Observations on the US
This is a "reprint" of a web page I created in 1998.
Many of the opinions present here are relics of the time this was written.Welcome. I'm an Australian in the United States. There you go. As such I feel compelled to write some stuff about my country, make a few comparisons between mine and the one I'm in, and perhaps clarify a few issues.
From what I've seen so far, a lot of bullshit is out there about Australia, you know, the g'day mate syndrome, shrimps on the barbie, Olivia Newton John, Vegemite, Paul Hogan, etc. Australians have a fair few assumptions about America and Americans too. The reason for this primarily is television/motion pictures.
We cop a fair few American shows in Australia, which is probably a sad indictment of the state of Australian drama, as well as the additional cost film productions incur over there. Shows such as Home Improvement, Third Rock From The Sun and King of the Hill are all the rage. Perennial midday soaps like Days of our Lives, General Hospital and The Young and the Restless have their fans as well.
That's not to say Australian made dramas/comedies don't exist; just ask any European about Neighbours or Home and Away, and they'll give you a rundown on these shows better than any native could. Especially me, as I never watched them, they are trash in my mind; unrealistic shit about beautiful people in contrived situations, the same allegation could be made about Beverly Hills 90210 too. I wonder who got who's inspiration from. Not all American shows are smart-assed nonsense; stuff like Homicide: Life on the Street appealed to me with its no-nonsense portrayal of life as a cop,
Enough of TV shows, Australia, means south in Latin, inter alia, was called New Holland and Terra Australis and a few other things by earlier explorers, Swift put Lilliput and Blefuscu right where the missile base of Woomera sits and he had Laputa off the coast of Yorke Peninsula. Naturally, he didn't know that, and if he had've known, may have put them in Bangladesh for all it's worth. Australia the country is a touch smaller than the continental US, minus Alaska and has about a ninth of the population. No Nebraskas or Kansas's in the middle of my country, mate! It's desert, pure and simple sand and/or gibber desert. Gibber is an Aboriginal word meaning rocky and that's what they are, pebbly deserts, people?
Hard to say, despite the worst intentions of my Government with its tourist garbage, there is no such thing as a typical Australian any more, Australia nowadays is what you Americans would call a "Heinz 57", a bit of everything, Australia is a popular destination for migrants of all descriptions and the population, ethnographically, reflects this. 70% of Australia is Anglo-Celtic, the remainder are everything you can think of. Another myth-exploder; Australians aren't all descended from convicts, no more than all Americans once owned slaves, the convict concept died out circa 1840 give or take, and the majority of the Anglo-Celtic settlers were freemen and their wives, soldiers, farmers and other peoples. It's quite rare to find an Australian who has convict ancestors, truth to tell.
Not all of us are rustic yokels either. To be fair to Australia, it has had cowboys and ranches as long as America has, Australia has one cattle station, i.e ranch, the size of Switzerland, Abingdon Downs in central Cape York, Queensland. Australia has its fair share of hillbilly rednecks too, what do you expect? A country that derives over 70% of its income from agriculture/mining and have no yeehah's? They're a dying breed though, although it'd be balm to the eyes of some Americans to see a 4WD with a tail strung up to its antenna, you do get them. Queensland and Northern Territory are the main haunts of the Australian "cow-cocky" as we call rednecks. That's not to say they don't exist elsewhere either.
There are parts of Sydney and Melbourne that'd make Hollywood or Park Avenue look like peasants, and these places have yuppies that'd put the cast of 90210 to shame. Sydney has some of the most expensive real estate on Earth, go there, head for Point Piper, Darling Point and Vaucluse and see if you can buy a house on the cheap, Sydney itself is an expensive place. I lived in a suburb called Summer Hill before I came over here, inner western suburb, old, established, trees, quaint churches, that sort of thing, yes, rape crisis centres, methadone clinics, alcoholic hostels too, the rent I paid for a very ordinary (read: dingy) apartment there set me back $200 a week in Australian dollars, about $120 of the ones with George on them, where I am now in Mesquite costs my wife and me $420 US a month and is appreciably better, carpeted floor, a kitchen that works, etc.
Sydney winning the 2000 Olympics didn't help either, every bastard is cashing in on it, rent has gone up, property values artificially inflated, roads are half-built, Sydney isn't like most US cities; no lovely interstates looping around the outskirts, no, Sydney is a horse-and-cart designed place, the only way you'll get around in a hurry in Sydney is if you own a helicopter, most Sydney-siders are wondering if winning the Olympics was worth it. Naturally, it's a sacred subject to those in power and criticism of our fair smog-laden un-navigable nightmare is not on.
