177 Nations of Tasmania

The civil war in Syria has raged for over a decade and displaced millions from their homes. Millions still remain in the countries surrounding Syria while hundreds of thousands of others have sought refuge in western countries such as Australia. Sandra and her family tried for seven years to try and life a normal life as civil war raged on and car bombings or missiles could arrive at any time. It...

Ali spent his childhood in Beirut, a city then torn apart by violent civil conflict, and where any minute the family may have to run down to the basement for safety. Yet once Lebanon had been regarded as the Pearl of the Middle East, and was a desirable place to visit for people from other Arab countries, and was known for its free and liberal society. In some respects, the story of Ali's fami...

Italians have a rich migrant history in Australia, as in other parts of the "new world" , enriching the cultural life of cities from Buenos Aires to New York and from Toronto to Melbourne. Indeed, Italians were for a long time Australia's largest non-English-speaking migrant group. Their role has been no less in Tasmania's migrant history, and that legacy can still be seen in parts of Hobart and L...

Myanmar, known also by some as Burma, is a nation that has spent decades under military rule. Minority groups have been persecuted, mistreated, driven from their land and even killed. One such group is the Karen people, who live predominantly in the south-east area of Myanmar bordering Thailand. It is estimated that around a million Karen are living as refugees in Thailand, but in recent years man...

Macau could perhaps be considered as Hong Kong's smaller and overlooked little brother. It is similar in that its a small ex-European colonial enclave on the south coast of China and it is also administered under the "Two systems, one nation" policy. However, it is much smaller in size and population and its main industry is tourism, primarily based around the casino and gambling bus...

In modern history, the Irish have been one of the great migratory peoples, with millions seeking better opportunities in Britain, the Americas and Australasia and elsewhere over nearly two centuries. Irish migrants have been a part of Australia's history since the arrival of Europeans and a large percentage of the population still claims some Irish heritage. These days, Irish migration to Aust...

Barbados is a former British island colony, but , on the surface at least, that's about its only similarity with Tasmania.  For many it's a dream holiday paradise of luxuriant sandy beaches and lush tropical vegetation. Who would exchange such a place for the capricious climes of Tasmania ?  In Donna's case, her purpose was to do further study abroad, and she was looking for a smaller...

The Republic of North Macedonia, as it is officially known, is a small country in the Balkans wedged between Greece, Serbia, Albania and Bulgaria. Generally, it's name will draw blank stares from many Australians, and yet Macedonians have been coming to Australia, at one time in big numbers, since the 1930s and have made a significant contribution to our migration history.  However, at the cur...

Timor Leste or East Timor is one of Australia’s youngest near neighbours, gaining independence from Indonesia in 1999 after a referendum. But it was a difficult birth of a nation,  with violence and instability marring the transition to independence. This context  is relevant to Elvira's story, who was school age at the time of independence, and in this episode you’ll hear a little bit about h...

When Jon's parents arrived in Australia from Serbia ( then Yugoslavia) in the late 1950s, they were very disappointed. A Serbian acquaintance had sent misleading photos and exaggerated stories of his life in Australia, and Jon's parents had been one of several families who had been attracted to Australia on this basis only to be let down by the reality.  Jon's father had had a jewellery busin...

Kyrgyzstan is not a country many Tasmanians would know much about, and probably most would be surprised to know that there are Kyrgyz living on this island so far from their homeland.  Kyrgyzstan is a small country in Central Asia, a mountainous land of some 7 million inhabitants nestled between giant neighbours, China and Kazakhstan.  It gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union...

Listening to Mohammad's story, it feels very much a journey of going with the flow through a series of unplanned events. For instance, he'd never seriously thought or about or planned to come to Australia to study, and ultimately to live, but a conversation with a cousin lead to a half-serious idea to go to Australia for a holiday that would eventually lead Mohammed to do his Master's in Brisbane....

