Laos, a Southeast Asian country of about 7 million people,is known for its Buddhist traditions and vibrant food culture. Outhay grew up in the capital, Vientiane, helping her family run a 24-hour convenience store where everyone pitched in. Memories of both the abundance and scarcity of foodshaped her childhood. After studying English at university, Outhay worked ingovernment administration, where she met Roger, a Tasmanian geologist working in Laos. Romance developed gradually, and laws in Laos...
Jul 07, 2025•36 min•Ep. 118
Yemen is a country that gets little attention despite being at the centre of one of the greatest humanitarian crises in the world, as declared by the UNHCR in 2025. There is not space enough here to describe all the events that have led to such a crisis, including civil war, an overthrow of the government and in 2015 a Saudi-led mass bombing of the country, but the results have seen a catastrophic collapse in living standards, large-scale hunger and instability. In other words, not the kind of e...
Jul 02, 2025•46 min•Ep. 116
The Isle of Man, or Manx, is a self-governing dependency of the United Kingdom, located between Great Britain and Ireland, and has been influenced by the cultures of both. It's known for being an offshore tax haven and a centre for gambling companies. It also has the oldest continuously-running parliament, the Tynwald, which is claimed to be over 1000 years old. There is also the Manx tongue, a Celtic language spoken by little over 2000 people, but which has undergone a recent revival. With a po...
Jul 02, 2025•33 min•Ep. 117
John's story begins in an undistinguished town in the South-East of war-torn Germany, where as a child he remembers sheltering under a blanket in a cellar as Lancaster bombers roared overhead. As a young boy he experienced the deprivation of the post-war era and then the emergence of the Germany Democratic Republic and its sophisticated surveillance society. Even after escaping across the border to West Germany on his brother's motorbike, the East German Secret Service tried to recruit him while...
Jun 23, 2025•55 min•Ep. 79
To mark Refugee Week 2024, here's a compilation of stories from five of the interviews I've done in the last 12 months that reflect different aspects of the refugee experience from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East.There's Ieva's story of her whole family walking 200km to get to the port of Riga to escape the oncoming Soviet Army, Sandra's tale of when a to-close-for-comfort missile attack was the final straw for her family to leave Damascus. Khadga explains how ethnic Nepalis were brutal...
Jun 10, 2025•27 min
Rose's story begins in the throes of World War 2, in one of the darkest moments in Maltese history, as the island was laid siege by the axis powers and be the most bombed territory in all of the war. Rose came from a big family, which reflected the human cost to the population, having their house destroyed and family members killed. Rose was born after the Siege of Malta was lifted, but life was difficult in the post-war period and many Maltese would seek to emigrate. Like tens of thousands of o...
May 24, 2025•38 min•Season 1Ep. 115
Lili grew up in the southernmost region of China, in a neighbourhood where there were strong community connections. Her parents were perhaps not typical for Chinese parents in that they were not focused on grades, but more than Lili was doing what made her happy and they encouraged her to beat her own path. This perhaps contributed to her decision to go to Australia to study after she finished school. She studied Psychology, and after she graduated she returned to her hometown with the idea to s...
May 16, 2025•43 min•Season 1Ep. 114
Rwanda is a small nation of 13 million people in the centre of Africa, and the setting for one of the worst atrocities of the late 20th century. During the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 an estimated 500,000-800,000 people of the Tutsi minority were killed by members of the Hutu majority Tasmania may seem a million miles away from such horrors, but the small Rwandan community here has continued to commemorate the event in Hobart in April for the past 20 years. Aubert has been one of the key organisers...
Apr 20, 2025•43 min•Ep. 90
Cambodia is a country with a dark recent past, with the the brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime leading to millions of deaths and large numbers of refugees. A large portion of those refugees came to Australia in the late 70s and early 80s, often on boats. However, in more recent times, Cambodia has enjoyed a sustained period of relative stability and prosperity, and Cambodians are more likely to come to Australia as students than as refugees. Pul ( aka Pulsokunreangsy ) arrived in Melbourne at 1...
Apr 10, 2025•31 min
Tunisia is a small northern African country, majority Muslim and Arabic-speaking, but also strongly connected with other cultures of the Mediterranean and North Africa. Akram is, at least at the time of recording, the only Tunisian in Tasmania. Yet Tasmania was an intentional choice by Akram, who arrived here in 2023 with his Filippino wife and two young children. Previously they had been living in Qatar, where Akram had worked for around 10 years. He had originally moved there to take a job at ...
