Ukrainians have a long history of settlement in Tasmania, being amongst the earliest groups of post-war European migrants to settle in Tasmania. But nowadays, this migrant community is relatively small and elderly. However, Darya is one of the new generation of Ukrainians to now call Tasmania home, after coming here on a Prospective Marriage visa. Darya's childhood was spent mainly in Kyiv in the 90s, a dark time in the country as the economy crashed and criminality was abundant. But by her high...
May 05, 2021•39 min•Ep. 33
It would be hard to imagine finding anyone else coming further away to be in Tasmania than Ivalu. Hailing from Greenland, the world's largest island on the far north of the globe with a sparse population of around 55,000, Ivalu talks about the experience of growing up in this remote and unique place. Ivalu had already travelled widely before she came to settle in Tasmania several years ago - an exchange year in Panama, study in Denmark and a Masters in Indigenous Studies in Tromso, Norway. Her s...
Apr 20, 2021•28 min•Ep. 32
James grew up in the Malaysian province of Sarawak in Northern Borneo. Although James comes from Chinese heritage, Sarawak's population is culturally diverse and the festivals of each major ethnic group is celebrated by all. With a strong interest in Malaysian elections, both personally and academically, James was drawn to Tasmania by a work opportunity at a South-East Asian Studies Centre at the University of Tasmania. Tasmania and Malaysia have strong connections going back decades, whether it...
Apr 16, 2021•33 min•Ep. 31
With a librarian mother, Edward's early life was immersed in books, and planted a seed of curiosity to see the world outside his own country. Growing up in an English-speaking environment that was heavily influenced by British culture, meant that Edward has not felt the "culture shock" so much of adapting to places, and he has a lived in a few before Launceston. In fact, Edward has found much that is relatable in Launceston to a similiarly sized city in Nigeria. For many Australians, their knowl...
Apr 02, 2021•38 min
So what associations come to mind when you think about Brazil ? Sun, samba and soccer, perhaps ? But as well as that it's a big country geographically and one of the most diverse racially and culturally on earth. Ariana is a rare example from the people I've talked to, in that she both aimed to come to Tasmania and was able to secure a job here before moving, which took many attempts over 9 months. As someone who worked in the airline industry for many years, it's perhaps not surprising that Ari...
Apr 01, 2021•38 min•Ep. 29
When Anna and her husband visited Tasmania for a short holiday several years ago, they had not imagined they would be coming back to live, but a year later Anna's husband was offered a job at the University of Tasmania and they decided to come and give it a go. Although the cultural transition has not been too massive, there have been some notable cultural differences to adjust to, especially in the style of communication. Anna grew up in a small place in Finland and went to a primary school wit...
Mar 22, 2021•30 min
Jaewon first came to Australia as a student, looking to improve her English in Melbourne, but in the process met the man she was to marry and they lived in the Middle East and South Korea before her husband got a job in Launceston, a place Jaewon knew nothing about beforehand. Having young children though has helped get to know people in the local community and build a social network, but Jaewon had to adjust to being a full-time mum for the first time in Launceston. Eventually, she had the idea...
Mar 20, 2021•30 min
Melika and her husband came to Tasmania in what proved to be the most challenging time imaginable - 3 weeks before Covid-19 hit Australia fully and the international and state borders were slammed shut. Neither of them had a job and wear very worried that finding work was going to be very challenging. Things worked out for Melika, finding work within a month, but were much more challenging for her husband, who after many months of trying without success, eventually got an IT job in Adelaide. Mel...
Feb 14, 2021•36 min•Ep. 26
Arman was brought up in a fairly small, rural area of Bangladesh, but was sent to school at a competitive cadet college ( a kind of boarding school) at 12 years of age, surrounded by ambitious high achievers. Arman has set his sights on getting into the army, but when his efforts failed his self confidence, sky high until that point, took a hard hit. Being forced to taste failure for the first time though ultimately lead to a new path as his mother applied for him to study Business at the Univer...
Feb 12, 2021•38 min•Ep. 25
Eri comes from the old Japanese capital of Nara - a small peaceful city which could represent a picture postcard of traditional Japan. But the path Eri has followed has been anything but traditional and has brought her to Tasmania via Germany, England and India. Eri was always interested in dance, but only learnt of the field of dance psychotherapy while living and working in Germany and this later lead to study in London. Eri had from a young age become fascinated by other cultures and ways of ...
