I spent two days at the Sydney Royal Easter Show last weekend, trying to increase awareness of AFS so that we could find more students to provide international experiences to and families to share experiences with foreign students coming into Australia. It’s been about 15 years since I’ve been to the annual agrigultural fair, but I wanted to renew some of those memories so I took a walk. The main point of the show is for country folk to show off their farm produce and livestock and their craftwork, but having spent a couple of years in Bhutan, these didn’t hold much interest for me.
I headed instead to the showbag pavilion. What once was a chance for companies to give away sample bags of their products had become, by my own childhood, a commercial enterprise where each bag cost $5-10 and were mostly aimed at children. That didn’t bother me before, but this time, I was horrified at the need to queue just to get into the pavilion, then by seeing nothing but plastic and sugar. Every bag was full of either role playing equipment (costumes, swords, masks) from TV shows and movies or chocolates and lollies.
I ran for the fresh food pavilion which was more old school with giveaways of fruit and samples of honey or sauces, but the main attraction was the regional display. Each region used fruit, vegetables and grains to create a scene of life in their area. Distant fields were composed of green apples. Tree trunks and mechanised lizards were of sesame, barley and wheat. Kids playing cricket were clad in raw wool or cotton. I remember walking around the 15 mosaics with my parents, spending 5 minutes staring in awe at each. Now there are only 4 entries, but I think the quality has improved.
I took my lunch to the wood chopping arena and was lucky enough to see a relay between Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. The Australian team opener went through a log with a 1/2 metre diameter in the underhand chop, where the entrant stands on the braced log and cuts a V in each side until it splits, before the other entrants had finished one side. The Kiwis caught us up in the one and two handed paired saws and the finish, another underhand chop, was very tense, with New Zealand winning by a couple of strokes. The North Americans, apparently unused to such hard wood, took another 5 minutes to finish. Only when they’d begun to set up the next event did I remember my lunch. The next event, another relay, had the cutters chopping the tree at a height of about 2.5 metres, requiring them to cut notches and wedge planks as stairs on the way up. The fitness and skill of these people is worth admiring.