Identity
My Identity
We are a diverse community of learners. Our classroom community is made up of individual students, each of whom brings a unique personal cultural experience to our classroom community.
We would like to share our cultural identities in the hopes of better understand one another. Please view the comments below to learn more about the students of 6JL 2014. Feel free to leave your own cultural story. The story you share may draw on your national/international identity or your family identity.
(Answer the following questions as a blog response, aim to have your response written as two separate paragraphs within your post.)
1. What is an example of a tradition that is part of your unique cultural experience?
2. Is there a celebration or a custom that reflects your values?
Hi World,
I am JB and I would like to share with you somethings about me!
My backgrounds English and Australian. My family and I celebrate Christmas each year with friends or family. Every time in the morning my whole family wake up early on Christmas morning to open up our presents. First my mum puts the turkey on to start cooking the family roast and then we start unwrapping presents. Once everyone finishes unwrapping every bit of their presents mum goes off and finish our delicious roast. Mum cooks lam, vegetables and of course the turkey. Once everything is cooked and prepared we sit down at the table and say grace.
My family and I are christen. We go to church every Sunday week to learn about Jesus and God. We believe that Jesus was born on Christmas and that’s what we celebrate, his birth.
Christmas is a nice time to spend with your family and I hope all your Christmas’ are wonderful too.
From JB
Hi JB,
We all eat lamb and turkey as well. We also open presents on Christmas morning as well. Your food sounds very delicious. As well all of us are from Australia and also other countries.
Thank for telling us a little bit about you and how you celebrate Christmas.
N.A.K
Hi JB,
Thanks for sharing. Iv’e just read your post and it was awesome. I think the way you celebrate Christmas is interesting and sounds really fun. What a great day you and your family would have.
Looking forward to your next post.
From ST, ST and AF.
Hi JB,
Your christmas sound really nice. We all celebrate christmas too. It’s really interesting how everyone celebrates differently.
Don’t you think? MK and SL are connected to Europe as well, but we are all connected to Australia just like you.
Thanks for sharing your culture with us,
M.S.T 🙂
Dear fellow bloggers,
I do many things as a tradition. Throughout the whole week my family would have fried rice, except for Saturdays because we would usually go out to a restaurant to have dinner. Occasionally my family may eat pasta or even chicken Parma. Every once in a while we would go to the temple for a visit. At the temple we do many things for good luck and to respect the people. I find it fun because each time my family go to the temple there is a jar with numbered sticks inside. What you do with it is you shake it until the first stick comes out. Next you would look at what number the stick is and there would be pigeon holes with numbers 1-100 labelled on them. Afterwards you find your number and take a strip of paper out. On the paper it tells you if you will have good or bad luck in the future.
My background is Chinese. So every year my family celebrate Chinese New year by going out to a Chinese restaurant. At the restaurant you would receive a red packet that gave you good luck. On New Year’s Day my family and I go to a family friend’s house to have barbecue. It is very fun because at the end we get to roast marshmallows.
From LL
Dear fellow bloggers
In my family I have a celebration called Devale it is when we celebrate about our culture and our gods we make special desserts to pray with and then we eat the desserts at the end of the prayers. We go to the temple early in the morning and watch the professionals do the prayers; we also give money to the temple. We also dress up in traditional clothing and eat our traditional foods.
On Christmas I don’t go out because there is hardly any shops open so my mum and dad cook at home and we also have our step brother over ,we have a big lunch and then we go outside and play with our presents while mum and dad are cleaning up.
bye world from KM
Dear KM
I find it really interesting and have never heard of a tradition called Devale. Were the desserts delicious? What particular time do you have to go to the temple in the morning? Do you enjoy celebrating Devale?
Hi LL,
We find your tradition and culture very intresting and we think it is very unique. Your food sounds delicous and we hope you enjoy yourself in the future.
From N.A.K
P.S were wondering do the marshmellows taste delicous?
To N.A.K,
Thank you for replying to my post.
Well the marshmallows were yummy. Once I even burnt one and went on fire but wasn’t that bad.
Kind Regards,
LL
Dear Bloggers,
My background is Chinese.my family and I celebrate Chinese New Year ever year. The day before New Year eve I go to my dad side of the family we have dinner there and we go back. At New Year we often wear new cloth and shoes. In the morning me and my cousin is always the first ones to wake up and we went out to play with snow. After the adults are awake we went to our grandma and grandpa’s house to have lunch and we usually go somewhere to play and go bake to grandma and grandpa’s house to have dinner after dinner we went outside and play with fireworks and I’m always scared that we will light the grass on fire so I don’t play the ones that spines around and when we are living they always gives us red packs with money in them mum says the money is for if you didn’t get a scholarship you can use that money for it.
