Tree Bark and Australian Accents

by Trevor Lim Zihang (Singapore)

I didn't expect to find Australia

One distinct thing that always stuck with me from unwittingly living in Australia was the tree bark. In my little corner of Traralgon, tucked away under the giant blanket of the Australian continent, I just recall it being just about everywhere. It was the gravel of the town. About a decade ago, I found myself staring down the quaint town I would soon call home. I remember the frigid wind shoving against my skin, which was at first respite from the stinging heat of Singapore, but soon-to-be the pains of weather that I'd miss yet again upon my return to Singapore a year later. I didn't question the whole affair. I just took it in. 'Guess I'm doing this now' my child's brain thought. The whole debacle is a vague memory clearly remembered, a movie that was never quite left behind with the theatre. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we might not completely remember the nitty-gritty details of our travels, but a part of it always sticks with us, just outside the peripherals that edge us on. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of a friend made a passing comment on my "Ang Mo" accent, taking note of my queer tendency to sound like a white person. It stuck with me through the night, and well into dusk. Then it reared it's unremarkable head once more when thinking of how to quip at this submission. Looking back I wonder, was I infringing on Australian culture? Or was I adopting it as one of my own? I'm sure my experiences there, however murky I recall them to be, has shaped me into who I am. I didn't expect to find an accent, and I don't know what else I picked up along the way. But I know I have a little box at the back of my head, with all the little nuances and kinks that make me who I am. Travel changed me, and it'll change you, in ways you might not always remember. And that might be for the best.