Travels abroad
- I had the best year abroad meeting people from different cultures, trying things I never thought I'd have the guts to do (like bungee jumping!) and enjoying the Dutch way of life which I discovered was very different from Australia. Dutch people have a much better work/life balance than Australians, they prioritise their leisure time and have a much more laid back view on life in general. Dutch people value egalitarianism and prize their civil liberties, which is reflected in their more progressive views on subjects that are usually taboo in Australia like, prostitution, drugs and homosexuality.
- When I first started University I was enrolled in a combined degree of Law/Arts but I found myself desperately unhappy and not enjoying my subjects or uni life at all.
- I decided to take a year off to find my passion in life and moved to Amsterdam to work as an au pair (nanny) for a year.
Watch the footage below!
- My year in Amsterdam fostered my love of travelling and I'm lucky enough to have visited countries as varied as Japan, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, South Korea and the United States. I've had so many adventures and haven't regretted any of them (not even the time I was almost arrested by the Italian police and had to sleep like a hobo on the streets of Pisa for a night)
A love of the arts
- Moving to Australia fostered my love of the creative arts and as a child I loved to draw, write, act and in particular dance. I frequently participated in our traditional Nepali dance classes. I branched out into jazz dancing and eventually into contemporary. Dancing has been a big part of my life, acting as a stress reliever, mood enhancer and a big confidence booster as I faced some self-esteem issues as a child.
- Through dancing I felt more myself and I love it as a medium to express myself. It has shaped who I am today and broadened my experiences as I was exposed to a new artistic community and different ways of thinking. I met my best friend in my first contemporary dance lesson. As we grew up in the conservative confines of Western Sydney, she had a difficult time during our teenage years as she came out of the closet. Although her church didn't support her, her parents did and she is today one of the organisers of the Sydney Mardi Gras parade. Being so proud of her achievements I was happy to support her in her first year as Parade Director and was lucky enough to dance in the 40th Anniversary for Mardi Gras which featured Kylie Minogue! The footage of our dance went worldwide and was shown everywhere from French national news to trashy celebrity sites like Perez Hilton!
Watch the footage below!
Onwards and upwards!
Hybridised cultures
- This mix of a Nepali background and an Australian upbringing has led me to see myself as having a hybridised culture and values as I maintain strong links to my Nepali heritage as well as growing and learning from my Australian upbringing.
As I am on the brink of finishing university, I am excited to see what the future holds. I plan to continue working in the arts sector in Sydney and eventually travel a bit more, perhaps even live overseas again!
- A great example of this is the Nepali ritual of puja which is done during auspicious occasions during a person's life. During birthdays my parents always made sure we had both a traditional Western birthday cake as well as performing a Nepali puja ceremony to celebrate and mark that we were another year older. This kept us in touch with our Nepali roots as we grew up in our new Australian home.
- Although my parents are not strict Hindus, we continued to celebrate Nepali customs such as Nepali New Year and our barah ceremony (which is an initiation ceremony for girls when they come of age), moreso in keeping with Nepali social customs and celebrating with the Nepali social community that we lived in as a communal, bonding activity.
Coming home and moving forwards
- When I got back from Amsterdam, I decided to drop the Law part of my degree and concentrate on my first love, the arts.
- I'm so glad that I did as I have had such a great time following my passion and learning things as varied as how to create a projection mapped video installation to scripting and filming my own advertisement.
As very personal and special video my cousin made me for my 21st birthday. An accurate journey of my life thus far
- I'm currently working at the Sydney Theatre Company and the City Recital Hall Angel Place and find it so stimulating working and supporting the work of two great local Australian arts organisations
Taking part in my 'barah',
a Nepali ceremony to mark
a girl's coming of age
Final work for my projection mapping course at COFA
Evolving definition of families...
- Being Nepali, family is a huge part of our lives as we have a communal orientated culture, that focuses on placing the community's importance over the individual, which is at odds with the individualistic, dominant cultural mindset in Australia. However, my parents were very understanding in letting my brother and I grow and choose our own paths in life and understood that the Australian environment that we were growing up in was very different from the Nepal that they had grown up in.
- As we were migrants to Australia we had no family of our own in this foreign country, however as we grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney, we met a lot of other Nepali families who had migrated to Australia and were going through the same process of cultural adaptation. They became our new "family" and we are so close that I now call the parents of my Nepali friends my "aunties" and "uncles"!
- We befriended them and formed a strong Nepali community where we continued to celebrate our Nepali heritage in conjunction with our burgeoning identities as Australian citizens.
School days...
I was one of those strange kids who really loved school! I always saw it as a new opportunity to make friends and learn more about the world. Once I picked up English, I was actually promoted a grade and put in advanced English classes. This led to me eventually gaining admittance to an academically selective, co-educational highschool, which put me in a challenging environment with similarly high-achieving students. There I met a close-knit group of friends who are still my best friends today!
My Cultural Mind Map for DIPP1110
Tanya Shrestha
Adapting to life in Australia
An introduction into the world of me!
Turn your volume on to watch my videos!
OINK! OINK!
My name is Tanya and I am 21 years old and in my final semester of completing a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Media and Communications. Hopefully through this mind map you'll discover a bit more about me and my life!
Me being my usual silly self!
Beginnings in Nepal ...
- As time went on, I grew to love life in Australia and appreciate the diversity and multiculturalism that Australia offered. I picked up English through watching Australian TV shows, making new friends and enjoyed trying new foods from countries that I had never heard of - fun fact, the first time that I tried pizza I was horrified and shocked to discover that it was a savoury food. I bit into it fully expecting it to be sweet, like a Nepali-style pancake, but boy did I get a surprise!
Life in Australia
I was born in Kathmandu, Nepal the second child to my parents who had previously lived in the United States while my dad was finishing his Masters in Boston. I have one older brother so we are the ideal nuclear family, which has contributed to my heteronormative upbringing.
At the age of 2, my parents decided to move our family to Australia to give my brother and I greater opportunities in life than Nepal afforded us and to explore wider job opportunities in what they called "the lucky country"
- In the beginning, life in Australia was difficult for me. Although I was quite young, I remember being confused by the cultural differences as simple as wearing a seatbelt, as in Nepal they are very lax with road rules and vehicle safety so you are not even required to wear a seatbelt in the car. I remember the first time I got into a car in Australia at the International Terminal, I chucked a huge tantrum (and embarrassed my parents) as I didn't want to wear a seatbelt because I'd never had to wear one before in Nepal and it felt funny pressing into my belly!
- Also I didn't understand or speak English so my first few years were disorientating and confusing as I adjusted to the cultural difference of living in a foreign country as an immigrant, with only my immediate family for company as being Nepali, we have a huge extended family and unfortunately all of them remained in Kathmandu.