SBS Online: Getting to know our neighbours

Defining ‘Australia in the Asian Century’ has been the subject of some debate since the release of the Federal Government’s White Paper in October last year. But how much do we know about the neighbourhood we are calling our own?

Last month I found myself in the hot and humid Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur with five other ‘cultural exchange’ participants and a diplomatic entourage. I was a guest of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and our mission was to learn as much as we could about this nation’s rich tapestry in one week.

Malaysia is often seen as an exemplary model for Muslim countries around the world; a country with a Muslim government where halal food is abundant and hijab fashion shops sit comfortably next to Chanel and Hermes.

For me, the opportunity to delve beneath the surface was an experience that offered much to reflect on, particularly for a migrant Muslim who calls multicultural Australia home.

Read on...and check out my first piece as a blogger on the SBS Online website! 

I will hopefully now be a regular contributor on a whole random range of issues so watch this space!

Malaysia: Are you ready for this?

Just a quick community announcement! Heading off for the week to Malaysia for the Australia Malaysia Institute's cultural exchange program...

Stay tuned for blogs, photos and insights from the road!

Any questions and suggestions? Particular things in Malaysia I need to do or check out?

China’s Changeover: Next Steps for the Region?

For anyone interested in regional politics: This week China starts its week long congress where they are going to begin the once-in-a-decade leadership transfer process.  Interesting stuff indeed...

So during the congress a new central committee is elected, and they then choose the Politburo Standing Committee, the highest decision making authority in the land.

The congress opened with the outgoing leader, Hu Jintao addressing the congress and stressing that the fight against corruption could ‘prove fatal’ to the party if not won.  It is said that the committees are already known before the congress begins, many decisions being made through “backroom politicking”.  Either way, what is important is what the leadership plans to do…and it definitely seems that holding on to power is one of their objectives (naturally).

The BBC reports a little more here, and says that in Beijing, more than 1.4 million volunteers have been brought in to help out with security for the congress. Wow.

China is the world’s second largest economy currently and is well on its way to becoming the world’s first.  The eyes of the world will be on the communist nation this week more than ever…

What do you think? Where will China’s leadership take it? Their system has clearly worked for what they want to achieve so far…right?

Culture Sh-Sh-Shock! Part I

Well this post has been a long time coming. Having been fortunate enough Alhamdulilah to have spent the last few months travelling, I have come to realise that although I am born in Sudan, my cultural norms and expectations and behaviours are in fact, largely Australian.  Even though my parents brought me up speaking Arabic and sticking largely to Sudanese/Arab norms, having spent some time in Sudan now, there are still a few cultural differences that have, well, shocked me (just a tad ya' know...).

It truly does reinforce the fact that visiting a country and living in a country are completely different things.

That being said though, now having traveled briefly through Asia, there are also a few things that were unexpectedly different and caught me by surprise.  I do love the realisation that others truly do things differently so here are a few things that caught my attention...In this first part of the series I will talk mostly about the more superficial cultural differences I experienced in Asia (superficial only because I was a visitor here and haven't immersed myself in the culture enough to know more), and will continue tomorrow with those I have found in Sudan.

1. Difference in concepts of "Personal Space"

While travelling in Malaysia and Singapore, and even in Sudan, I noticed that there was quite a different concept of the "personal bubble". Perhaps because in Australia I am used to such large spaces with such few people: strangers rarely come too close (unless you hop on a full bus or train) and if they bump into you, people usually apologise.  That same concept doesn't seem to exist everywhere else -- at first when someone bumped into me or stood really close and didn't apologise I felt quite affronted, until I realised that was perhaps the norm...

2. Shop keepers "waiting and watching"

This only happened in Malaysia but it become something that really did frustrate me.  I would enter a shop, greet the shop keeper and begin browsing... only to find the shop keeper standing half a meter away, looking at me expectantly.  I would smile, move away...and she would follow me! Again, this relates to the personal space thing, but I felt quite strangely uncomfortable with someone essentially watching over my shoulder.  It was a strange feeling, almost as if I was concerned about the lady judging my choices or trying to hurry me up... Either way, quite often I would either say to the person (more than once) "I'm ok, I can deal with it from here..." or "I will let you know when I am done..." and if they insisted on just standing there or following me, I thanked them and left the shop. It really did make my retail therapy a little...strange.

3. Difference in height and size in general

Now, I don't think I am an extremely tall or large person per se, I just have ahem "presence" (and as my grandmother likes to say, "large bones").  What this means though is that in places such as Singapore and Malaysia, not only does nothing fit (the largest shoe size in all the shops is two sizes smaller than mine...) but the beds in the hotels are too short!  I honestly laughed when I lay on the bed and found my feet hanging off the end...

4. Different sense of humour

I think this applies to all the places I have traveled... the dry, ironic humour that I am used to (witty repartee as I like to think, haha) doesn't seem to translate as well, either in the South East Asian nations or in Sudan.  I am usually met with confounded looks or a picture of slight offense.  My days of being the joker..well, are quite over.

Oh.  Perhaps everyone in Australia just laughed at my jokes to be polite? One will never know...

5. Food

Suffice to say, I loved it (the extra few kilos on my torso that I left Malaysia with will attest to that). However the idea of rice, noodles and curries (?) for breakfast, lunch and dinner was a little strange at first. Lucky my stomach isn't too fussy!

So these are some of the more day to day (superficial la) differences that I found interesting and unexpected.  Living in Sudan though, some of the cultural differences are a little more difficult to deal with and do hit more close to home..

