Last week
I met a Canadian living in Adelaide with her husband and son for 5
years. They are gainfully
employed but their son, now 18, has
struggled. She told me how difficult it’s been for him to meet kids, and that
he fell in with the wrong ‘mob’. She said that she and her husband haven’t made
friends outside of their work colleagues. She called Adelaide ‘clicky’. Others say
the same.
Her
negativity caused me to reflect on my situation. I came here with names of local people,
one I’d met, two were friends of friends. Although I reached out to them they
never reciprocated. However my landlady, who has lived
in Adelaide most of her adult life has included me in her social life.
As you’ve
seen on the blog my friends are other students and transplanted colleagues. People a long way from home who find community with others in the
same situation. Maybe it’s because as
Caucasians we fit easily into the culture here and don’t feel the need to
gather.
Adelaide
is full of foreign students from East Timor, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Papua New Guinea, the Philipines, India, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. When I
speak with them I find they have formed their
own communities which host celebrations for religious and other festivals where
they sell food and local handicrafts. In fact, some of them complain that their
community has too many activities going on when they need to study.
Students from developing countries look up to western cultures and
think that we have it all. But we don’t.
We’ve lost community. We no longer go to church or get together in our
neighbourhoods. We are an individualistic culture. Social capital is about the networks you are
involved with and is seen as a determinant of health. I see such support and the
strong sense of community and kinship in these countries having a positive influence on
health and wellbeing.
So I enjoy socializing with students from these countries, as in these recent photos.
