baggage, they bring culture, just as my grandparents did when they arrived from Scotland. (Pipe bands still stir my soul.)