The Melting Pot of the Pacific

As a New Yorker, I am no stranger to a city filled with people of all walks of life. I would liken Sydney to New York in that aspect. Similar to America there is no typical “Australian”. You have people from every Asian country imaginable. From the various islands in close proximity to Australia. From the Middle East. Europeans. Aboriginals. The list goes on and on. What HAS been different for me has been meeting so many people from pacific islands I had never even heard of and learning about their cultures!

Many of my friends I have met here hail from the beautiful island Papua New Guinea (PNG). Papua New Guinea is an extremely diverse country where over 800 languages are spoken and the terrain goes from very tall mountains to beautiful beaches! It has been great learning about PNG from my friends and I got the chance to learn even more this past week because PNG’s independence day was Tuesday the 16th. In honor, my friends hosted a feast at their house where we would all cook (and eat) only traditional papua new guinean food and listen to traditional PNG music.

I wasn’t sure what to expect but it remind me a lot of the Caribbean! Coconut milk chicken. Greens. Hash browns. Skewers. Yams. It was like Thanksgiving. The music too reminded me of the Caribbean with its reggae vibes and soulful singing. It was great being able to help (but mostly watch) with the preparations and watch their culture come to life!