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Local Business Marketing | #GetChatty

Hi I’m Arthur and I’m a marketer in Melbourne. I consult small businesses, local businesses, organisation, artists and creative professionals about their marketing strategies (social media, digital and events). During late 2020, I started this new series to help encouraging Melbournians & Sydney-siders to support their small to medium operations, at this stage I’m offering this project to businesses located in Windsor, Prahran, South Yarra, South Melbourne and Greater Melbourne, (also greater Sydney where I love and lived most of my life). This is a self-volunteering project and there will be no cost for businesses that’d like to take part, if you’re interested to take part please reach out to me here or DM me via my social media!


Hi Chatty Curator here and thanks for dropping by. In this video I’m chatting with Reshma who looks after the Multicultural Hub in Melbourne CBD. Like many venues in 2020 the Multicultural Hub needed to be closed and we chatted about how to stay connected and we also had an interesting discussion about being Asian Australians. So Take a look.

Reshma: So you know how we are talking about connections, so this is a very funny thing that happened to me when I first came here, I remember we’re driving down and I’m from Nepal I’m from Kathmandu valley which is surrounded by mountains. Ok so you can see all these beautiful mountain tops covered in snow. Like throughout the year ok, from my bedroom window I could see that ok. So you this is the context, this is the context of where I’ve come from. And very like first month in Melbourne and we’re driving down Morinda Highway to go to meet someone and then my husband who was driving was pointing to like right in front of me pointing to Mt Dandenong and saying that that’s Mt Dandenong, because I was new to a country so he was showing me, and I’m trying to look at this mountain trying to find this mountain which is right in front of me And I’m sort of trying to stand up in a car seat, so not stand up so like I sit straight to find this mountain and I’m going where is it? Where is it? and he’s going there! Just there! And then I realised that the small hill to me at that time wasn’t Mount Dandenong! I was very, very disappointed to know that that small hill was a mountain, you know, but now after 18 years when I drive down that road that does feel like a mountain to me because now that is mountain, but at first I didn’t think that was a mountain. And again you know I come from a country where Mt Everest is. So to be found in the snow and very tall and this one was, you can drive to the top of the mountain and this is still called mountain!
Chatty: Well, I mean to be honest like you came from the where you can look at the most majestic and tallest mountain on this planet from your bedroom before so that’s, that wasn’t the fair comparison but I think it’s interesting something you said that was actually very interesting because I think there’s something that I not related to mountain or travelling but I think I’ve been working on something about like perception and expectation and that actually plays a trick in your mind because I would, yeah, because I think for example, something like looking at the mountain and the size of it and the height of it that might have trigger like some homesickness or something like that but I think the wonderful thing that you mentioned is after 2 decades here that it’s actually make you feel like, well your perception or expectation adjust based on how you build that belonging in Melbourne but of course that I would imagine that Mount Dandenong still a lot smaller than the Himalayas!
Reshma: It is!

Chatty: Both of us are Asian Australians so sometimes that we might came across very interesting interaction with people that often ask us where we’re from? And it’s, to be honest, to me it’s quite, not as, not annoying or offensive but I just, it baffles me a lot it makes me feel very confused in a way because I’m living in Melbourne but I’m from Sydney, but many times
that I would come, came across that people would ask further like, but then what get to a point that make me feel a little bit uncomfortable is when someone say, what you really from? That would really, really got me. So did that happen to you before?
Reshma: yes, it happens all the time and to me it is a bit offensive. To me I feel like, gosh you know i’ve been here for and not everybody needs to know that like i’ve been here for 18 years and now I call Australia home. But you get, when you get that asked, you all of a sudden, you lose that connection with the country, you know all of a sudden you’re a outsider, just a very simple question, it’s a question
Reshma: that makes you a outsider straight away. You know I think someone who is asking that question, they don’t know that, but to me as soon as somebody says where you’re from, i’m disconnected from this land, you know?
Chatty: I think in for me that it actually create a barrier with to understood for the person who asked me the question to understand who I am. Because so I sense that we might have a similar feeling to that is that when, for me I would prefer someone to ask me who I am as a human being and get to know me as me instead of defining me by for example, cultural stereotype of such as, so in a way that, yeah, so I agree in quite a lot of ways that because sometimes that this is also once again it’s about creating connection. But if people are using that conversation sorry if people are asking a question that way it’s almost like they are, they are putting you in a pigeon hole, putting you in a box.
Reshma: Yeah.
Chatty: before getting to know you. And that actually…”
Reshma: and we live in a, we live in the multicultural society you know, Melbourne is so proud of being multicultural and I think that that is something that we need to, I don’t know, we need to maybe educate, you know perhaps like I said someone who asks that question has got no idea how it feels to be asked that. So you know I prefer when somebody says where you from, I have quite often now said, you mean what’s my ethnic background?
Chatty: Yep, and I…
Reshma: You know so you rather think where you’re from you can say what’s your background or what’s your heritage, what’s your background…
Chatty: I like the word heritage, I like the word heritage a lot! Because i think in a way that, that opens the person up to talk about, like for example, maybe they are talking about how cultural heritage but maybe they can also talk about what their cultural influence is. So I personally like the word heritage, but of course you know there are many ways to approach it without offending someone and yes I know that people looking at this video might say, might put in a comment and just say, ah it’s too political correct but then I was like, sometimes just being a little bit cautious it’s a great way to start a conversation and start a good connection with another person.
Reshma: Yeah!
Chatty: and, yeah anything to remind everyone Reshma?
Reshma: Yes, and Multicultural Hub we also have a Facebook page: Multicultural Hub, so please follow us on Facebook, and we’ll become friends with us, like the more the merrier, so yeah thank you.


If you are / know of any Melbourne based businesses, artists or organisations that may interested to take part, please make sure to read this post then request a meeting with me!

TeamArt2Public #SupportLocalBusiness #smallbusiness #WithMe

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