Mateer’s memoir connects in part with the nuanced thinking about nationality proposed by Transnational Ties. My chapter, however, aims to complicate the question of what it means to be Australian (or Indonesian) further by bringing in the additional, critical term of ‘linguaculture’.^[32] Nationality, as this book argues, is a complex, shifting phenomenon, but the cultural assumptions travellers bring with them are often the more persistent for being unexamined, embedded as they are in widely shared concepts—such as ‘privacy’ or ‘friendliness’—that are taken for granted by speakers of the same language.

Whereas Turnbull refers confidently to ‘national characteristics’ of the French, Mateer attempts to steer clear of cultural generalisations while conveying often haunting impressions of place and personal encounter. I would argue, however, that Turnbull’s narrative, despite her unsophisticated recourse to the discourse of ‘national types’, probes more deeply into the cultural dimension of the self than Mateer’s. In choosing to present his encounters with a minimum of overt interpretation, Mateer tends to leave his own cultural perceptions intact, showing us how elements of Pratt’s ‘seeing-man’ might be present even in narratives that are committed to a decolonising vision. Bouras’s and Turnbull’s greater openness to different styles of emotional expression and interaction, on the other hand, suggests how travel writing in English might go beyond the limitations presented by Pratt, to engage with, and not merely distantly observe, ‘cultural others’.