Thoughts about Australia
I spent about a week in Australia giving speeches about disinformation to first responders and the DOD. Here are my thoughts on the trip.
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On traveling. Yes, I find most people around the world more informed about geopolitics than Americans. In many cases they seem to know more of what is going on in the US than most Americans.
I also agree that Chinese have replaced Americans as the ugly tourist. In a particular Unesco site, the Unesco worker without any filter told me about his distain for Chinese tourist. A sentiment I found around the world in the multiple places I’ve travelled to.
Personally I blame Joe Biden, for allowing the Chinese to take our title as the world ugliest tourist.
1. Bunnings doesn't do the sausage sizzles - they let local charities use their car parks to run the sizzles (and I think the BBQ equipment is owned by Bunnings so they can just rock up and start operating it).
2. I heard that there are some great whisky distilleries in Tasmania. But I don't drink alcohol regularly so I can't comment.
3. I'm willing to bet that talking about sausages reminded you about the requirement to vote (or pay a fine) because this is a thing here 😉: https://democracysausage.org/
4. There were always many Asians in Australia - I had an Australian friend who grew up here in the 1970's and she told me that she's so used to have Asians around that she stared feeling at home already passing through Bangkok airport when coming back from a trip to Europe.
5. Don't forget that Australia's population is tiny (25 million), so not much is happening here and with 30% of Australians born overseas, there is a lot of international connections.