The only association most Australians will have with Kazakhstan is the fictional character, Borat.  And while the small number of Kazakhs living in Australia may explain this lack of knowledge, Kazakhstan is a huge country which should be hard to ignore. With this in mind, it was an unexpected pleasure to talk with Kazakh, Diana, living in Tasmania, and hear about her experiences growing up in Alm...

Ghana is a country rich in resources - it's the world's 9th largest producer of gold and producer a big proportion of the world's cocoa beans. But as with some other similar African countries, the wealth from these resources, has been slow to trickle down to the people.   In this episode, Desmond talks about what it was like in growing up in a rural area in northern Ghana.  Although his village ha...

The Republic of Congo is not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of Congo, it's much larger Francophone neighbour. But like it's neighbour, it is rich in valuable minerals, particularly oil and timber. So perhaps it makes sense that Charles, who, with his wife is the only Republic of Congo-born residents of Tasmania, should be a geologist. As you will hear in this episode, it has been an i...

Adely has followed an interesting path, from studying music and being a in a popular rock band, graduating in Arabic language to eventually settling on Accounting, which was part of her reason for coming to Tasmania to study.  Since she's come here, she's also managed to start a small but successful business using her training and skills as a Nail Technician, but provide a different type of servic...

The Maldives is so often seen as a fashionable and unique travel destination in online travel sites, and images of bikini-wearing influencers swanning around atolls of glittering white sand or bathing in azure waters are common place. But what is life like for everyday people in this small island nation ? And why would a Maldivian want to leave this seemingly idyllic life, for a life in the much c...

This is a collection of clips from existing episodes, all relating to the topic of "food and hospitality".   It features clips of Peter and Rebeka discussing some differences between aspects of hospitality in Slovenia and Australia, Sergio reminiscing about childhood experiences of festivities in his Portuguese village involving roasting a pig, Ariana explaining the importance of coffee drink...

This is a compilation of three stories told by very different women of their experiences of escaping their homelands : a political refusnik from Russia ( in the  former USSR ), a young Eritrean who fled political persecution and the threat of compulsory and indefinite military conscription, and the story of an epic escape from behind the Iron Curtain in the then Republic of Czechoslovakia ( t...

This is a compilation of clips from four very different stories that all relate to escaping danger or repression in their homelands and eventually making their way to Tasmania to start a new life.  This compilation features :  Reza, a Hazara from Afghanistan. Nancy, whose family was deeply effected by the 1973 military coup in Chile by the notorious General Pinochet. Cedrick, whose famil...

This is a compilation of clips from interviews I've done so far featuring different stories about how people met their partners, which in most cases resulted directly or indirectly in them coming to or staying in Tasmania. Every one has a different story to tell, and they include a used car sale, a meeting in Mexican customs, a blind date, an online dating site that lead to a meeting in Mauritius,...

Mereani grew up in a village on the main island of Fiji. It was much less isolated from the capital than other Fijian villages, but when Mereani was growing up, there wasn't much of the technology and mod cons we might expect today and her family mainly lived from farming. After finishing school, Mereani got a job in a traditional Fijian dancing group at a tourist hotel, and it was through this th...

Gediminas grew up in the port city of Klaipeda, the third-largest city in Lithuania. At 15 years Gediminas was selected to attend the National Academy of Sport in Vilnius, which precipitated a great change in lifestyle , with training becoming part of his daily routine. He played as a professional footballer in several countries before reaching a crossroads in his career in his late 20s and thinki...

One of the common themes in the podcast has been about food and hospitality, something central to many cultures and which has many emotional connections for migrants, connecting them with family and homeland in various ways. This compilation features excerpts from my interviews with Amr (Egypt), Ranti ( Indonesia), Anna (Hungary), Anna ( Seychelles) and Darya (Ukraine) talking about different aspe...

Manu grew up on a small island in Tonga, a small nation in itself, in a time where they had no electricity or technologies that we would take for granted today, like TV or cars.  Later he would move to the main island to attend high school and start playing rugby, a sport that is dear to the hearts of many Tongans.  But his rugby ability would prove to be an asset later, when as a 25-year old he m...