It’s not often that we ex-pats have a chance to satisfy both sides of our identity. But I did just that, at the ANZAC Day service at the Australian Consulate in Shanghai. Wow, it was good!
How about singing (lustily – whether or not I knew all the words) both anthems - right after each other? It’s a buzz I’ve hardly ever had – in the 40 (ah hem!) years since I left the land of my birth – New Zealand. I’ve now lived a lot longer out of the country than I lived in it, which is a strange concept to come to terms with, but I know the anthem!
I’m a bit lighter on the Australian anthem as I missed out on learning it at school - and the Maori words for that of New Zealand, now essential to every classroom. (My four – year old grandson recently corrected my accent for Kia Ora!)
Oh, the networking – there’s nothing like a crowd of countrymen out of their own country, to find out what’s happening and who’s here. I had been given two business cards and several telephone numbers by the time I reached the lawn of the beautiful Consulate in the French Concession, where the service was held.
Bit of a coincidence that I was there: I’d dined late the night before at the Mimosa Supper Club at Suzhou Creek, after a concert – the visiting Orchestre de Cannes, conducted
by a much-internationally-celebrated Chinese pianist, Xu Zhong, at the futuristic fishbowl of Oriental Arts Center in Pudong.
By the time I arrived there were only a handful of other diners, but I was happily ensconced, observing the startlingly contemporary design – mesmerizing fluorescent circular ceiling lights, Bauhaus meets Andy Warhol, in a warehouse that once was a brewery - and consuming an unusual concept of fine cuisine, when the Chef/Restaurateur arrived at my table.
Adam Ashe is an Australian, who has cooked round the world in key places. We talked so long that I finally felt for his early morning rise. “Actually, it will be early tomorrow,” he admitted, “I’m going to the Anzac Day service.”
He didn’t have the actual number in the street, but wrote instructions and suggested I look for the green gates and the flag.
5. 30 am. We’d been up and down the street, when I spotted – Australians & New Zealanders, in solemn face and suits!
We sang, the Australian Consul’s niece read the Anzac Ode, the Australian, New Zealand and Turkish Consuls addressed us and a Group Captain of the Royal Australian Air Force, wreaths were laid and the Last Post played by a member of the Shanghai Opera Company. Nearly 400 of us turned up to observe the occasion and mark our identity. And consume another prominent Australian chef, Steve Baker’s meat pie plus gourmet gunfire breakfast.
I say, Advance Australia Fair and God Defend New Zea –eeland.
