How do I represent my country in Thailand?

That is a rather difficult question, because it’s not something I do actively every day. The representation mostly happens subconsciously or in small interactions with students or teachers. How I dress, how I talk, how I am – all of that is an indicator of my country and culture.

The most obvious form of representing my country would probably be that I always get asked where I come from and after some short thinking time, I often get the response “Oh, Australia!”, after which I try to explain to them that there is a similar sounding country named Austria located in Europe, South of Germany. Even though my explanations are mostly still met with some confusion, I do think that some Thai people now know of the existence of Austria only because of me, which I would personally call a great success. 

I also did a small presentation about Austria for some of my students, but I am not sure how much of the information they’d still remember, apart from the fact that we have snow in winter season.

Although the cultural differences between Austria and Thailand are bigger than between my country and Germany, there is of course also some representation towards my new German friends. For example, I always try to advertise my home and tell everyone how beautiful it is over there and that they have to visit me whenwe all are back home.

Overall I would not say that representing my country is one of my priorities, but I still do it more than I would have expected before the start of my journey.