australia day

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Photograph of giant paper-lantern ox for Chinese New Year

This year Australia Day coincides with Chinese New Year. It’s the start of the Year of the Ox in just a few hours — New Moon is at 1853 AEDT — which explains this giant ox in Belmore Park.

I haven’t written anything new this year. My photographic post Great Australian Dreaming 1, our silly new national anthem and my essay Are you proud of your culture? said it all last year. Unless I think of something really original later today.

Photograph of Australia Day reveller by Trinn Suwannapha

Are you proud of your culture? It depends which culture you mean, I guess. Over the weekend I’ve pondered that while we all celebrated our Australian culture, and somewhere — not that I bothered participating — gay men celebrated “gay culture”. Again.

The photo (above) is from ’Pong’s photo essay on Australia Day. Classy eh?

The rest of the pics show precisely how we celebrate the Birth of Our Great Nation at the very place where the key events of 1788 took place. It’s pathetic. It’s embarrassing.

As I Twittered to ’Pong at the time, “So many people in your Oz Day photos use the flag as clothing. Fat-arsed drunks sitting on it! Nation’s flag: show respect.”

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Photograph: Great Australian Dreaming 1

As my Australia Day tribute, I’ll completely contradict what I said in my post about Australian of the Year and give you a photograph. A photograph of rural Australia.

Actually, this picture was taken only a short way out of Melbourne as ’Pong and I were about land at Tullamarine. The date is 17 December 2002, and the drought is in full effect. For me, these colour tones say “Australia” more than anything else.