Jan 31, 2021•33 min•Ep. 24
Helena and her husband were living an idyllic lifestyle breeding horses in rural Czechoslovakia and looking forward to buying a rustic old property to set up their own horse-breeding farm, when a fatal accident triggered a series of events that would change the course of their lives and lead them to Tasmania. After their manager was killed in a car accident, his replacement, an ardent Communist party member, did not approve of their activities and their chances of getting their property disappea...
Jan 13, 2021•45 min•Ep. 23
The Cold War and the Soviet era can feel like ancient history for some people, but for Olga and Yuri the oppresson of Soviet Russia is still part of their lived experience. After being involved in political activities in Russia, they were subject to threats from the KGB, job loss and imprisonment, and then experienced a wait of many years to get out of Russia and discover the West. They eventually chose Australia to migrate to in the 1980s before moving to Tasmania in the late 1990s. They brough...
Dec 15, 2020•27 min•Ep. 22
German left Venezuela 5 years ago, before the economic, social and political situation seriously deteriorated. His reasons for leaving were more related to a love of travel than the situation in the country that has caused many Venezuelans to leave in the past few years. After some time in the USA, German was thinking to go to South Africa where he new people, but his girlfriend persuaded him to follow her to Brisbane, Australia around 4 years ago, where he studied English and then Cookery. Afte...
Dec 01, 2020•27 min•Ep. 21
The township of Cygnet and the Huon region in which it lies were both named by French explorers in the 18th century, so it seems an appropriate place for a Frenchwoman to have settled down in. Catherine moved here 9 years ago with her husband and the area bears many similar features in common with her birthplace in Normandy - the apple orchards and cider, the cows in green paddocks and even the bird sounds all reminded her of her childhood. Although she has lived in Australia since the 90s and T...
Nov 14, 2020•42 min•Ep. 20
Nicolas was born in a small majority Christian town in Palestine, but when he was 2 his family left for Chile, where they had long-standing family connections. In fact, migration from Palestine to Chile has a history going back to the 1920s. Although the family settled in Santiago, Nicolas never felt like it was quite home, and as an adult returned to Palestine to reunite with family and to work. But it didn't quite work out as expected and Nicolas headed back to Chile to work in the family's re...
Nov 06, 2020•22 min•Ep. 19
When Boyd arrived in Australia with his family at 18 years old, his father's first act, perhaps a symbolic one, was to take the family out for a seafood lunch and told his children that Zimbabwe was where they were brought up, but if anyone asked to say "Australia is my home now". Advice Boyd credits with helping him settle down in the new country much quicker. Years later he returned to Zimbabwe with his father and heard for the first time about some of his father's experiences as a soldier in ...
Oct 15, 2020•26 min•Ep. 18
Dona grew up in small village in the Philippines where just getting to school required deep commitment - literally, as kids had to cross a river with no bridge to get to their primary school. Dona had a strict religious upbringing, but broke family traditions and expectations by not marrying a pastor, rather she found love online with a man in Tasmania. 15 years ago, she came to Tasmania knowing nothing about life here, in fact before she came she had confused it with Tanzania ! Despite a disapp...
Oct 13, 2020•25 min•Ep. 17
When Paola left Argentina for the first time having just finished uni studies, she never expected she would have ended up at the bottom of the world in southern Tasmania. The plan had actually been to backpack around Europe and go back to Argentina, but a 500 km walk on the Camino in Spain with an Aussie guy she met travelling lead to a kind of spiritual awakening, falling in love and then moving to Australia. in 2018, her and her husband made the decision to trade a successful life in Sydney an...
Oct 09, 2020•27 min•Ep. 16
Elaine arrived in Tasmania in 2013, when her husband got a position in the Philosophy Department at the University of Tasmania. Originating from a small town in the "Rust Belt" state of Ohio, she came via Melbourne ( 19 years ) and London, looking for a change and a place to concentrate on her writing. Americans now make up Tasmania's 7th largest migrant group, and it's a group that has been growing, according to the last census. As a long-term resident of Australia/Tasmania , Elaine has some in...
Oct 07, 2020•23 min•Ep. 15
After Carlos's mother remarried and relocated from Peru to Tasmania in 1972, 12-year-old Carlos was meant to follow. His visa application was rejected and Carlos was left in the care of his elderly grandmother who was too old to look after him properly. Carlos, though a victim of polio at an early age had made him lame, lived a privileged early life, but left to educate himself through his high school years, life was tough in Peru. His parents had stressed to him the importance of getting an edu...
