(Almost) no Asia in Melbourne Suburbs

Last weekend I was lucky to be able to combine a business trip to Melbourne with a personal visit to my aunt.

The business trip was about an academic network, of which I am the secretary. Therefore I needed to know what is going on, what are the priorities of the network and what issues I needed to push. The second part was far more interesting and included a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria, where our Embassy (represented by me) is trying to set up a joint photo exhibition about our country's darker sides. Exciting!

Luckily, my auntie also lives in Melbourne. Although, strictly speaking she lives right on the northern edges of the city, where the suburban sprawl gives way to small hills, valleys, sprinkled farms and ever-sprawling housing developments.

I stayed with my lovely aunt for 3 days, during which we visited malls, visited more malls, visited a museum and the Dandenong Hills on the East of Melbourne, and some more malls.

Perhaps I had been living in a too urban place (Chatswood) in Sydney, where a pan-Asian population transplant life onto the streets and into Asian shops. Now, living in Canberra in the diplomatic area, I do not get to see much urban life at all. In fact, hardly any life at all. Leafy streets, Australian Federal Police Cars (I live near the US and Israeli Embassy) and quiet dark houses is all I see here in Canberra.

The suburban life in Melbourne was a bit of a shock for me then. When you want to go out and do something indoors you either take the 60 minute train ride to the city or you take a 10 minute car ride to the mall. Actually, there were about 4 or so malls right near where my aunty lives.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to a supposedly upmarket mall in the suburb of Doncaster. This was white young upper-middle class centre. There were hundreds of young suburban families with kids munching on chips and McDonalds burgers. But not only that, Thai, Chinese and also Japanese food was very popular with these "average Australians".

I was disgusted by the food because I could see how tasteless and dull the Thai food was and how old and cheap the Sushi looked. This is the totally watered down version of Asia that the average Australian gets in his every day life.

These observations from a flat endless suburbs with endless straight streets with similar-looking houses, interrupted only by huge multi-storey malls only confirmed my previous thoughts. Namely that the Asianisation of Australia is perhaps only applicable to very limited areas.

The suburban north of Melbourne however is clearly white Australian middle-class territory. This also is a strong indication that a majority of Australians perhaps think of Asia as little more than a few Sushi rolls, Pad Thai and Chinese Noodles. In these massive suburban areas Australia not only resembles but actually looks exactly like America, only with different brands of cars, which run on the opposite sides of the street.

These observations however are by no means representative of Melbourne. Melbourne also has its patches of Asian community and traditions. It has a large Vietnamese community and a tradition of Chinese residents dating back to two centuries ago, when Chinese gold diggers flocked to Melbourne and the surrounding cities of Victoria.

I hope I can have another visit to Melbourne reasonably soon so I can document this city's Asianisation a bit more. In the meantime however, the stale and boring taste of suburbia is still numbing my senses...