Australia Day or Chinese New Year?

Should the focus be on the country in which I was born, or the culture which makes me who I am?

Being from a Chinese family, there is a real excitement about Chinese New Year.  We have sweet foods all day, and there are lions and dragons and fireworks. Children look forward to the lucky envelopes they receive, and families get together for days of festivities.

I remember the excitement that used to accompany Chinese New Year when I was a little boy. It was a bit like Christmas, except minus the jolly, fat guy in the red suit.

Of course what we see here is just a pale imitation of Chinese New Year in many places in Asia.  There it is a 10-day party.

Australia Day, by comparison, is a bit of a disappointment. I mean, after you've watched the lamb ad, and had the afternoon swim, what is there to do?  It's a bit of a fizzer really.

But, then, maybe that is quintessentially Australian.  A disdain for the manufactured beliefs of other countries, and a healthy desire to just be left to do one's own thing are the hallmarks of Australian life.

I've been in America on the 4th of July, and after a while the whole glitziness of it becomes a bore, not to mention the 123 Americans who each want to read the entire Declaration of Independence to you as soon as they learn you're Australian.  Compared to that, we've got it pretty much right.

Yes, I know that we aren't perfect, and there is lot we can do to make it better, but there is a lot more we could do to make it worse.  If only we, as a nation, could learn to see the glass as half full, not half empty, we would be living the dream.

So, which should I choose?  Well I choose both.

Being ethnically Chinese (and ethnically Irish too!) shouldn't take away from the fact that this is the land of my birth. And much as I love Chinese culture, I wouldn't swap living in Australia for the world - literally.

I love the fact that we can mix here, free from the enmities of the old world, and with the opportunity to make a new world of our own choosing.

You can enjoy Australia Day, and when you've finished, drop over to Chinatown for some dinkum celebrations - after all, dinkum is a Chinese gift to the Australian vocabulary.

So Happy Australia Day, and Kung hei fat choy too!