Diversity Done Right Down Under
The city of Melbourne — and Australia overall — inspired me with its inclusive, easeful, dynamic culture
“A cruise-y city.”
That’s how our driver described Melbourne as he took us to the airport last Thursday.
He nailed it.
Easy going. But going places. With lovely scenery.
And a cosmopolitan, inclusive vibe that holds everything together.
I left Melbourne last week with great appreciation for this five-million-person city that sees itself as a cultural and athletic hub. Indeed, my wife, mother-in-law and I delighted in architecture that was by turns colonial and stately, modern-chic and outright playful. We saw world-class tennis at the Australian Open. And we took in museums, churches and lots of yummy food and drink.
The latter has much to do with Melbourne’s remarkable diversity. I flew into Melbourne from San Francisco wondering what, if anything, defined the country’s cuisine. The driver who took us to our hotel answered the question in a way that left me disappointed. “Hamburgers,” he said. “Anything barbecued.”
But the fellow, an immigrant from Pakistan, also said there were excellent Pakistani restaurants. And he recommended his favorite spot.
We never made it there. But his suggestion we try an ethnic restaurant hinted at a key to Melbourne’s richness. The city is one of the most racially diverse I’ve ever visited. And the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Over the course of four days, we enjoyed Japanese and Chinese noodle soups, hearty basil-inflected salad with miso-ginger dressing, Italian burrata cheese and fried calamari. Plus gourmet fare on par with other foodie destinations like San Francisco or Paris. Vegemite-gruyere pastry at Lune café. And crazy-good cocktails and nibbles at the bijou bottle shop & bar, part of a family of restaurants and bars located along a downtown ally.
“In some U.S. lanes you find danger. In ours you find delicacies,” our server quipped to us. Indeed, I loved my tequila-mezcal-chartreuse drink and the Croque Fromage we shared — a fancy grilled cheese sandwich with caramelized onions.
Making the food and other tourist experiences even more tasty was that cruise-y, inclusive spirit. Not only is Melbourne’s mix of Caucasian, Asian, South Asian, Aboriginal and mixed-race faces striking. So is the sense that no one group lords it over another. In many other parts of the world, people of color play subordinate, subservient roles. That inevitably creates a certain colonial-era tension.
I didn’t feel that in Melbourne. Employees in cafes and shops largely mirrored the look of the patrons being served. Or so it seemed to me.
Consider the tandem who served up gourmet cocktails and sandwiches at the bottle store. The young man who made the crack about the alleys was a person of color. His partner was a White woman. Both were well-versed in mixology and warm in their customer service.
I don’t mean to paint Melbourne or Australia more generally as perfect when it comes to racial and social harmony. The country, for example, recently rejected a referendum that would have amplified the political voice of Aboriginal people.
But overall, things seem to be moving in a positive direction. I had lunch with Megumi Miki, a business consultant and expert on “quietly powerful” leadership in the workplace. Megumi is Japanese-Australian, born in the country to Japanese immigrant parents. Growing up in the 1970s, she remembers being teased for her lunches — made up of rice balls and other Japanese fare.
Today, though, Megumi feels entirely at home in Melbourne. Her work is about helping organizations to recognize the leadership talent of “quiet” men and women — a passion stemming from her own introverted personality. And she’s finding receptive audiences, including in Melbourne.
That may be because people in this city appreciate authenticity and difference over being polished, Megumi says. “Most of us are proud of being a cosmopolitan city with a mix of people, culture and food,” she says.
There’s an appreciation of differences that defines this island nation in general. A recent poll found that Australians had increasingly positive views about immigration. Roughly seven in 10 Australians (68 percent) said “Australia’s openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation,” a 15-point increase from 2018.
It’s as if Aussies haven’t forgotten that they have long been a country made up largely of migrants — from the first British settlers to the newcomers entering today from places including Asia, Russia and the Middle East.
This year’s Australian Open captured that inclusive, global identity for me with a pair of events. On January 17, the Australian Open paid tribute to the 50th year anniversary of Evonne Goolagong Cawley’s championship in women’s singles. Goolagong is of aboriginal ancestry, and she was a part of a “First Nations Day” ceremony that celebrated indigenous tennis achievements and included cultural traditions of Australia’s original people.
Then, that night, Aussies everywhere were made proud by the feisty efforts of Alexei Popyrin, a 24-year-old who gave reigning male singles champ Novak Djokovic a run for his money. Popyrin was born in Australia to parents who immigrated from Russia.
Aussies, by and large, recognize the wealth that comes from welcoming people of all stripes and treating them with dignity. No wonder the city of Melbourne is booming with new construction and Australia’s economy overall has been growing and described as “resilient” by the International Monetary Fund.
Thank you, Melbourne, for reminding me that a nation doesn’t have to embody a cold-shoulder, turn-them-away, demonize-the-immigrants attitude. And that embracing folks from all over leads to a delicious, easeful dynamism.
To cruisy-ness.
Our driver this morning — once again — summed it up well.
“You can have us and them,” he said. “But we’ve got such a mix that creates ‘us.’”
