Go Maria!

I was always taught there were 7 continents too, including us.  'Large
Island' indeed!

Also, as I said, in Sydney we will celebrate anything, secular or otherwise,
from Melbourne Cup Day to the State of Origin, from Mardi Gras to Carnivale,
Festival of the Winds to Spring in the City, Chinese New Year to Hanukkah -
though contrary to popular belief we actually have fewer public holidays
than most nations, about half as many as Singapore, for instance - and
provided you can make it back to reality on a Monday morning, the weekends
have a lot to offer.  I don't know what the penguins do, but the Australian
scientists who live and work in Antarctica certainly find time for festivals
like the rest of us.

Heleanor Feltham
Powerhouse Museum
 ----------
From: owner-museum-l
To: MUSEUM-L
Subject: Re: continents
Date: Friday, 18 September 1998 9:35AM

further to partick et al

so now we see the unfortunate effects of english geography books and a
classical education...."renaissance list?"  there were just a few places not
actually known to the world of renaissance europe.......

i just looked up my oxford dictionary (okay, my "australian concise oxford")
and it lists 7 continents, europe, asia, n & s america, africa, australia
and antarctica.

as for religious festivals, we have grand final day (the football) and
melbourne cup day (horse racing, and we get a public holiday for that) and a
massive pagan festival of the rings coming up in sydney 2000.

        patrick should know that expat aussies in england and elsewhere
honour melbourne cup day with special rituals (the sweep) and observance
(listening to the race).

        patrick will be here in melbourne between these two great festivals
of the football and the horse (ICOM had to be scheduled propitiously and
there is no better time in this city) and i am sure every australian will
tell him that WE ARE A CONTINENT!  perhaps motions will have to be passed at
ICOM to affirm this status but millions of australians would be devastated
to be relegated to the second division of "large island".

        Maria Berry
        Museum Victoria

> ----------
> From:         Boylan P[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Museum discussion list
> Sent:         Friday, 18 September 1998 12:02 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: patrick boylan's email on multi-cultural things
>
> On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Berry, Maria wrote:
>
> > here is the offending line:
> >
> > > (about 45% of the 270,000 population were
> > > from first or second generation immigrant families from around 80
> >         countries of origin in all five continents)
> >
> > "all five continents"??  how many continents?  there are either six or
> seven
> > (depending whether antarctica gets a mention).  so, which continent has
> > patrick willfully omitted? asian and european festivals are mentioned so
> > it's not them.  surely no-one would forget north america.  colonialism
> has
> > reared its ugly head!! obviously australia or south america or africa
> has
> > been neglected.
> >
> > i demand that patrick own up and admit his prejudices!!  which continent
> > have you rejected as unworthy or irrelevant?  speak up and be flamed!
>
> ======================
>
> Maria:
>
> Of course - and I first did so over well 20 years ago.  The County Council
> hired in racism awareness trainers for its Chief Officers who seemed to
> have been trained by Alcoholics Anonymous.  Certainly they wouldn't let
> any of the participants out for the first coffee'n'comfort break
> until we had each confessed in turn to the (white, but thoroughly
> politically correct) trainers and our colleagues to being life-long
> and (probably unredeemable) racists.
>
> When I read geography at University we were taught that it was now OK to
> admit a fifth continent (Antarctica) to the classic Renaissance four
> (Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas), but that Australia (one of my
> final year special subjects) was merely the world's largest island -
> though I admit that some of the quiz books give that honour to Greenland
> these days. Having confessed this, is my visa for the ICOM meeting in
> Melbourne going to be cancelled?
>
> Actually, the census didn't turn up any Australian families (classified by
> place of birth of the "head of the household").  However, no doubt there
> were loads of whinging Poms who had been given their entitlement of a
> quarter or half page in the local newspaper in the 1950s to say why they
> were running out on the hopeless and collapsing old country and emigrating
> to Aus. ("will the last one to leave please turn out the lights" jibes
> etc.) but who couldn't hack in in your upside down world and had sneaked
> back home with their tails between their legs.
>
> I do remember that we were similarly short of long-term resident (as
> opposed to University etc.) North Americans but did however have at least
> two Tibetan families and some Indonesians in addition to around 30,000
> families from the Indian Subconitnent eithger direct or via East Africa.
>
>
> Patrick Boylan
>