Ep #99 The Conference Extravaganza: AAS &AAA: This month on TFS

The Familiar Strange · Ep #99 The Conference Extravaganza: AAS &AAA: This month on TFS This week we’re back with a conference extravaganza! With the AAS and AAA’s just passed, listen in to Familiar stranger Alex, Lachie, Sean and Ruonan’s thoughts!  Alex and Ruonan attended the AAS while Lachie and Sean attended the AAA in … Continue reading Ep #99 The Conference Extravaganza: AAS &AAA: This month on TFS

A Five Course Degustation for the Changing “Australian” Palette

To this day, I love fried Spam and eggs. The crunchy and salty slice of processed mystery meat dipped in just cooked egg yolk is one of my favourite breakfasts. After all, it was the breakfast that I grew up eating on Sunday mornings when we’d all sit around the table and mum would hand out these small rectangles of fried salty goodness. I didn’t think it was that strange till I had a conversation with some of my friends who furrowed their little brows in disapproval, “ew, Spam is gross, it’s like dog food”. I quickly learned that my beloved Spam breakfasts were not as commonplace as they seemed, but rather they were an oddity. In a world of bacon and egg rolls with hash browns, my beloved family breakfasts of Spam and rice were distinctly different. 

Blokes and their casual racism

Being of South-East Asian background growing up in Australia, these types of comments are not something unfamiliar to me. I have grappled with race and culture many times and I expect that battle to continue long into the future. It’s not the comparisons that bother me. It’s not about the person I’m being compared to. It’s the fact that I’m even being compared. That I’m not me, but rather I am reduced to how I look or who I resemble. I don’t get to define myself anymore. That’s the part that bothers me. After all, it happens to everyone, right? It is the casual nature of these comments which makes it so problematic. It has become so normalised and so easy to dismiss that I don’t feel like I have a choice to even bring it up.