I think we were closer than I realised, so apologies if I was a little rude. Like others (I think), I was feeling a bit of frustration that the one interesting decision Disney made about the attraction (to keep it bilingual) seemed to be getting some blowback which just encourages Disney to go the easy and safe route even more.
Totally makes sense! As is often the case with discussion tangents here, I hadn't even thought of this factor before, until:
(1) Someone pointed out the obvious reason why it wasn't updated: having to redo the animation.
(2) An initial complaint about the French came in from someone else.
Again, I feel exactly the same on this. The one thing that may redeem Harmonious from being just another collection of songs and clips from Disney films with fireworks is the use of musicians and languages from different parts of the world. If they can convincingly turn it in to a celebration of linguistic diversity, that could end up being more suitable and powerful than we're imagining. That it is premiering at the same time as a major bilingual attraction is a promising sign that there could be some understanding of how to blend entertainment and education, at least in World Showcase.
My general feeling is that World Showcase's continuing popularity and the fact it looms so large in the popular image of what Epcot is does speak to interest and curiosity that still exists in getting small experiences of different countries and cultures in different places. Again, language really can't be left out of that, as we are also seeing in films like Coco and, I'm sure, Encanto.
Modern Disney is so lucky the World Showcase of 1982 resonates today, considering how stale most of it is. That resonance is largely due to the food, music, architecture, language, and (hopefully soon) cast. It truly succeeds at its mission in a way most theme parks can't, with only Animal Kingdom providing a superior immersive effort (in the US parks), IMO.
For nearly 20 years, I've been dreaming of new countries being added to it, and that was my biggest hope out of Epcot 3.0. Watching concepts like Brazil and India rise and fall has been painful.
That said, there really is hope, and surprisingly Harmonious is fueling it as more details come out. While Ratatouille dashed some of those hopes, I'll continue to dream about a new pavilion by the end of the decade.
We do (err, did) travel a lot in Australia for the reasons you mention, plus everyone gets 4 weeks vacation a year and many generous long service leave. Language teaching is terrible in Australia as in most English-speaking countries, but there is something about being so far from everywhere (even South East Asia is not close to where most Australians live) that seems to push people to go out exploring!
One cool thing before my last visit to Australia (early 2019) is I'd visited Hong Kong a few months prior, and I was amazed by how many Australian accents I heard in HK. It quickly made sense, as it's one of the easiest cosmopolitan trips you can make from there! The language learning might not be top-notch (I'd say it isn't in the US either; Europe has a major leg up), but that motivation to make the most of your holiday time is huge.
I would love to live in Australia one day (was blown away by my stay in the Tweed Heads / Northern NSW region), but that's contingent on AU opening up to Americans again!
