The Thai Culture and Food Festival is currently in its eleventh year.

Spurring from a need to bring the Thai culture to the community of Melbourne, and to show the citizens of this city all that Thailand had to offer. The festival has been a success from its first year.

The festival is a non-profit event which is organised by volunteers, and it aims to bring the best aspects of Thai culture to Melbourne.

Pornthep (Paul) was the president of the Thai Association of Victoria when the idea for the festival was born. Along with various other organisations, they wanted to create something special.

“We realised that the Thai community living in Melbourne didn’t have an event, not just for them but for the members of the public as well.”

“We wanted to create something that not only would bring the community together, but also build a strong and lasting relationship between the Thai community and the Victorian public.”

Paul says the idea for the event also came about because Australia’s interest in the Thai culture was growing.

“The amount of Thai restaurants in the city was growing and growing. The number of Australians travelling to Thailand each year was increasing rapidly, and we wanted to make sure that people saw the whole side of Thai culture, not just the tourist side.”

He says that while many people may be aware of the food Thailand has to offer, there is so much more than that and they want to share it.

“We don’t just have stereotypical tourist things. We have beautiful temples, and mountains, and seasides, which is something that a lot of people may be unaware of.”

Paul says he loves Thai culture because it has such a wide range of influences.

“Southern Thailand has Malaysian influences, Western and Northern Thailand have Burmese influences and North-Eastern Thailand is influenced by Laos, but all parts of the country are united and create one big wonderful culture.”

Since the success of the first festival, Paul says that members of other ethnic committees and cultural groups have contacted the Thai Committee, asking how to go about creating a similar event.

“We’ve had all different people from all different cultural groups get advice about how to create a similar event, as they’d love to bring their culture to Melbourne, too.”

Paul says he loves Melbourne for its multicultural aspects.

“You can walk down the street and there will be a Turkish restaurant, an Italian restaurant – even a Tibetan restaurant! It’s a beautiful thing that these cultures can come together and work together to share their traditions with the city of Melbourne.”