I thought to myself, that since I'm not really travelling so much these days, I'd take an irregular diversion on my bloggings. Here's my little look at some Aussie culture, I hope you enjoy some of the stuff that's made me smile in discovering it this last year.
Through my travels, I've found that adopting local colloquialisms is key to forging good relationships and to being understood. This could be some polite phrases in Thai, a custom of removing your footwear on entering someone's home or a change in many of the way you say things. My native accent traditionally blunts the letter T, drops H's and turns a 'th' into an almost embarrassing 'f' sound. I quickly had to rectify this and really emphasise T's in order to be understood by most foreigners.However in Australia, without really making any effort, I've now lost count of the amount of times English and Australians have mistaken me for an Aussie when they've first met me. However even with this initial confusion, there's still a whole sub-language here that I've been learning over these last 300 or so moons. There's the obvious shortening of a tin of beer to 'tinny', flip-flops become 'thongs' , a cool box becomes 'eski', although I still don't recall an actual Australian referring to the toilet as 'the dunny'.
My favourite by far though is the all too common shortening of words that may only be two or three syllables in the first place - to 'first syllable + 'o'. My case in point:
Bottle Shop (AKA Off License) - Bottle-O
Service Station - Serve-O
A Musician becomes - A Muse-O
Ambulance Driver - Amb-O
and my favourite, though I'm not sure it's that common - Hungry Jacks (Burger King to the rest of the world) - Hungo Jacko's
It was a week ago when I found myself cutting my adopted hometowns name of Randwick, down to Rando... it's rubbing off on me.
On from the language, to the fashion differences. On my first take, people dress kinda similar to the UK or even the US, but as time ticked by, more and more things became apparent. For me personally, I'd wear a casual shirt with the very top button undone. Here, I've had the 2nd one whipped off too, and told only dags do that button up. In contrast when I returned back to the UK, I kept that 2nd button undone, and was told to put 'it' (in reference to my rug) away. It's also pretty regular to see people wandering around with no footwear, a lot of singlets (vests) and corked hats (I'm joking of course). In the formal world, it also seems perfectly acceptable to wear the dodgiest tie and shirt combinations under the sun... something I've not moved over to just yet ;)
Don't get me started on the sunglasses that most of the young girls have been wearing this last year...
I'm nearly done, but I'll just take a moment to mention one of my favourite unique Australian snacks.
When I first scanned the ice cream refrigerator, I clocked a lot of the usuals - Cornettos (Drumsticks), Calypo's & Magnums. But one day, I spotted the Golden Gaytime. I nearly died laughing. Imagine asking for a "Golden Gaytime"! or "Let's you and me go and have a Golden Gaytime"... I'm not sure that name would cut it back home... although I've since learned that they've been around for forever and a day... dating back to when gay meant happy and innocent.
It was my duty to try it at least it once. With the wrapper off, it's biscuit crumb, followed by chocolate coated ice cream kinda looked a little alien to me. My first few bites were uncomfortable. I didn't know if it was right that I could be enjoying something with that name. Though you have to try all things once, right? I soon became comfortable with my Ice-Creamiality. Now, I'm completely unafraid to simply walk into a shop and in front of a line of people, look the shopkeeper in the eye and demand a Golden Gaytime. He may give me a strange look but I've even given my mates a Golden Gaytime, and they're always grateful for it too.
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