Neighbourhood Representation - Peer edited version

I came across on a boat a few years ago now, dressed as a fisherman. But after a short period of time spent in a refugee centre in Thailand, I was able to move on from my past life in Vietnam, and start anew in Australia.

Having nothing more than a small bag and the clothes on my back, I moved into the well-known, Vietnamese area of Cabramatta in Sydney. The neighborhood was full of modest stores and simple restaurants, some starting out, just as I was, and others that had clearly become thriving businesses. Diminutive, old women eagerly served any customer that entered their restaurant, shouting orders to the small kitchen in the back of their buildings. Children would run and play in the street with tattered balls and skipping ropes, while wizened men with graying hair would treat the children in the stores to sweets of all kinds. Everybody worked hard in Cabramatta and many of the shops stayed open all year-round, only closing in February to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

I knew no one in my neighborhood, but as soon as I arrived in Cabramatta, it was clear that if I was to set up a life for myself, I had to be determined, and prepared to work hard - all day, every day.  But despite their strong work ethic, all my neighbors were welcoming. People in the street smiled with a knowing look in their eyes.  Everyone understood what I had encountered in order to start again, as they had, once arriving in Australia. The building I lived in was very tired and everything inside my apartment seemed to break at my touch. But the openhearted and hospitable nature of the people I was surrounded by made the stuffy, dilapidated apartment building feel like a home.

Representation:

Meg is intending too really illustrate the Vietnamese community in Australia (multiculturalism). She draws out a positive from a negative experience. Finds that the neighborhood is welcoming and full of good people, therefore portraying the neighborhood in a positive light.  

The Neighbourhood

I came across on a boat a few years ago now, dressed as a fisherman. But after a short period of time spent in a refugee centre in Thailand, I was able to move on from my past life in Vietnam, and start anew in Australia.

Having nothing more than a small bag and the clothes on my back, I moved into the well-known, Vietnamese area of Cabramatta in Sydney. The neighborhood was full of small shops and restaurants, some starting out, just as I was, and others that had clearly become thriving businesses. Everybody worked hard in Cabramatta and many of the shops stayed open all year-round, only closing in February to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

I knew no one in my neighborhood, but as soon as I arrived in Cabramatta, it was clear that if I was to set up a life for myself, I had to be determined, and prepared to work hard - all day, every day.  But despite their strong work ethic, all my neighbors were welcoming. People in the street smiled with a knowing look in their eyes.  Everyone understood what I had encountered in order to start again, as they had. The building I lived in was quite old, and everything inside my apartment seemed to break at my touch. But the openhearted and hospitable nature of the people I was surrounded by, made the dingy, old, apartment building feel like a home. 

Clancy of the Overflow and My Brilliant Career Comparison

Write a paragraph comparing the way country Australia is represented in "Clancy of the Overflow" with the way it is represented in the opening scenes of "My Brilliant Career". Provide a thesis in your topic sentence. Then refer to the texts to support your thesis. In the poem, you might mention specific words or phrases and in the film, you might mention particular shots or dialogue.

Both the poem, Clancy of The Overflow, and the film, My Brilliant Career, focus largely on the Australian outback landscape and how central this environment is to the Australian identity. However, each text presents a very different portrayal of what the outback has to offer for the Australians that live in these rural areas. The poem Clancy of The Overflow portrays Australia and Australians as wild, adventurous and friendly. Patterson uses evocative language to express the beauty and abundant life and spirit of the Australian outback. The description of the ‘sunlit plains extended’ and ‘everlasting stars’ presents Australia as a country of immense, natural beauty that offers a sense of freedom for all who live there. Patterson then continues to portray Australians as welcoming, down-to-earth people who appear to be continuously happy as they ‘ride behind [their droves] singing.’ Their droving work is further described as having ‘pleasures that the townsfolk never know.’ Despite having enjoyable, outdoor occupations, Clancy of The Overflow also portrays Australian people as unsophisticated and uneducated, to a certain extent. Patterson’s specific, grammatical error – ‘we don’t know where he are’ – suggests that Australians are somewhat backward compared to countries such as the United Kingdom or the United States of America. Despite being depicted as slightly regressive, Patterson ensures that Australians are still portrayed as displaying their well known ‘mate ship’ when, in the poem, the unknown sheerer replies to the writer of Clancy’s letter, despite not knowing the writer personally. On the other hand, the film, My Brilliant Career, focus very much on the dry and ‘red dust’ aspect of the outback environment, and the extensive hard work that accompanies one when choosing to live in these areas. The ‘rural and frontier settings’ depicted in the film also touches on the idea of the ‘Aussie battler’ – men who stuck to their, often, barren land despite depression, drought or bushfire. In the opening scenes of My Brilliant Career, the viewer is presented with images of men sweating in intense heat, as they work to herd cattle and tend to their dusty, dry farms. These particular scenes refer to the difficult life of the Australian farmer whose livelihood depends on the weather and other sources beyond his control. These farming families endure hard-work all year round, and despite what Clancy of The Overflow suggests, they very rarely have time to appreciate their surroundings and experience the freedom that such an overwhelming and immense landscape has to offer. While both exploring, in depth, the Australian landscape, the poem, Clancy of The Overflow, and the film, My Brilliant Career, present very different, but equally significant, representations of Australia. 

Foster's Advertisement - 'I Believe'

Using your notes to help you, write about 300 to 400 words analysing the representation of Australia and Australians promoted by the advertisement.

The Foster’s beer advertisement is intended to suggest that Australia, as a nation, has ‘come of age’ and is a country sufficiently sophisticated and urbanized to be a desirable tourist destination for the most discerning of travellers. The advert commences by dispelling the myth of Australians as stereotypically unsophisticated, outback, hill-billy types who own kangaroos as pets, and wear cork-bobbing hats to ward off the outback’s unrelenting plague of flies. Within the first few seconds of the advertisement, the viewer is introduced to the fact that Australia achieved nation-hood on the shores of Gallipoli and since then, has made major contributions in conflicts across the globe. Australia’s peace-keeping efforts world-wide are similarly referred to, thus leading Australian’s to ‘wear their country’s flag with pride.’ The reference to Australia as an ‘island continent’ and ‘rock’ alludes to Australia’s rather remote geographical situation as the largest island continent bounded by almost 26000 kilometers of coastline. To this ‘island continent’ have come many migrants, dating from the initial convict settlers, to the post-war, European immigrants, who brought true diversity and cross-cultural ethnicity to Australia. More recently, immigrants from the East have made their own unique contribution to broader Australian society. The egalitarian nature of Australian, crucible-like society and the lack of rigid class distinction, are powerfully represented by the passenger sitting alongside the taxi driver, rather than in the back seat of the vehicle. The comment, ‘it’s a prawn, not a shrimp,’ deliberately sets Australia apart from America, as does to the reference to playing ‘football without a helmet.’ Conversely, Australia’s uniqueness is emphasized by the quirky comment, ‘I like beetroot on my hamburger,’ turning the traditionally American icon of the hamburger into something that is uniquely Australian. In the final analysis, ‘Australia is the best address on Earth,’ encapsulates Australia’s unique features and iconic landmarks, along with the fact that Australia no longer suffers the ‘cultural cringe’ of previous decades, but rather, has achieved ‘adulthood’ in terms of its nation status. Australia has ‘earned its spurs’ by virtue of its conduct though two world wars, and today is a desirable, first-world, tourist destination for discerning travellers, offering its own distinct brand of sun, surf, beach-culture, native fauna and iconically cold beer consumed amidst care-free, easy-going Australians.