Geothermal is North Island, but I’ll swap you a fjord or two and then it’s pretty good.
Askance, I do think some of your fauna isn’t perhaps a great drawcard; Celyn mentioned the spiders and snakes earlier… “7 of the worlds 10 most poisonous snakes live in Australia” wouldn’t make a great tourism slogan… but we could also add to the less-than-attractive list sharks, jellyfish, various venomous spiny fish, lizards… even some kind of venomous sea shell and coral I seem to recall.
It’s quite amazing that any of you make it past childhood.
Agreed, that’s another one of those stereotypical images that the locals will find trite, if not offensive, but that are the first thing that will come to the mind of foreigners when they think of the place, and part of the reason why they choose to come.
So Martini, your point about the stereotypical image of Australia abroad is valid, but most other countries could make the same. What did you think about the Simpsons episode where they visit Australia? I hear they got a lot of complaints from Australians.
Or you could take the ferry back to lower Manhattan (where you will have left from) and I’ll bet I can find a nice bar or two. Remember “Stone St.” and that’s where we’ll go.
Let’s just say then – to cover my embarrassment – that when people are doing the NZ geo-thermal tourism stuff they’re usually thinking of the Rotorua district, and places like Whakarewarewa. (If you ever get the chance I can heartily recommend a trip through the nearby Waimangu valley).
I couldn’t agree more. Australia’s strengths are what it offers no other place in the world has.
But if you must change its image, then look in the mirror. The cultural cringe and excessive use of the diminutive is what is keep Australia more than just down under. Add to it the Tall Poppy syndrome and you have a full blown case of a country and its people afraid doing their best.
I say this as one American who lived ten years in Oz, and even became a dual citizen. I read the online Aussie newspapers daily, still correspond with friends and will return, at the very least to use my ever-growing superannuation.
If I may field this one to some extent. I’m not sure of the level of complaints, but I think the problem with it is it simply missed the mark.
Australians, in general, happily laugh at ourselves, but that episode wasn’t close enough to deserve a “it’s funny because it’s true” reaction. There were a couple of moments here and there that were funny yes, but in general meh.
Note to German American Partnership Program participants: When visiting our school in the US please educate yourself on the following -
[ul]
[li]I am not a fucking cowboy.[/li][li]Do not try to act like a fucking cowboy from wild west movies.[/li][li]None of my friends are fucking cowboys.[/li][li]Did I mention the lack of fucking cowboys?[/li][/ul]
(note, the above list applies to non-fucking cowboys too :p).
Now that that’s out of the way, how about Australia takes some of their more exotic animals (like the platypus) and uses them to become the forefront of genetic engineering. Then you can create from scratch mythical animals and become know for that. Just make sure you keep them under lock and key, cops vs manticores doesn’t sound like a very pleasant event.
To be honest though I think the modern image is fine, specifically anyone who thinks they’ll see all those things regularly probably wasn’t too horribly bright to begin with, just roll with it, you’ll sell more tourist stuff.
Alternate idea: Get a big movie based on a popular IP filmed there, then you can be like New Zealand you know, that place where the LoTR trilogy was filmed?
Well, in a sense, that’s what we’re talking about in this thread. That episode showed an exaggerated version of the common foreign view of “Australia” (plus something about corporal punishment that’s actually a reference to Singapore). But Australians couldn’t really recognize themselves in the episode. “30 years of electricity” is (somewhat) funny if your image of Australia is the great outback with kangaroos and strange animals, even if you know that the country also has cities with millions of people. But if you actually live in Brisbane, it just doesn’t match your cultural experience.
The other thing to bear in mind is that the accents were appallingly bad- they crossed the line from “exaggerated for comic effect” to “borderline offensive”. There are hundreds, if not thousands of talented Australians (or NZers) in Los Angeles who would have been more than happy (and quite capable) of providing the “Local” voices for that episode. I’m sure they could have managed to get Sam Neill (yes, I know he’s a Kiwi) or someone like to to be the Prime Minister and the whole thing would have been a lot more believable.
And, has been mentioned, it just doesn’t reflect what Australia is like. Outback Australia is like that to some extent, but most Australians live in cities on the Eastern Seaboard and even Rural Australia is still a very modern place (One-pump petrol stations in Outback Queensland still have EFTPOS and copies of that day’s major newspaper, for example.)
Personally, I think part of the problem of trying to market the Outback is that a lot of is… well, red sand, rocks, and maybe some scrub.
It’s not that picturesque and sometimes I think they could fake the Mars Landings somewhere out past Coober Pedy or Alice Springs and no-one would be any the wiser.
This reminds of one baffling but charming tendency of Australian place-names, based on aboriginal languages, to be incomprehensible to Americans. I used to ask for directions from point A to point B and get told something like “Yer tyke a right on Mooloolooba, as far as Macahahaka, then to Noolupapa, Fahalooba, and ya end up at Luramacydore. Simple, really.”
Rather than write this down, I would just crack up laughing and resign myself to getting hopelessly lost (which was kinda the point, anyway).