The Awesomeness of the Aussie High Commission ;)

Alhamdulilah, I have arrived safely back in Sudan after a short-but-informative trip to Malaysia for the Asia Pacific Roundtable, the Australia-ASEAN Emerging Leaders Program (supported by the Aus-Malaysia Institute, ISIS Malaysia, St James Ethics Centre, Asialink, Australia-Thailand Institute (ATI) and the Australia-Indonesia Institute (AII)) and a lunch event with young Malaysian leaders and the Australian High Commission. Woah, a mouthful! Now that the official part is over...

It was a fantastic week, and as some of the previous posts can attest to, I learnt a great deal: much I am still processing.  The Emerging Leaders part of the program gave us (about 20 young people from Australia and ASEAN) an opportunity to present on and discuss issues of import to the region, including illicit migration, regional security and the effect of middle powers.  St James Ethics Center's Dr Simon Longstaff also presented an extremely moving and interesting piece on "the biggest strategic mistake leaders make..." .  I won't give it away but suffice it to say that it has a lot to do with leaders just "looking away" and how often do they do that? Thing Houla -- quite often indeed.

On the last day of my stay, I was fortunate enough Alhamdulilah to be a Guest of Honour at a lunch hosted by the Australian High Commission and an Aussie Muslim Diplomat (which I think it totally awesome).  It was an awesome opportunity to meet the staff of the High Commission and spend some time with young Malaysian leaders.  I shared a little of my life story (haha! the poor audience) and tried to listen to the stories of the people around me.

It was a great opportunity to shift some of the thinking about Australian in Malaysia.  It seems that there is a particular impression (or stereotype let's say), of what Australia as a nation is and represents, and the fact that a Hijabi-wearing-brown-skinned-young-female is up representing Australia...well that challenges a few of those assumptions.

It was also an opportunity to hear about some of the issues that face young people in Malaysia - and interesting, being young and full of ideas is one of them.  Growing up in the Sudanese culture, I think I can relate: the idea that age = wisdom, respecting and listening to your elders and "waiting until it is your turn" is strongly entrenched.  I don't think that within the Sudanese community I am even seen as an "adult" yet! (Not until I get married and have kids anyway) so for young people striving to be involved, this is quite an issue and one that is deeply entrenched in cultural expectations.

Hopefully something that will shift though, as the generational change occurs.

All in all, a fantastic affair and I hope to stay in touch with the fabulous people I met.  Inshallah something comes out of it all!  Kudos to the Aussie High Commission and all the ISIS etc people involved for a truly interesting and thought provoking week.

(Oh and the food was a-maaaaazing. Just sayin').

*Fun Fact* 

Did you know a High Commission is the equivalent of an Embassy, just in a Commonwealth country? I didn't until only recently! You learn something new every day...

Reflections on the APR

So the 26th Asia Pacific Roundtable has come to an end, and so has my first foray into truly international relations at the higher levels. I have learned a great deal over the last two days; a lot that I didn't know about the region, many perspectives that I hadn't thought to consider and even more so about the efficacy, purpose and outcomes of such an event.

Having spent most of the plenary sessions listening intently, attempting to understand not only all that was said but was was being said between the lines certainly was a new (and surprisingly exhausting) experience.  I found myself asking not one or two but quite a number of questions of the various panelists; so much so that when I met new participants I no longer had to introduce myself -- I was "Yassmin, from Australia", who asked all the questions.

I was a little unsure as to whether it would be polite or appropriate to ask so many questions, however at the end of the day it was a way for me -- and I hope the rest of the participants -- to learn about a speaker's perspective on a particular nuance of an issue.  Most of my questions were quite to the point and as such weren't always answered (i.e. asking a highly ranked US Marines official if he thought the rotational deployment in Darwin was worth the ire Australia was receiving from its ASEAN neighbours for one) but asking them allowed me to:

• Learn to frame my questions in a way that I could clearly articulate to the speakers;
• Listen closely to sessions to see where I had questions or queries;
• Open up avenues of discussion that might not have previously been being explored; and
• Introduce me as an Australian participant to the attendees -- and demonstrating that the "emerging leaders" were taking notice and asking questions.

I also think that sometimes, someone needs to ask the hard (or to an outsider, obvious) questions.

Coming from my engineering background I sometimes (quite often) feel like a flying fish out of water -- i.e. I can survive, but it isn't my natural habitat.  What it does give me though, is an external viewpoint as well as an alternative approach to issues.  Furthermore the fact that I represent an NGO is always quite liberating in such forums...

I think I just need to suck it up and read more...ensuring of course, its relevance. Hehe.

***

I learnt a lot at the forum and it will take time for me to process.  Suffice to say here were some themes that struck me and others:

• The topic of the day is clearly the issue of the South China Sea and how it is to be resolved;
• Australia doesn't seem to factor in any decision making or thought process about the region;
• India seems happy to remain as a "developing country" and doesn't seem ready to step up to the plate as yet;
• ASEAN wishes as a bloc to be in the "driver's seat" and "be providers of security instead of consumers of it..." however there is a long way to go before this is even feasible perhaps?
• North Korea...well, see below;
• Myanmar has been doing fantastically but rebuilding a nation takes time and the region shouldn't expect all the changes to happen at breakneck speed;
• Back door diplomacy is really how things happen;
• The United States, regardless of rhetoric, is interested in the region and sees itself as an important player; and
• The ASEAN way is probably the method of the day.

That is an initial outpouring of thought, I will come back for further analysis later.