Dressed in his leisure shirt, with that light bronze complexion and a twinkle in his eye, he exudes summer. The very aura of Scott Power, the Australian-born man who heads the Sofia office of Bayer Bulgaria, can make one – if for a while – forget the frosty chill on cheeks, the drops of melted snow on the coat.
And our conversation suits him. With summer in full steam in Australia, we talk about summertime celebrations.
“Australians love celebrating,” Power says. Whether a football game, an occasion or a holiday. And the Australian National Day is also in summer. On January 26, the festivities mark the British colonisation of the land of the Aborigines, the indigenous people that, like the Native American Indians, were displaced about two centuries ago.
Ever since, this country, which has incrementally increased its population through several migration waves from Great Britain, Europe, then Asia and Latin America, has not fallen prey to the dangers of animosity of multi-ethnic communities.
On the contrary, a successful governmental policy conducted for decades have allowed all immigrants, regardless of origin, to blend into a cohesive nation that Power says infuses the sense of belonging to Australia.
“If you ask each Australian of second generation what nationality he is, he will tell you ‘I am Australian’,” Power says. “It is not like in the United States where they tend to identify themselves as Irish-American or Italian-American.”
“Me, I come from Melbourne,” he says.
Part of this sense of national cohesion stems from festivities. Australians celebrate as one and at many levels. Australia Day is institutionalised through a plethora of events, community gatherings and festivals, as can be seen on the website of the Australian government.
People join the fireworks and tend to get together outside, Power says. “They will either go outside for a barbeque with wine and/or join a one-day cricket game because Australians are heavily into sports.”
And, of course, there are the traditional meat pies, those 10cm diameter pasties containing beef with pastry on top. Those pies are identified as that traditional delicacy that is shared by each Australian, regardless of origin.
And Australian parents like dyeing their sons’ cheeks with the colours of the national flag to mark the occasion.
Power has not celebrated Australia Day on local turf for 10 years, as he has spent the past decade at positions in England, Ireland, Germany and Morocco. Though he has not always been able to celebrate the holiday in due fashion, the sense of belonging to his motherland has never left him when celebrating, officially or not. Though some countries are predisposed more to the festive mood than others.
“In Great Britain, for example, it was easier to celebrate because Brits and Australians share common cultural traits and ways to celebrate,” Power says. In Morocco, where during his three-year stay he met just one visiting Australian, the holiday carries no meaning, so celebrating is kind of hard, he says.
In Bulgaria, the Australian community is also very small, comprising about 20 people, according to Powers. This year, he plans to attend a get-together with fellow Australians he knows through his children.
“One of my boys has an Australian in his class and we have become friendly with their parents,” Power says. They will probably be some of the people with whom he sees as sharing his Australia Day thrill, just like late last year when they all watched the football finals at Murphy’s.
“The bar was open just for us,” he recalls. “At 7am, it was just us in the bar. Another Aussie lady was kind enough to order Australian meat pies through a British importer, and there we were – all dressed in football team colours, shouting and cheering.”
Power expects the same mood now. An evening at a bar or at someone’s home with Australian friends and, why not, other expats. As he is much into sport, he would have loved to spend the day at a game of cricket. Yet because in Bulgaria seasons are reversed, such an attempt would be a quixotic adventure.
“And there is the obligatory phone call with relatives,” Power says, which with the rise of internet has now been transferred into the Skype zone.
In all, Australians are serious, he says in his tight-knit language that typifies dynamic people. “They are serious at work and serious when making fun. Hence, the long-standing tradition to respect holidays with pro-active festivities,” he says.
Balancing the leisure time with work is essential to Power and he believes this is quintessential to Australians as a nation. In this regard, too, one can draw parallels between Bulgarians and Australians.
“From what I can see, Bulgarians also enjoy a drink when out,” Power says smiling. “And Vitosha, where my family is taking ski lessons, as they are first-timers in this winter sport, is full of people.”
So Bulgaria is likely to predispose Australians to feel at home during their national day. This national holiday will be Power’s first in Bulgaria. Cheers!
