This was written during Winter 2010 at the 40th Anniversary of our arrival to Australia. Reflecting on this as I celebrate the 50th Anniversary.
Memory is such a wonderful process of the human mind. It is simply amazing when we think that we have the ability to create new memories, store them for periods of time, and recall them when they are needed and all the while allowing us to learn and interact with people around us.
It was a few weeks ago when this was put to the test, when my sisters (in Perth, WA), brother (in Moscow, Russia) and I struck up an email conversation remembering the time we arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia, exactly forty years ago this winter. While I could remember some things, my siblings remembered other things of the trip and when it was spoken of, memories came flooding back and the pieces of the voyage slowly got much clearer for all of us.
I remember setting sail on the passenger liner MV Australasia from the country of my birth Singapore. We were each given colourful streamers where we would throw it, holding on to one end, towards the people standing on the docks below. Some missed the mark entirely, others ended up throwing the whole roll into the sea having forgotten to hold on to one end, but the lucky ones manage to find someone, anyone, catching the other end of the streamer. Each of us would hold on to the streamer until it snapped as the ship pulled away from the whalf. This was the beginning of a 7-day voyage through the Straights of Java, across the Indian Ocean and to the Port of Fremantle. Though not an around the world sailing voyage like that completed by teenager Jessica Watson, I can imagine the waves she faced when sailing across the oceans.
I for one was sick “as a dog” during the second part of the voyage, when the ship would sway back and forth to the waves which would be breaking against it. However before this, I had the time of my life, as it was all a brand new adventure, filled with great excitement, anticipation, anxiety and after experiencing the waves, a little trepidation. This I thought must have been how my forefathers felt when they set sail from Portugal to the Far East in search of new lands and treasure.
Photo: Media from Wix
During the 7-day voyage we made new friends with kids who had set sail from England with their parents. And because they were a little more forward then us “Asian kids” we learnt the games they played. Some were new, but others were simply called by different names, such as Tag and Chinese Whispers. Then there were coits, a common game played on ships where we were required to throw rings made of coiled rope towards a marker. If you remember the TV series “The Love Boat” you know what I mean.
Scholars tell us there are three separate stages of memory: sensory memory, short-term (working) memory and long-term memory. Where sensory memory is the earliest stage of memory when audio and visual information from the environment is stored for a very brief period of time. Then there is short-term memory, also known as working memory, i.e. the information we are currently aware of or thinking about or what Freudian psychology refers to as the conscious mind, and then long-term memory which refers to the continuing storage of information, with some information easy to recall while others, not so easy to access.
Now before I forget some of the things we did and to share our first thoughts of what Australia meant to us, here are a few extracts from our exchange. Hope it gives you a smile as to how we migrant kids viewed Australia back in 1970;
· I also remember the atlas or Australian book back in Singapore and the map with those drawings of farmers with sheep
· Do you all remember Ralph Harris and the song “I’m Jake the Peg”? We rehearsed and rehearsed and I think we thought that was the only way to get into Australia and that became our national anthem. Remember the ruler being Jake’s third leg? J
· I remember playing on the one- arm bandit, having tomato juice with ice....yummy, coming into shark bay and seeing all the sharks (to a 10 yr old, dolphins would have looked like sharks)
· I remember the TV series “Skippy” and vividly remember houses with two doors. Did not realize what these were for until coming to Australia to learn that the first door was called a “fly door” .
We all have a story to tell, and before we forget these, it’s always worth sharing it, and in my case keeping it alive in my long-term memory.
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