Apr 07, 2025•40 min•Ep. 106
Bosnia Herzegovina is perhaps sadly best known for the brutal war waged there in the 1990s between Serbs, Croats and Muslims. An estimated 100,000 were killed and millions became war refugees. Mia, as a 4 year old , was one of those many that fled the war, and her family took refugee in Croatia, where she would grow up and receive her schooling. At 18 years, Mia received a funny message on MySpace from some random Aussie guy. He was thinking to come to Croatia. They seemed to click and when they...
Apr 07, 2025•43 min
Malawi is a small country that fits like a thin sliver between the Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique. It's become known as the "beating heart of Africa" for being a sanctuary for people from some of the war-torn and troubled nations nearby. With a population of around 19 million, it's also one of the continent's most densely populated. Mwase's story begins by the shore of Lake Malawi, Africa's third largest lake and a feature of huge importance to the life and economy of the country. Although Mwase g...
Apr 03, 2025•38 min
All that most Australians know about Panama are the Panama hats and the Panama Canal, and probably some have a vague idea that they speak Spanish. Ana grew up in the heart of Panama City, which lies on the Pacific coast of the country, the most southerly nation in Central America. Ana started dancing ballet when she was 5. She had bad as asthma as a child and she found it was one type of exercise she could do without issues. She continued dancing almost every day through her childhood and teens....
Apr 01, 2025•45 min
Ben was born into a Berber family in a small town in Morocco, the youngest of 11 children. While, for various reasons, some older siblings had to drop out of school early, Ben was an enthusiastic student. A teacher at high school inspired him to take an interest in some of the social issues he noticed around him and this lead him to studying a degree in Sociology. Ben followed the academic path after graduating, first doing a Masters in Malaysia and then coming to Tasmania to do his Phd and even...
Apr 01, 2025•34 min
Madagascar is a unique and fascinating island nation off the east coast of Africa ,well-known for its incredible biodiversity, especially its famous lemurs. Less well known is its human and cultural diversity, with strong influences coming from Asia, Africa and Europe. Michaela has lived in different places in Madagascar and is familiar with the different regional dialects and traditions of the country, and her own family background reflects a lot of the fascinating cultural diversity of this la...
Apr 01, 2025•33 min•Ep. 62
Oren was living in the middle of Melbourne with his partner during the COVID pandemic, when the city was put into regular lockdowns. This heightened the feeling of being stuck in a concrete jungle, and though not the only reason, it got Oren thinking about making a change. In 2021 he followed his partner down to Tassie, where she did a permaculture course and they did a farmstay down at Cygnet for 8 months...and the rest is history, as they say.Oren originally came to Australia to study Audio En...
Apr 01, 2025•46 min•Ep. 107
Niall grew up in Belfast in the 90s when the bloody sectarian conflict between Protestants and Catholics still permeated almost every aspect of Northern Ireland society. His family didn't belong to either faction and never bought into the toxicity created by the historical sectarian biases. Living in such atmosphere, Niall always thought to get out, and in his early 20s moved across to Brighton in the UK. With a passion for music, the strong artistic community in Brighton was really appealing, b...
Dec 09, 2024•45 min
Aymen's first experience of Australia was arriving at Sydney Airport with no English or knowledge of his new country and getting very lost and missing his connecting flight. His lack of English was a problem at first, but his soccer skills helped him get involved with the local soccer community and this opened up social networks and job opportunities that Aymen took advantage of. Aymen grew up in Khartoum, but at around the age of 18, the threat of enforced military service became very real and ...
Jul 11, 2024•40 min•Ep. 109
Since arriving in Tasmania about a year ago, Michael has got somewhat accustomed to people questioning whether Benin is a real country - an indication of how little known his homeland is in Australia. Benin is a small country in West Africa, squeezed between the much larger Nigeria and Togo. It was formerly part of the much larger Kingdom of Dahomey and was also one of the centres of the Atlantic slave trade. A legacy of this is seen in places like Haiti, Cuba, Brazil and New Orleans, where Vood...
Jun 26, 2024•43 min•Ep. 108
Bhutanese now make up Tasmania's largest refugee community, and also on of the major migrant populations living in the state. Yet many Tasmanians know little about them and their story. In the early 90s many Bhutanese of Nepali ethnicity, were expelled from country, often with threats or actually use of violence, and forced to live in refugee camps in Nepal. For many years they lived in limbo in these camps, hoping to one day return to their former homeland. In Khadga's case, he and his family l...
