Hello and welcome to My Australia, the show about people from overseas having Australian
adventures.
On today's show
Ken tests his mental agility at a quiz night
Akki explores the majesty of the Great Barrier Reef
and Saj does something very brave and goes ballroom dancing.
First up today what's the capital of Burkina Fasso?
That's the type of question you might have to answer if you went to a quiz night.
They're a bit of an institution in Australia.
You get some friends together, you have a few drinks and you answer some trivia questions.
Ken is about to take up that challenge.
Oh, and by the way, the capital of Burkina Fasso is Ouagadougou.
My name is Ken Aura Matahari.
I'm from Indonesia.
I was born in a city called Yogyakarta in Indonesia.
It's kind of similar with Adelaide because its very small and it's cultural so it's very
different from say Sydney or Melbourne.
What I heard of Australia was like Steve Irwin.
A lot of desert everywhere and wild animals and stuff like that.
I know there would be like some city centres like Sydney and Melbourne but that's it.
I didn't know much about Adelaide so it was a big adventure for me.
A typical day would include checking a lot of emails, cooking,
going to Central Market, trying random food in Central Market
Hi, how are you?
Good thanks.
Do you have mettwurst?
Yes.
It's really nice.
I'm still skinny so I'm allowed to eat a lot of this stuff.
I usually cook Asian food or European food.
Pasta is like my favourite because it's so easy and so delicious as well
and also Japanese food because it's not so complicated apparently.
I came to Australia two years ago as an exchange student for a year.
Then I decided to transfer my whole degree to Flinders University in Australia.
I'm doing Bachelor of International Studies, majoring in International Relations and Development
Studies.
I live on campus with four other people, so one Canadian, one Japanese, one Australian
Filipino, one Australian.
So yeah, living on campus is really convenient.
At the same time, it's also enjoyable because I live with people from all different cultural
backgrounds.
My mum is Chinese Indonesian and my Dad is Indonesian so even within my family we have
cultural diversity
so I'm very used to it and when I came to Australia the diversity was even more stark
because people come from all over the world
and at some points you might feel that it is not easy to relate to people from different
cultures
but what I found really helpful was just being out there and try different things and not
feeling afraid or anxious about anything.
So just be open for any possibility.
I look forward to seeing what the Quiz Night is all about.
I want to get the idea.
I want to have fun.
I want to meet new people as well.
How you going?
I'm Summer.
I'm Ken, nice to meet you.
Summer, nice to meet you.
Do you wanna come and sit round here?
We got to introduce ourselves and I got to know Summer, Tom and I can't remember that
girl's name again.
I'm very bad at remembering names but yeah, it was a very friendly kind of environment
so I immediately enjoyed the night.
I felt welcome.
So you guys have never been to a quiz night before?
I haven't been to any quiz nights.
I have no idea what it's going to be like.
Basically, they give us like , they'll give us random stuff like this,
sheets of paper, and then they'll give like questions, just general knowledge questions
like sport, politics, countries, all different stuff.
We just answer them on the piece of paper.
See the sign up there, Tia International Aid
and so this for tonight is to get them clean fresh water.
They're apparently doing a fundraising kind of activity.
They want to build a sort of clean water project in Bolivia for children and people there.
Coming from a developing country I can sort of relate to this kind of thing.
I'm also passionate about social justice and stuff like that so I really like the idea
of fundraising through this kind of activities.
This is going to be an exciting evening.
I want to hear a cheer from the table that thinks they have already won because their
IQ is so ...
Question 1
Name one of two cities that were hit by atomic bombs in Japan.
I know that.
Repeat the question?
I usually ask people what is it all about and how do you do the game and stuff like
that and what's the rules and stuff like that.
So you're not left behind when everyone is doing their stuff.
And because you come there you want to enjoy the night as well, even if you cannot enjoy
the game at least you can talk to people so ...
I have no idea.
At some point I just felt so useless being in that team because I don't know most of
the stuff
but when I know one or two questions, the answers for one or two questions
it felt like at least I contribute to those two questions.
What three core values or mottos were associated with the French Revolution?
Egality, fraternity and ...
You want to write it?
There's going to be a lot of more quizzes, they will have more questions and we will
have to be witty again.
I hope it's not going to be something beyond my radar because
with movie quotations I thought I like movies but apparently I was hopeless with guessing
the quotations thing.
So, yeah.
I might just get fruit juice.
Orange juice.
Thanks.
See ya.
Thank you.
First things first though, it's gonna cost you a gold coin.
You know how on a coin there's a head or a tail?
Yep.
Well, what you've gotta do, you've gotta either choose both heads, both tail, or head and
tail, what you think they're gonna flip.
Okay.
Usually I just keep my mind open as usual and I observe a lot,
trying to understand what's going on and try to talk to people who are doing it because
I need to know what's going on.
I don't want to be left out all the time so yeah, basically just be proactive and open-minded
again.
Because everyone is different and different culture has different sort of set of behaviours
and actions and stuff like that,
if you are open-minded you can enjoy any possibility and that way you are easier to make friends.
Two heads.
Coldplay.
Parachute yep.
There you go, they got it.
Music, I was able to guess the singers but I couldn't tell the name of the album
except for a Coldplay probably because I keep listening to Coldplay all the time.
It's Coldplay with Parachute.
Yeah!
Yes.
It's a lot of fun really.
I haven't done this kind of thing before so it's very epic apparently,
like there was a musical performance, there was questions and answer sessions.
I think it wasn't as difficult as I thought.
In Australia,
I know this!
in descending order of population ...
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisb...
Hold on.
Hobart's last.
Hobart is last so Darwin and ...
High Five, well done.
In the first place when I came here I felt a bit nervous.
I felt a bit, 'Oh, I haven't done all of this stuff.
It's all new.'
I have no idea who's going to be there.
All of them are new people.
But after being part of the game it's just feels so different.
I feel so refreshed and I had a lot of fun and I get to know people and it's just amazing.
Like, I want to come to another quiz night really or I want to create one for myself
and my friends probably.
It's a great feeling when someone asks you a tricky trivia question and you know the
answer.
That's why quiz nights are so much fun.
Well, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the world's natural wonders.
People come from everywhere to see it.
Akki is a keen diver and he's itching to get up close and personal with the reef.