Born in 1978

If you were born in 1978, you came into an Australia that was building something culturally significant, even if nobody had quite named it yet. The Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne and the Domain in Sydney were hosting outdoor concerts that felt like distinctly Australian events — not British, not American, something else. Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, the Angels were playing to enormous pub crowds and the energy was raw and specific.

*Countdown* featured them alongside the international acts, Molly Meldrum championing the local talent with his usual unstoppable enthusiasm. The Fraser government was still in power, cautious and economically orthodox. The economy was difficult — stagflation, the word everyone was learning.

The Ananda Marga temple bombings in Sydney were a shock. But everyday life rolled on: the footy season, the summer cricket, the beach holidays, the backyard barbie, the milk bar doing its slow decline as the 7-Eleven moved in. Vietnamese refugees were arriving — the "boat people," as the newspapers called them — and settling into the cities, bringing with them a new wave of culinary and cultural energy that would take a generation to fully understand.

Australia was still figuring out how to be multicultural. The debates were sometimes heated. The community halls smelled of lamb roast and baklava and pho and the argument was ongoing.