TAINTED AUSSIE FLAG

Our leaders from both sides of politics have expressed shock and horror over the banning of the Aussie flag from a Sydney youth music festival Big Day Out. Perhaps they missed those images that were flashed to the TV screens and the Internet for the whole world to see during the shameful events of the Cronulla riots. Here are some as a reminder -

Nowadays, I too get a bit nervous when young people wrapped the Aussie flag come near me. Perhaps the leaders have left it too late to condemn the wrong use of the flag. To many it no longer represents what it used to. Australia no longer represents what she used to. Our Prime Minister had made sure of that over the past decade.

Rudd's Interview (Unofficial translation)

In one of my previous posts I mentioned about Kevin Rudd handling a TV interview in Mandarin. Very interestingly I received comments from someone with the blog name of Goodtobewithyou, Rudd’s trademark greeting. Goodtobewithyou was kind enough to point out to me the link to the website of Phoenix TV network (a Hong Kong TV network partly owned by News Corp) where I could find a transcript of the interview, in Chinese of course, but he then asked if I could translate it for him! For someone supposedly to have an occasional contact with Mr Rudd, I thought he could get one more quickly from the man himself. We can only speculate who this mysterious and anonymous character really is – and if only we can get on his own well protected blog!

http://goodtobewithyou.blogspot.com

Being quite keen to read the full text, I looked for an English translation which I thought must surely exist. I had hoped for a quick perusal without the tedium of frequent references to my still brand new Chinese-English dictionary. The most obvious place was Rudd’s own office. Alas, my email went unanswered – either because they were too busy planning the takeover of Canberra or just plain rude! Undeterred, I ventured into an unofficial translation myself, while under my breath thanking my parents for encouraging me to build a basic foundation in Chinese during school. After some hours’ work, it was finished, all five pages of it. To post it in the normal way would take up too much web space on the opening page of my blog. Instead, I have posted them as comments, in two parts, below.

Iemma vs the Sheik

Premier Iemma of NSW must be happy to read that the bizarre Sheik Hilaly is considering contesting against him in the state elections in March.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/shock-showdown-for-iemma/2007/01/20/1169096030968.html

Apart from allowing the people (including the Muslims who make up more than 10% of the voters in the seat) to make a clear choice it it will be an opportunity for the government to debate the issues regarding the Muslim minorities.

Most of all, it puts the Liberal coalition leader Debnam in a quandary - who will he support or oppose ?

35 Days

I was away for 35 days and many things changed. Firstly and very sadly one of my best friends died, which among many things, reminded me of my mortality. Then there was a local council by-election which proved once again how resistant people are to change. And finally there was a new Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd.

Locked in a hotel room with my sick daughter in freezing Harbin a couple of years ago, I channel surfed the TV and happened upon an interview of Rudd by a Chinese reporter. I was most impressed with Rudd's handling of very technical foreign relations issues in fluent Mandarin.

It would serve him well if people are impressed with the ALP policies under his leadership as I was with his Mandarin!