A friend sent me a link to this blog which takes a localised view on the 'Stuff white people like' thing that started in 2007, and has since spawned books, (other blogs) and now lecture series!?
This thing is stupid, largely because it's too localised to work. While Melbourne has quite an ethnically mixed population, cultural stratification tends to happen more along the lines of income, education, age, and locality as opposed to race. These things are all somewhat linked, but I'm not going into that at length here - because that would imply I know a lot about the subject, and I don't. Anyway, this localised Melbourne list should just be called 'stuff inner urban gen x/y-ers' like. Race is so not an issue with this. I'm not white, and I agree with just about everything on this list, except:
- Confest - yuck.
- The Dirty 3 gig - I went to the far superior Dirty 3 gig at Big Day Out 1998.
- Lentil as Anything - well, I'd like it if the people I'd been with weren't the "oh, let's pay $20 for dahl" variety. They're FUCKING LEGUMES. Who pays more than $10-15 for lentils, really?
- Bonsoy - I drink soy, but I want it to be the most power-packed, super-engineered future-soy possible.
- Mulled wine - well, OK, I don't mind mulled wine, but the reference to chai was enough to get my hackles up. See Confest.
- Fire twirling - I've done it, I got over it. Eau de kerosene is so 2001.
- Tibetan prayer flags - my mum's a Buddhist. I'm not. I'm also not a spiritual poseur. And never went to Tibet. Or Nepal. 'Nuff said.
- Shanghai Dumpling House - the toilet water incident. Never EVER again. Section 8 is also out by association - they share a wall. Tangent: can I also once again re-iterate my loathing of St Jerome's?
But then, maybe I am white. 6 months of being denied tropical sunshine will do that to an Asian.