May 11, 2024•38 min•Ep. 104
Although Estonia is a small country far away on the other side of the world, there has been a long-standing, though small Estonian community since the aftermath of WW2, when many migrants from the Baltics settled in Tasmania. Triin is a more recent arrival, having settled in Tasmania a bit over 10 years ago after a career in professional volleyball in Europe. In fact, volleyball is the main sport for women in Estonia, and was through this that she met her Tasmanian husband, who was also playing ...
Apr 21, 2024•39 min•Ep. 102
Nubar was born in Egypt to Armenian parents, and grew up speaking Armenian, English and French rather than the majority language of the country, Arabic. After the revolution in Egypt in the 1950s and the rise of Arab nationalism in the region, many Armenians perceived they were going to be worse off and chose the emigrate to places like Australia, and Nubar's family were no exception. Armenians have a long and rich history that goes back thousands of years, of migrating from their homeland in th...
Feb 28, 2024•47 min•Ep. 101
Although Papua New Guinea is one of Australia's closest neighbours, it's a place and a people that the average Australian is fairly ignorant of. It's probably not well known, but Papua New Guineans make up the largest of the Pasifika communities in Tasmania. Anne is a PNG born and bred, but now works at the Devonport Library, absolutely miles away both physically and culturally , from her early years in different parts of Papua New Guinea. As her father was an Anglican Minister, and later a Bish...
Feb 06, 2024•41 min•Ep. 100
There could hardly be two more contrasting places than Singapore and Tasmania. Joanna originally left the hustle and bustle of Singapore to take a restful break in Tasmania on the recommendation of a friend. She was shown around Hobart by a man she later decided she would spend the rest of her life with. Joanna had studied Design in Singapore, and later Psychology, but she ended up studying Nursing in Tasmania and working in the Aged Care sector. She would eventually combine these experiences to...
Feb 02, 2024•38 min•Ep. 99
Florian grew up in a the picturesque alpine region of the Austrian Tirol, in a small village near Innsbruck. For many, life in the Austrian alps might be considered quite idyllic, and possibly because of this, locals tended not to stray too far out of their local district. Therefore, when Florian sat down and told his parents he was going to Australia with his Brisbane-born wife, it was a really big deal. The original plan had been to stay for 2 years, but it ended up getting extended, and after...
Jan 08, 2024•39 min•Ep. 98
Ieva's family left Latvia as the German army was retreating in the face of the surging Red Army forces, in what proved to be a dramatic journey. They would eventually land in a refugee camp in Germany, and then it was a 6 year wait before they were accepted as migrants to Australia. It was not their first choice as they had wanted to follow other family members to USA or Canada. Like many war refugees, family members became separated across the globe. Between 1947 and 1952 around 20,000 Latvians...
Dec 04, 2023•42 min•Ep. 97
The Netherlands and Tasmania have many ties . From the name of our island through to the development of burgeoning agricultural exports such as onions and tulips, the Dutch have really left their mark on life in Tasmania. Even today, they represent Tasmania's 6th largest migrant group and are the only migrant group which is overrepresented in Tasmania compared to the rest of Australia. In the past few decades the Dutch population has experienced a fairly significant decline, but migration from t...
Dec 04, 2023•38 min•Ep. 94
Ross grew up in Northern Ayrshire and in a town north of Glasgow. He developed a strong interest in aquaculture at high school, with one of the primary attractions being that it would allow him to travel for work. In his early 20s he came to Australia on a working holiday and found work on a fish farm in Tasmania. His employer wanted him to stay longer and it meant that Ross had to make a big decision, a decision that meant he would still be in Tasmania 20 years later and still working in aquacu...
Nov 22, 2023•36 min•Ep. 96
When I was a kid , "Made in Taiwan" was where every kids' toy seemed to be made, from Matchbox cars to the early electronic games. None of us knew anything about it except that it was a distant land full of gigantic toy-making facilities. In fact, Taiwan is a small country, half the size of Tasmania, but with almost the same population as the whole of Australia. Aki was born in the busy capital of Taiwan, Taipei, and followed her sister to Tasmania as a working holiday maker around 11 years ago....
Nov 16, 2023•40 min•Ep. 95
Paraguay is a small land-locked country in the heart of South America, which still retains a rich indigenous heritage, in particular the Guarani language, which along with Spanish, is the official language of the country. Patricia's story begins in the capital city of Asuncion, where she grew up in a close-knit neighbourhood surrounded by family. When she was 11, she moved to Chile with her sister, due to a change in family circumstances. Although Chile was a neighbouring country, there were man...
Oct 26, 2023•40 min•Ep. 93