OK, back to Australia at large, what's it like? Hmmm, if it were the size of Hawaii I could answer that nice and easily, but it ain't, it's a big place, generally speaking it is flat. It has a broad central plain which extends westward from the Indian Ocean until it hits the Great Dividing Range near the Pacific coast, then it drops away along the coast itself. Our mountains look cool to us, but someone who has seen the Himalayas or Rockies will laugh. Our tallest hill, Mt Kosciuszko, is like 7300 feet high or thereabouts and it is a hill to look at. Australia is an old place, geographically, a lot of it is pre-Cambrian Shield according to the geologists and has had 3 billion or so years of weathering. Australia used to be part of India and Antarctica, and has animals and plants like nowhere else. I won't talk about them much as I'm sure Paul Bloody Hogan has told you all about them,
The Australian cuisine, well, we didn't have one until Greek/Chinese/Italian/Thai/everybody else were kind enough to immigrate and give us one, canned peas, steak and potatoes and a stubby of VB make up the Australian staple, to be clichéd. No, most Australians nowadays eat the fare migrants have brought with them, that's when they're not killing themselves with cholesterol poisoning like KFC or McDonalds. In short, Australians "dine" on the same sort of non-nutritious crap Americans do, there is a conscious movement in Australia toward healthy living etc, but most don't adhere to it and instead go for the cheap and nasty.
In Sydney and Melbourne you'll find restaurants of all descriptions, from Albanian to Zimbabwean, Sydney, especially with its Vietnamese and Middle Eastern minorities have spoilt the average yobbo with decent and exotic cuisine, me included. Food is cheaper there than in America, simple as that. I have been shopping here and have nearly fainted at the price of vegetables and cereals compared to what I'm used to, there's a reason for this. Australia is one of these lucky countries who produce far more food than they can eat, something like six or seven times over. Australia exports most of its food, mainly beef and lamb. If America didn't have 260 million odd gobs to feed, it'd be the same story. Australia imports very little food, usually niche or gourmet products like olive oil, walnuts, lychees and stuff like that,
The differences between Australia and the US? Not as many as you may think in a lot of things, both are sports-loving nations, both pursue similar economic interests, speak English, kill themselves with cigarettes and alcohol, have racial dramas, bore themselves senseless in front of a TV, the differences? I've got a table down yonder outlining a few of the more striking ones, some basics. Australians drive on the left, the steering wheel is on the right. Australians are in the minority here; most of the world drives on the right, don't know who came up with the bright idea of having two different ways, but it's ridiculous.
Australia uses the metric system, as does the rest of the world save the US, who doesn't out of obstinacy, I imagine. Cherished traditions like college fraternities don't exist in Australia, you don't live in a university in Australia, you live elsewhere, usually in some degraded terrace house with 15 other students. Australia doesn't have the bewildering legal/jurisdiction setup of America either, no such thing as city police or county sheriffs, Australia's police are either state or federal, it's the state cops who'll pull you over for speeding, the sheriff in Australia is a Government re-possession agent, not a law enforcement officer, it's the sheriff who'll come and take your TV, VCR etc, when you don't pay those fines.
Australia's legal system is based on the hoary British version; yes, judges with wigs and gowns, barristers and stuff like that. Attorneys are solicitors in Australia, the old English term for them. Attorney is understood but is thought of as an American term. I always used to wonder who knows who has what jurisdiction over what here in America with its US Marshals, state troopers, sheriffs, city police, FBI, Secret Service, ad anon. I think it must be the only place on Earth where 23 different classes of occupation can classify themselves as law enforcement officers and arrest you for something! Even one horse towns have their own cop force! Anyway, I guess it's all about catching the bad guys.
Some differences between Australia and the US
| Australia | USA |
|---|---|
| Petrol | Gas |
| Cheque | Check |
| Biscuit | Cookie |
| Scone | Biscuit |
| Bottle Shop | Liquor Store |
| Arvo | Afternoon |
| Mate | Bud |
| Prawn | Shrimp |
| "No worries" | "You're welcome" |
| Soft drink | Soda |
| Offence | Felony |
| Sheila | Chick |
| Yobbo | Yokel |
| Station | Ranch |
| Mince | Ground beef |
There are many others too numerous to mention, girls/women get called chicks in Australia too, but sheila is the definitive Australian term for a woman, considered old hat and offensive nowadays, the odd Australian will say "you're welcome" when you say thanks for something, but it'll ordinarily be "no problems", "no probs" or "no worries". Basically sums up the easy going nature of most Australians, who believe mateship to be more important than oneupmanship or trying to prove some meaningless point. A small point: prawns are called shrimps in Australia too, but shrimps are usually the pre-cooked small variety you'll find in the freezer section of supermarkets.