Better Than I Imagined (Day 7)

The seventh day of the tournament was the only day I didn't see a single tennis ball served.  I bought tickets to nine of the 14 days of the Australian Open and was gifted tickets to four more days.  The seventh day was the only day I didn't have a ticket.  I could have bought a grounds pass, but I was seeing so much tennis that I didn't think it was necessary. What I would have really been interested in seeing were ticketed matches anyway.  I was a little disappointed that I wasn't going the tennis because it was Australia Day and I had this vision of being in a match with an Aussie playing like Ash Barty or Nick Kyrgios and people in the crowd with face paint and waving flags. Basically I superimposed a picture I have of American Independence Day onto the Australian Open crowd and Melbourne in general. I wanted to be a part of that experience, feel that energy. I didn't want to see it on television and look back and wish that I was there.  Australia Day in reality didn't quite align with my imagined version and in the end I didn't feel like I missed anything super special, except for some good tennis.

Australia Day was much more low key than I thought it would be.  I expected to see bunting draped everywhere and hear backyard BBQs in my neighborhood. I thought I'd see people wearing clothes made up of the Australian flag.  I think I heard a few get togethers, but the day didn't seem markedly different than any other day I was there.  While I don't know for sure, I suspect this has something to do with the recent conversations about Australian aboriginal history.  As I referenced in my post about my walking tour in Sydney, there is definitely an on-going conversation about the aboriginal population being reduced and subsequently ignored for most of modern Australia's history. To say that Australia Day is heavily criticized by aboriginals and aboriginal supporters is quite an understatement. January 26 is a day not to be celebrated, but to be mourned because it was the day the English arrived and began to destroy an indigenous population.  My sense was that Australia hasn't figured out how to celebrate its history yet - the good and the bad. They're not as far along as Canada has been with their reconciliation with native peoples, but they have engaged in the hard conversation more intentionally than the US has with its native population. 

Even though the celebrations were more muted than I expected, I went to the parade in Melbourne. There was less of the overwhelming blur of Australian flags and more a celebration of individual cultural groups established in Australia.  The parade marchers were waving Australian flags, but marching to their own music. In the US our parades are dominated by high school bands, civic groups, politicians, youth groups, and pageant queens.  This parade was made up mostly of cultural groups.  I don't have any comparison points of other parades in Australia and even though were some cool things to see it kind of felt like a compensation for not recognizing the history of "others" outside of the British/ colonial Australians.  I didn't see the very beginning of the parade, so maybe they were there, but I didn't see aboriginal anything as part of the parade. Ironic, huh? Again, maybe I missed it, but I don't think I did.  So, I saw the parade, waved a flag, and then went back to my apartment. I don't remember doing much of anything else with my day, but I remember feeling happy to chill and relax. 

  

  

As I was entering the train station to go back home I saw that there was a protest on the steps to the station.  I stopped to check it out and then heard a voice in my head of all the recommendations of safe travel - "avoid political gatherings and public protests".  I decided to leave even though the protest seemed to be fairly benign.  I asked one of the policemen present if he could tell me a little bit about what was going on.  It was obvious that it was a protest in favor of the aboriginal people, but I wondered if there were more to it than that. The cop told me that he wasn't permitted to discuss the protest. I understood so I said thanks and caught my train home.