I grew up in Rumtown.
I lived up the hill from the cesspit that was Coogee Beach in the 1970s. Terry Page was still exerting his malign influence over the whole suburb. The bookmaker was the owner of the Coogee Bay Hotel which stood at the end of the road down from Randwick and right in the middle of the beach. Rumour was you could buy heroin in the front bar. In the late 1980s, we were still buying weed in the back lane.
After high school I had some great fortune and an employer sent me to San Francisco, Albuquerque and New York for work. I also went on a long life-changing trip to Nepal, India and Thailand. I’d lived in Germany as a kid, but nothing prepared me for the lessons that Asia was ready to teach me.
I got out of Sydney in the late 1990s, chasing true love to Jakarta, just in time to see the effects of the Asian Financial Crisis (Krismon) and watch the corruption of the Suharto government swallow itself. I watched from an apartment high above the street as the soldiers beat back the protesters. I watched my local shopping mall burn to the ground. I toured the streets of Glodok and Kota where Chinese shopkeepers were murdered in the street.
I returned to Rumtown, newly aware of the intricate complexities of South East Asia. It was a tricky business, returning to the pregnant Olympic city, which had fallen in love with itself while I was away. The story of Narcissus has got nothing on Sydney.
Canberra and the big house on the hill beckoned. A year within the bubble. Before social media, the life of a political adviser was punctuated by the AAP newsfeed and the stack of photocopied media clippings on my desk each morning. It still felt like it was possible to make a difference. I put up a spirited fight against Internet censorship, against spending money on a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, and on encryption. The Howard Government was in full swing, and it would be another 7 years before most people began to realise how they had slowed Australia and sold our future.
Given that I’d gone all the way to Jakarta for love, it made no sense to be working in the big house when my heart was in Rumtown. I went back, living by the beach, hoping that the sea breezes would keep the moral decay at bay. That was not a great success.
A lucky chance led us away again to 12 amazing years in Saigon. Vietnam was incredible. Life never stood still for that whole period. I can’t begin to do justice to Vietnam here, and I won’t even try. Living in Vietnam led to opportunities to travel, to Hong Kong, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Sweden, Netherlands, and the USA.
The next stop, Singapore, marked the beginning of a life defined more by children and stability. Singapore might secretly be one of the great success stories of socialism. Public housing, health, law and order and so many other aspects of society have been rethought within a context that is often surprising. More travel began here, to New Zealand, the United Kingdom, mainland China, Dubai and Iran.
Now it’s back to Rumtown … and I’ve got some thoughts …