To ST,
That sounds really interesting,it must be very fun to go outside and play in the snow. It sounds like you’re not in Australia, where are you? What food do you eat at your dad’s house. It must be very exciting.
Regards,
LSL
Hi there,
On the weekend I watch the footy with my dad. We have chips and Pepsi. My 2 sisters and my mum watch a movie they like. The first game I watched was Geelong Cats vs Collingwood and the cats won by 2 Points. The last game I watched GWS Giants vs St Kilda and GWS won the game.
On the weekend I went to AMF Bowling for Kobe D’s birthday. He is going to be 12 and he’s my friend from Bulleen. There were 13 children at Kobe D’s birthday. For lunch I ate chicken nuggets, hot chips, and lemonade. After lunch I played games first I played deal or no deal and I only won 7 tickets, the second game I played stacker but I wanted to get a minor prize and I almost got it. The third game I play the claw machine but I didn’t win a prize. And the last game I played was Basketball hoop and I won a few tickets. Kobe D had an ice Cream Cake. Everyone got a lolly bag at the end of the party. Dad took me to the party. It was fun. Kobe D won the game. I bought Kobe D a present. He liked the bowling party and so did I.
Regards,
AF
Hi AF,
Thankyou for telling us about your weekend. We were all intrigued about Kobe D’s party and the footy. The pepsi and hot chips made us hungry. Which footy team do you barrack for? What flavour of chips is your favourite? It sounds like your good at arcade games. I wish I was as good as you! Keep on trying on the stacker, you’ll get the major prize next time.
Hello AF
I did not know that you watch footy with your dad on the weekend and that you went to a birthday party at AMF bowling and played deal or no deal it sounds like it was a lot of fun. When you ate all that food it sounded like it was very yummy! Thanks for sharing AF
From
JBF
Dear fellow bloggers
In my family we celebrate Chinese New Year we celebrate Chinese new year by going to friends and family’s houses and giving red pockets. The red pockets contain money in them it is called red pockets because red scares away bad spirits and makes your future better and we celebrate it every year on 31 of January
Our family celebrates Christmas by buying presents and eating dinner at a restaurant and sometimes we have a party with our friends and family. We also have candy canes. Candy canes are a type of lollie that has a minty flavour but there are also different types of flavours and Christmas is on 25th of December.
BYe global Tc
Hey TC,
I thougt red pockets were really interesting and i would really want some red pocket moneys.
I thought that the chinese new year paragraph was really interesting.
I like how the red colour scars away the bad spirits and gives you a better future.
Thank you for your great blog response.
Hi Fellow Bloggers,
I am writing to answer some unique global response questions.
Q1. What is an example of a tradition that is part of your unique cultural experience? My background nationality is Serbian and in Serbia our culture celebrates Christmas on the 7th of January. We go to church in the morning and give our family and friends presents in the afternoon. It is a fun and happy celebration (like it should be). Also for Easter we do not celebrate the Easter Bunny at all, in Serbia we focus on the religious reason about how Jesus came back from his death on the cross. It is a very important part of our religion and culture. Like most people we also celebrate birthdays. 🙂
Q2. Is there a celebration or a custom that reflects your values? Every Friday my best friend Alexis and I go to our traditional Serbian dance class the dance is called ‘Folklore’ in Greece they something similar called ‘ Zorba.’ I like to do it because it shows my respect to my background culture. 🙂
I hope you enjoyed learning more about my culture.
M.K.
Hi MK,
your culture sounds really interesting. I am not connected to Serbia but your celebrations and customs sound really unique. I didn’t know that there was a special serbian dance! It sounds fun!
SL
Hi MK,
We really enjoyed your blog response your tradition sounds very interesting especially your dance.
I like how it says it shows my respect for my tradition.
I like your explanation on christmas.
Thank you for letting us read your comment.
NPN
Hellow Fellow Blogers!
Every Year my family and I celebrate Greek Easter. We usually have it at my house on the night of Easter and my uncle’s house on the day of Easter. I’m really lucky because my name day (another Greek tradition) is on Greek Easter. My Greek name is Anastasios. Everyone with the name, Anastasios Anastasia or Tasos celebrates their name day on Greek Easter. A name day is the date the saint you were named after was either born, or done his main achievement.
