What makes Dinky Di Dinky Di?

I have always found it easier to be Australian when I am not in Australia. When I am in the United States, Europe or in any part of Asia, my Melbournian accent is automatically recognized as one of the plethora of nasally sounding Aussie tones that make up the accents so unique to the great southern land.

Yet when I am in Australia, I struggle to be recognized as that. I could not count the number of times I have been asked; “So, where are you from?”

Me: “From Vermont.”

Q: “But where are you really from?”

Me: “I am really from Vermont. I have lived in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne for some twenty years.”

Q:  “So where were you from before that?”

Me: “Singapore.”

Q: “Really? You don’t look Singaporean.”

Me: “No, I was born in Singapore to parents of ethnic Sri Lankan descent. Actually my great-grand father was born in Japan in 1880 and would you like to know my bra size while you are at it? 10F thank you for asking. Small back big cups, genetically engineered to look hot in a saree! Jeeze!”

In pubs, clubs, work places and even once in a changing room at the swimming pool.

And in Australia it would seem that a neither naturisation certificate, parentage, heritage nor straightforward genetics is enough to define your Australian-ness. And now we have authenticity enter the debate as a yardstick for inclusion in a racial group.

Really? Is it possible not to be authentically something you should by have by self- identification anyway? And if someone is not authentic, then they might be then inauthentic? Confused? I was.

Since we’ve all been running to the Macquarie Dictionary lately just to be sure to be sure, I did too.

Authentic is defined as 1. Entitled to acceptance or belief; reliable; trustworthy: an authentic story. 2. Of the authorship or origin reputed; of genuine origin: authentic documents.

I struggle to understand how the word “authentic” could be used to define a race, a nationality or have anything to do with anything as complex as identity. More than genetics, looks or physical characteristics, self-identification has a greater significance on the question of racial inclusion rather than anything else. It does in my book anyway.

See I grew up with someone really special in my life, Aunty Seetha (not her real name).

Now Aunty Seetha was born in Singapore near the end of World War II. The story goes that she was born around the time Nagasaki was bombed and found abandoned in a ditch not long before Singapore was handed back to the British. Her father was a Japanese soldier and her mother..well her mother could have been anything; a Eurasian, perhaps even Russian. She does not know and looking at her, it is hard to tell. She is just a beautiful lady.

She was found by a Sri Lankan man and raised by his family. She speaks fluent Singhalese (English, Malay and Chinese as well might I add) and grew up for all intents and purposes a Sri Lankan-Singaporean. She is a devout Buddhist and is a stalwart of the Sri Lankan Aunty Brigade in Singapore.

So much so that she was asked to officiate at my menarche ceremony. As I reached womanhood, she was one of the four ladies asked to induct me through my rites of becoming a Singhalese woman. She brought water from the river to bathe me, tied gifts of gold around my neck and whispered a secret blessing in my ear as she handed me my first saree. The same necklace and saree I will give to my ½ Dutch, ¼ Aussie, ¼ American 100% Australian goddaughter one day.

Is Aunty Seetha Sri Lankan? Hell yes. Is she authentic? Of course she is. No one scares the bejesus out of you like a Sri Lankan Aunty and Aunty Seetha is very good at that. And she a valued and treasured member of the Sri Lankan community. In many ways, she is more Sri Lankan than I am and I doubt you’d ever find packet curry paste in her pantry!

So can we stop alright already with this question of what a person is or what a person is not? I know who I am. I am Australian.