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Not actually Australian. It's a long story, involving Phil Foglio's illustration of a line by Robert Asprin, the international barter of Vegemite for fanfic, and Galaxy Farfaraway.

In his youth, my grandfather travelled with one of his uncles to a nearby country to set up a mercantile outpost. After a few years, they'd established themselves securely enough for my grandfather to write home and ask for his wife and son to join him. My oldest uncle arrived with my grandmother shortly thereafter. My grandfather had never met either of them before. His first wife had died in his absence after giving birth to his son; as a replacement, my grandmother was married by proxy.

Eventually, I was born.

One of my distant aunts from the other side of the family may be a Taoist deity, the pearl-veiled goddess of the sea. If only she would send lobstergrams or something.