I’m Out 🙂
Hi AP,
Two people in our group also celebrate greek easter, one of our names is one of those greek names you mentioned. I am very interested how you celebrate it though.
Thanks for telling us about your greek easter expierience.
From N.A.K
Dear fellow bloggers,
I am NH; I am going to tell you about my family’s tradition.
I believe that a tradition that is part of my unique cultural experience is Greek LENT. Lent is when you fast for 40 days. You start 40 days before Greek Easter and the way to remember to stop fasting you end on Greek Easter. Greek Easter falls about a week after regular Australian Easter. The reason we do this is because 40 days before Greek Easter Jesus walked through the desert without food or water so in respect we do the same thing he did. When I say I fast it does not mean I do not eat at all. The main things we are not allowed to eat are meats and dairy, but some fish are okay. About a day before LENT we have a big festival called Apokries. Where we dress up in costumes and dance and sing through the streets and have so much fun. it is definitely a day you can let your hair down.
A celebration or a custom that I celebrate is Good Friday Appeal. We do this because the Royal Childrens Hospital saved my brother’s LIFE. My brother had three holes in his heart and the surgeons in The Royal Childrens Hospital stitched them up, but unfortunately he still has a puny hole in his heart. They moved all of is arteries around. My family now calls him the Special Boy! He can run around and be a normal boy, just as soon as his chest gets sore he has to stop doing everything it is amazing that someone could save my brother’s life. I think about going to the professor’s office every year and always hoping that there is nothing wrong with him. I always have wanted to go to The Royal Childrens Hospital and say thank them!
Dear NH,
What a unique culture you have, we wish we could see how you celebrate Apokries and learn more reasons why. It is so amazing how the Royal Childrens Hospital saved your brothers life. He must be special. Maybe we’ll all start celebrating Good Friday too!Your culture sounds so interesting,
M.S.T
Dear Fellow Bloggers
An example of a tradition of my cultural experience would be Holi or the festival of colours (that’s its English name). What we would do is put on some clothes (old ones mainly) and sometimes we put oil on ourselves to wash the colour off easier. When we go onto the streets it’s basically FFA (free for all). The way it works if we get hit we’re now colourful. What most people do is put on white clothes for the full impact. People also attack you with … WATER GUNS and WATER BALLOONS!! They fill the water guns and balloons with mostly powder the put a bit of water in it let it dissolve by shaking it and then you have colourful water. All of this goes on in North India. The best part is you need to watch your back at all times or your back will now look like this.
Hope you learned a bit more about me.
Thanks for reading
B.M.
Hello BM,
Thank you for sharing part of your culture. It sounds like such a fun event. I’ve been to a fun run called “Colour Run” and they must have got the idea from Holi festival as I did exactly the same thing. I ran 5km and every km they had a colour station where people threw colored power at me.
Do you know what the festival represents or what meaning it has behind it?
Looking forward to your reply.
Miss Lee
Dear fellow bloggers.
I am LDN and I am going to inform you about my family tradition and culture.
In my family tradition we celebrate a birthday by eating at a restaurant with our extended family. Each one of us orders our favourite Vietnamese food. I usually order rice, meat, an omelette and cucumber all together that taste delicious. Just thinking about it is so yummy. As a whole family we take many photos of our food and each other sharing embarrassing pictures and stories. WE share our stories of the past remembering weird stories when we were young. We love to tease each other but most importantly we never get angry with each other. We end the day with a bye bye and a big hug.
When I was young, every Sunday as a whole family we gathered together sitting on the floor again sharing stories and funny jokes that crack me up. My grandma, my aunty and my mum take turns and cook a meal that we all love to eat. Adults sit on wooden chairs and children sit on the floor. Sometimes it hurt our bottom but we got used to it.
At around 5:30 my aunty comes over to play with my sister and I enjoying craft work and playing with play dough. But the most exciting part is my mum cooking much Vietnamese tradition food. My mum had to cook a whole pot because my aunty eats a lot. It’s so yummy! Now that everyone’s got a career and now that my aunty is married we no longer continue our tradition. I wish the time went backwards.
Regards,
LDN
Dear Fellow bloggers,
A few examples of traditions that is part of my cultural experience is Christmas as well as birthdays.
