Paul,

Your wife sounds like a lovely person, making invaluable contributions to what it means to be Australian these days.

Australianness is surely an evolving and constantly changing multi-phenomenon, incorporating and taking all sorts of contributions from people from all over the world, not just in culture and work but in building a constantly-new and genuinely-inclusive country. Fine with me :)

Thank Christ there can never be either a return to the stale old days, OR a move to a country dominated by one group such as our Resident Half-Wit's constant sprays about Chinese. Not going to happen, Misopinonated. Shove your racism up your big wen.

Joe

And a big Aussie "Ni Hao Mate!" to you too LOUDmouth.

I suppose you're working on a sales pitch to get your state of South Australia signed up to China's Belt and Road initiative. With a bit of luck you might even be able to talk Gladys Liu into running for the job of Premier. You just have to keep your fingers crossed that Scott Morrison doesn't override Victoria's decision to sigh up to the BRI.

Dear Paul and Joe,

I look at my own extended family - and the mix of
ancestries amongst our lot - from Lithuanians,
Brits, Scots, Swedes, Germans, Russians, Lebanese,
to more recently - Vietnamese. And I'm sure that this
will grow even further with my grandchildren.

In our quiet suburban court here in Melbourne,
we have Italians, Sri- Lankans, Macedonians,
Egyptians, Lebanese, and Chinese,
and Lithuanians all living beautifully together.
When this lockdown started we had neighbours ringing
us asking if we needed help - or anything from the shops?
They left their phone numbers in our letter box.
We did the same for them.

I agree with Joe - your wife is a lovely person. As are you.
As is Joe. We're all part of the tapestry of this country.
And helping each other is what we do. And will continue
to do.

Foxy,

Did you just see how LOUDmouth abused and made fun of the Chinese name you so kindly gave me?

Well, what are you going to do about it?

Dear Foxy,

And you too !

I was just thinking, thanks to that accursed Ancestry.com, that even by 1900, my ancestors here were already so mixed that they would have had difficulty working out which ancestral homeland to return to - Ireland, England/Cornwall, Wales or Scotland - and it seems, according to my sister, that our grandmother, born about then and raised in the Hull work-house, had a Swedish father.

And my kids also have Aboriginal, Chinese and Italian ancestors. So it's a matter of circumstance and choice, although I'm easy with having affection and attachment for each of those groups and places. There could even be some West Indian in there as well (from 'Iboland' by way of Dominica).

So thankfully there will never be a return, if such a process was possible, to some mythical all-British past. Which, in any case, would be partly based on Middle-Eastern-farming and Roman-Empire ancestry anyway.

And can you imagine, Foxy, any copper here getting away with forcing his knee on the neck of anybody here, of whatever ethnic background, for several minutes, and being able to get up and away without being properly 'restrained' ? I think we'd rip the bastard limb from limb.

Love,

Joe

That's very nice LOUDmouth but you still thought it was alright for you to abuse and make fun of my Chinese name.

How would you feel if people made fun of you not being able to get past Grade 6?