Culture shock in the 1970s

WHEN economics student Dr Binh Tran-nam arrived in Townsville in 1973, he experienced a quiet country town without a casino or an aquarium and mostly without tourists.

During his four years as a Bachelor of Economics student at JCU, Dr Tran-nam lived at University Hall, where he liked his room but found some of the 1970s Australian food somewhat less enticing.

“I disliked, in particular, mutton, which was often served at dinner,” he said.

“For me, the taste of mutton was too smelly.”

Fortunately, there was a Chinese restaurant with takeaway nearby, which was Dr Tran-nam’s go-to place whenever mutton was on the menu.

He would use a friend’s car to get there, and later he bought a little Honda motorcycle to be more independent.

It wasn’t only the food that was different for Dr Tran-nam in 1970s Townsville. There was also little cultural diversity in the city and he recalls most of his fellow residents at University Hall were “white Australians, and many of them children of Italian and other European immigrants, coming from all over Queensland”.

“They were warm and friendly and I learned so much from them, both in terms of language and Australian culture,” he said.

Dr Tran-nam graduated in 1977 with first-class honours and a university medal.

At that time, he was already working on his master’s degree in economics at ANU in Canberra.

“I did not have much money then but spent a bit to buy new clothes and an air ticket to return to Townsville for the graduation,” he said.

“I was very happy to see my old teachers, especially (the late) Professor Percy Harris, Professor Bhajan Grewal and (the late) Dr Peter Corssman, and my friends again.”

Dr Tran-nam holds double appointments as Professor at UNSW Sydney and Adjunct Professor at RMIT University Vietnam.

He is also recognised as a leading tax academic in Australasia.