Oops, my ethnocentricity is showing ( was Identified flying objects)

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 35874

Right, third attempt thanks to AOL turning itself off, the system crashing 
and my general inability to remember to save things.

Having sent a post in which I suggested that the MoM suffers from 
institutionalised racism, I fell to considering asking Tabouli how Chinese 
witches and wizards get around ( clouds, like Monkey?). Then it hit me. 
Tabouli..... Australia...... I missed out a large chunk of the world when I 
suggested that broomstick travel was confined to Europe and North America. At 
this point hysteria nearly gripped me. Confessions of guilt were about to 
pour from my lips. A spell in Azkaban threatened. But I regained control 
enough to simply say sorry. How easy it is to be ethnocentric when you belong 
to a nation that once considered itself the centre of the world......Those 
were the days...but how would I know, I'm *far* too young!

But this made me realise that, little as I know about our own history of 
witchcraft, I know nothing of the subject Down Under. (Am I allowed to say 
this,or does it imply a northern-centric view of the world? I'm getting 
paranoid.)
Do you have a history of witchcraft? Northern hemisphere, European-type 
witchcraft, that is, rather than indigenous beliefs, or were Australia and NZ 
settled too late? Did you have witch hunts and trials like ours? Is there a 
modern day storybook tradition of witchcraft?

And another thing What about intercontinental travel? How do they cover these 
distances? Surely too far to fly. Not everyone can apparate, and wouldn't it 
be risky? Surely not the floo network. Port keys? Is there a form of 
wizarding  long-distance mass transport? Invisible cruise ships, perhaps.
It must be some kind of issue. The Weasleys used their winnings to visit Bill 
in Egypt, so they must have had to pay for something. Presumably not 
accomodation, since a wave of the wand could  'improve' Bill's pad to 
accomodate all of them. I assume it was transport.

Eloise, who wonders how many members of this list, apart from Tabouli, she's 
unintentionally insulted and wishes she'd kept hold of that cape so that she 
could hide her shame.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]