Oct 04, 2020•36 min•Ep. 13
Like many other recent migrants, Carlos was drawn to Tasmania by the regional migration programme, after spending a year in Melbourne. He and his wife had decided to leave Colombia 4 years ago to seek a safer and more secure life in Australia. Carlos bought with him much experience working in social projects in Bogota, but with few employment opportunities in Tasmania, he ended up working in an apple orchard and doing cleaning at the university. However, through persistence he managed to get an ...
Oct 04, 2020•30 min•Ep. 14
Grace Nguyen, or to give her her Vietnamese name, Ngoc Thanh Tu Nguyen, is not perhaps your typical Vietnamese accounting graduate. She came to Tasmania 8 years ago with some music and business studies in Ho Chi Minh City behind her. In her time in Tasmania she's been a volunteer for the Wilderness Society, sang with the Southern Gospel Choir, played a role in a music with a local theatre company and even tried her hand at pole dancing classes , and that's on top of having studied a three-year d...
Sep 05, 2020•27 min•Ep. 12
When Claudia contacted me about participating in the podcast she told me she met her husband after buying a used car from him in Tasmania almost 20 years ago, and I was instantly intrigued. In fact the full story could easily come out of a romance novel - Girl from a village in the Swiss Alps with minimal English language meets New Zealand single father after buying used car from him on Bruny Island and they end up getting married. Claudia grew up in an area of Switzerland often refered to as "H...
Sep 02, 2020•25 min•Ep. 11
When Kalana came to Tasmania in October 2019, he was 110kg and feeling a bit lost after four not-entirely-happy years studying and working in Melbourne. But in his short time in Hobart he has experienced some dramatic improvements in his physical and mental well-being, mainly through small things that many of us locals would take for granted, such as free music events and many places to relax. Kalana grew up in Colombo with his mother and two sisters and the family struggled in his young years, ...
Aug 31, 2020•28 min•Ep. 10
The story of Teodor's life could easily make an intriguing film script, beginning in a small Transylvanian peasant village surrounded by extended family and old men with moustaches who would fascinate him with their ghost stories. When he was young his father was declared an "enemy of the people" by the Communist regime and throughout the 50s was arrested, imprisoned and tormented. With an aptitude for languages, it seemed Teodor was destined to leave Romania and eventually did after meeting his...
Aug 05, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 9
Prakash arrived in Hobart in 2009 with his wife with the intention to study Accounting, however, after only 6 months he switched to studying Commercial Cookery, though he had no prior experience. It proved a fortuitous joint as it lead to him eventually getting a position at a popular local seafood restaurant where he has now worked for 10 years , in the meantime being initiated into the mysteries of Aussie slang and occasional pranking by workmates. Prakash is a proud member of the growing Nepa...
Jul 25, 2020•36 min•Ep. 8
A common response when I've mentioned Eritrea is "Where is that?" or "I've never heard of that country". Eritrea is a country on the Horn of Africa, bordering Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti, which gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993. Since then it has been a one-party state with, according to Human Rights Watch, one of the worst human right records in the world. As a result, many Eritreans have fled the country to escape persecution or the country's compulsory and indefinite military service...
Jul 24, 2020•33 min•Ep. 7
The Pakistani community in Tasmania is one of several South Asian groups that has grown quite noticeably in recent years, partly driven by the Australian Government's Regional visa program. Many Tasmanians would be unaware of this.... unless they are involved with local cricket, which is where I met Tabish, a big hittting batsman from Islamabad. Tabish spent 9 years in Sydney before moving to Hobart with his wife and two girls. a year and a half ago and now says he is in love with Tasmania, with...
Jul 17, 2020•31 min
Thanatcha aka Oil arrived in Launceston just under two years ago after meeting her Australian husband at an international school where she was working in her hometown of Pattaya. She starting teaching piano when she was only 15 and now teaches it from her home in Launceston. Thanatcha talks about the challenges of settling down in Launceston, a town vastly different from where she came from, how she''s learnt to adapt to local culture and the value to migrants of understanding "footy" for gettin...
Jul 13, 2020•29 min•Ep. 5
Bulgarians are probably the least represented of the Balkan peoples in Tasmania and Australia. For many in Australia, Bulgaria is a land of dark mystery more commonly associated with burly Olympic weightlifters than classical concert pianists. . In this episode, find out about how a Bulgarian ends up studying at "the end of the world" and how she sees life in Tasmania and hear about a unique and rather surprising Bulgarian custom. Music extracts played by Gergana Yildiz from "Spring Caprices" by...
Jul 09, 2020•39 min•Ep. 4
