Australia

Apologies to my loyal readers for going AWOL on my blog. I am in fact still in Sydney, Australia. Sydney is a good city, but it's so much like an American city, that I feel it's almost under-stimulating.

Australia is considered the fourth most developed nation on the UN's Human Development Index. The index, like most aggregrate measures of something quite subjective and complex, has its obvious flaws, but its a pretty good yardstick that actually takes into account a host of other development factors besides GDP per capita -- such as infant mortality, education, literacy, income inequality, and gender equality.

It may come as a surprise to some U.S. Americans that we are only number 15 on the list (our Canadian neighbors beat Australia to #3; Iceland is #1 and Norway #2). The main thing worth pointing out there is that even though the U.S. has a massive economy and is a very wealthy nation, we've got quite a few problems ourselves (and that's excluding the financial crisis).

Anyways, I am very impressed with Australia. The quality of life here is very good. Even the "rough" suburbs of Sydney are nothing in comparison with some parts of the U.S. or the UK. Maybe I should start telling Chinese immigrants to go there instead of America ... yes, even in Australia, Chinese immigrants still say, "America is better, isn't it?"

So even though looking into Sydney's Chinese community isn't as interesting as, say, Ethiopia's, I've become interested with Sydney's multicultural mix that (almost) rivals New York's.
Those that know me well know I have a fascination with films dealing with social integration into "first world" societies -- films like "La Haine" (French), "Made in Britain" (UK), the similarly titled "This is England" (UK). I don't know what it is that I like about these films, perhaps it's that they depict a dark side of society in the popular media (On the other hand, I had little interest in studying these things in college, and would still not bother studying them).

I just saw this new indie Australian film called "The Combination" about Lebanese immigrants in Sydney's suburb of Parramatta, just one town over from where I am staying, West Ryde. The film was a bit too dramatic for my taste, and I'd prefer it without a completely predictable romance, but I liked it nonetheless. It paints a pretty bleak picture of race relations in suburban Sydney, making clear that Australia isn't all a bed of roses for immigrants. It made it seem like Australia is going in the direction of the U.S., a more xenophobic, less tolerant nationalistic place that has somehow forgotten that it is a country of immigrants. The film is set against the Cronulla riots, a series of xenophobic riots (and counter-riots) back in 2005. Incidentally, I had just visited Cronulla a day before watching "The Combination," oblivious to this dark shadow that loomed over the pretty beaches of this lovely wealthy suburb. And I didn't even know about the movie until it was featured in the news; apparently, there were riots at some of theaters and they had to close them down. It's kind of sad to realize that it isn't just the stuff of movies.

Finally, while hiking two days ago, I saw a python on the trail. It was big.