Wednesday, September 14, 2005

My date, Melbourne city











My friend in Melbourne asked me once to describe the city in 5 words. The five words I am going to use are: Diversity, Cosmopolitan, Unique, Creative and Magical. The one trait that I find absorbing are the people. I mean in Singapore, we are multi-cultural as the races mainly comprise of chinese, indian, and malay. (We have a category, "others". To this day, I find this term mind boggling in this context as "others" can mean anything. If I were an alien, I could be categorized here too. It somehow lacks identity for people in this unit.) In Melbourne (I think this is similar to many other cities in Australia), I meet people from such diverse cultures. It's like a mini New York. In a short span, I see much immigrants whose parents originally come from South Africa, Israel, Japan, Ireland, Malaysia, Taiwan, Switzerland, India and Singapore. The diverse mix is incredible and I love how people from all races jell and the history and story imprinted on each person are fascinating.

In days when my friends had school or work in Melbourne, I walked hand in hand with my date, Melbourne city. There are plentiful facets to this city. I see mini riots (covering issues which involve Australia not giving enough foreign aid in the UN World summit although it was ranked third in the Human Development Index, stopping war in Iraq) on streets, bazaars, artists, camel riders, beautiful gardens, beaches, and cafes. In a way, one does not feel lonely as my date took care of me well, offering me so much sights. By the way, I just wanted to add that mini riots are time-consuming, money-wasting, space-utilizing and ridiculous. Correct me if I am wrong. What can you really achieve with 20+ people voicing in harmony their wants and demands? The worse happens when the rioter get its facts wrong and talks about the most airy fairy stuff, something not realistic. Is this the form of democracy or freedom of speech that Singapore wants? I encourage the discussion and the freedom of voicing out intelligent opinions but I am sure there are more efficient and productive ways to getting oneself heard. I hope I do not get a spate of opposing comments after airing my view.

I have attached some photos above. Check it out.

2 comments:

Jane Doe said...

hey babe, i LOVE melbourne (and I think, u already know that)...every hook, every corner, every step, every face...love it! You make me wana go back so bad...

Durrow Gal! said...

Yeah it's a beautiful city.