I’ll have a go at this:
Most people do in fact say “G’day”. I use it all the time, but only the occasional old man will say “Bonza!”
Kangaroo meat is used in dog food. In the last few years it’s been making more and more of an appearance in overpriced restaurants catering to rich dickheads (the 'roo meat that is, not the dog food - although one wonders).
I’ve eaten kangaroo only three or four times in my life.
Yes, we are very highly urbanised. Australia doesn’t have the same small town culture the US does.
A lot of pubs won’t even have Fosters on tap.
We aren’t any more friendly and cheerful than anybody else. If you interact with an Aussie, it’s probably because either you or the Australian is a tourist, so it’ll be a relaxed meeting. Come to Sydney, and you’ll see road rage, neighbours poisioning one another’s trees for a better view, everybody dragging everybody else to court, grumpy waiters… the usual.
Australian soap operas aren’t nearly as popular here as they are in the UK.
It does rain here. It pissed down for three weeks solid here in Sydney a couple of months back, without so much as a five minute break. Up north, they get monsoonal rain.
The Crocodile Hunter and Paul Hogan both suck dingoes dongers.
Firstly, most of these people are NOT actually Aussie’s. Mel was born in USA & Russell is from New Zealand!
But basically we love our locals that make it big internationally. We’re very patriotic about “our” sons and daughters.
The Croc Hunter is a bit embarrasing, Paul is a bit of a try hard, and Guy doesn’t even live here anymore.
What about the women. Toni Colette, Kate Blanchett?
I am reminded of the Simpsons episode where they go to Australia. In my eyes it was really more of a take on misconceptions about Australia then it was taking a jab at Australia.
I certainly agree with you about the women. Toni Collette and Cate Blanchett are fantastic, and there are others like Rachel Griffiths and Judy Davis who are also fantastic.
I’m afraid i’m at something of a loss to understand why so many people are down on Steve Irwin, aka The Crocodile Hunter. I mean, sure he’s a bit over the top, but he really knows his stuff and brings a knowledge of the natural world into people’s homes. Would people prefer that they put an office-bound professor on TV to talk about reptiles? Irwin’s an entertainer, and while he may not be everyone’s cup of tea, i think he does his job pretty well.
More embarrassing, i think, is the silly parochialism that infests so much of Australia with respect to our own celebrities. When an Aussie makes it overseas, it seems that many Australians are less concerned with that person’s actual accomplishments and abilities than they are with how Australians in general can bathe in the reflected glory.
There is a tendency to focus on how others see Australia, not on how Australia actually is. Many Aussies seem to need this foreign validation to get over some sort of inferiority complex, and i think it’s a little pathetic.
If this sort of thing were only restricted to a few insecure individuals, it wouldn’t be a problem, but it manifests itself in the news media as well, and too many people just go along with it. This attitude reached a nadir in the media after the 1996 killing of 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, by a lone gunman. One of the news stories the next day spent five minutes showing how the story had been reported by various news outlets throughout the world, as if it were essential to our understanding and our sense of importance to see some Italian or Geman or American or Korean newsreader talking about Australia.
I’m not down on Australia; i love the place. Nor am i down on Australians in general; i am one, despite my current place of residence. But the seemingly constant need to defer to America and Britain and Europe and Asia for confirmation and validation gets a little boring after a while.
I still get the “All you Australians are so friendly” thing from some Americans, and i have to keep telling them that, Paul Hogan image notwithstanding, we do, in fact, have our fair share of unfriendly, selfish assholes (or, more correctly, arseholes).
Thanks to the SDMB, I no longer have a misconception about Australia.
I used to think it would be safe to walk around in the parks there. Then our Aussie members told me about the drop bears. You know, the ones that drop down on the unsuspecting passer-by from a tree limb and rape said passer-by in the ear.
Man, that’s freaky! Dunno how you blokes stay down there…
In between the dropbears, the snakes, spiders, and the platypuses (they’re very common, you know, most families have one or two either for pets or to hunt the dropbears, snakes and spiders), I’m surprised any of us make it to adulthood.
[sub]While I won’t say shitstirring and bullshit artistry are the national sports, they’re close.[/size]
They relocate crocodiles with their co-workers named Bruce before drinking oversized cans of beer with their pet kangaroos and their painted aborigine childhood friends on their 50 square mile ranches while listening to Men at Work.
Dinner is called ‘tea’ here, which might well include vegemite, unless you are going ‘out for dinner’ (at a restaurant) which generally will not have vegemite sangers on the menu.
That being said, there are many, MANY Aussies who grew up on Vegemite on toast for brekkie and Vegemite sandwiches in their lunch-bag at school.
Isn’t it true that the entire place is overrun by biker gangs who roam the post-apocolyptic wasteland looking for gas, and only Mad Max can stop them after about 90 minutes of car chases?
Oh INDEED we are beseiged by outlaw bikies…the very worst are the members of the Ulysses gang. They terrorize the rest of us honest citizens with their ‘disgraceful’ behaviour, and careen through the countryside like packs of wild animals.
Except these bikers are probably not looking for the gas (petrol here by the way HPL) so much as the dunny.