We don’t have a big celebration like other people but we still celebrate.
For Christmas we get up, have a drink and exchange gifts. Then we all have a really nice breakfast like pancakes. Because Christmas is in summer here we then go for a swim in the pool to cool off. After that we usually just have a bit of time where it’s just the five of us and get ready for the afternoon ahead. At about three o’clock the rest of the family come and we all have a really big Christmas dinner, turkey being the main course. Later we have about four different desserts that mum has spent the rest of the week cooking.
To celebrate our birthdays we do a similar thing to Christmas. Mum bakes a big, tasty cake and family come round to celebrate. I also get a friend celebration near my birthday. I really enjoy celebrations!
Every Friday night my family have pizza night Yum! Mum makes four or five pizzas and we all really enjoy ourselves. I don’t know why we have it but it’s really fun!
Thank you, and I hope you have learned a bit about me.
SL
Hi SL,
We find it really interesting that you celebrate pizza night every Friday. We also find it really interesting by the way you celebrate Christmas with four different desserts. Thanks for sharing such great celebrations.
from
JBF
Hi SL,
Your Christmas sounds interesting and fun.
Also going to the pool is a great idea, summer days and nights can overheat. Also your Christmas schedule is very organised and your dinner sounds nice (does the turkey taste nice).
Birthdays are alot of fun and I think having a family gathering and a seperate friend celebration is a great idea. Pizza night sounds good. Your family culture sounds really unique. 🙂
From MT.
Hi fellow bloggers,
In my family we celebrate the same traditions as many people. My dad and grandma are Indian but have lived in Brazil for 10 years, my mum is Australian and Indian and so am I. every year we celebrate Christmas at my aunties, lot of relatives come and we can catch up and talk to each other. For birthdays we sometimes have parties and dinners at restaurants. For Easter we have a big Easter egg hunt with many relatives, we have competition to see who can collect the most.
For Christmas, when we go to my aunties house we all put our presents under the big Christmas tree. Every year I sit around the presents, examine the wrapping and try and guess what I got. After we open our presents we have a Christmas lunch with a huge turkey! This is special as I get a chance to meet people that I haven’t seen the whole year. I look forward to Christmas this year and I do so every year. Usually I go out for dinner once a week then we come home, I love doing this as I can relax and talk to my family. Even though I find these events exciting, the most exciting would be Easter because first of all you are on holidays and second of all you get to eat lots of chocolates.
Thank you for reading and I hope you learnt a little about me, K.T
Dear fellow bloggers
I believe a tradition that is part of my unique cultural experience is Greek Easter. The place my family has Greek Easter is at my Grandma’s house. My Grandma boils the eggs and dies them red. The eggs are red because the red stands for Jesus’ blood. Then when all the eggs are finished all my family comes and crack the eggs and see who wins. This is special to me because it has been in this family for a long time and I am happy that I am a part of the Greek Easter.
My family celebrates Christmas by going to my cousins and having a party for Christmas. My family organise my Uncle to be Santa and throw out presents and say merry Christmas. Then we all go outside and start playing footy or soccer and everyone gets hungry and then we have ice-cream and open the presents my Uncle gives to us. We have to go home but everyone will know we had a great time at my cousin’s house.
Bye global PK
Fellow bloggers,
An example of one of my traditions is, spending the night before Christmas Eve and morning of the eve camping in one of my neighbours backyards. Most of us kids in the neighbourhood community participate in this exciting event that usually takes place at one of the bigger backyards as we have more space to play games.
We all contribute in bringing buckets of lollies and giving each other Christmas presents. We tell scary stories and freak each other out and laugh at each other’s lame jokes. It’s not religious but it’s my fave.
Thanks for reading,
SF
Dear 6JL,
A tradition that has run through my whole family and culture is Ramadan. Every year for a month we wake up before sunrise and have an early breakfast. After the sun rises, we don’t eat or drink until sunset. We do that to give up our time to feel how the homeless and poor people feel. When the sun sets, my family have a good dinner every night and fill ourselves up ready for the next day. Normally we all don’t get a lot of sleep and always wake up cranky the next day. But once we’ve survived a month the fun starts.
We celebrate Eid that is a tradition and all the kids get money and presents. That is like a reward for fasting for so long. Eid goes on for three days and normally we don’t go to school. We have a big dinner with my extended family and stay up late at a cousin’s house. It happens twice every year and its really fun.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my post. ST1