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I’ve once again come to realise that not only do most not-australians know nothing of Australia at all, but they seem to adore hearing about parts of it… I’ve found a great way to pass time at the office is to simply bring up the topic of Australia and enlighten people on our animals, aborigines and some of the more intersting towns and cities around the country like Alice Springs, Darwin, etc etc.. This if course is mostly heresay as I haven’t visited these two places, but that’s where the other Aussies in the office (there are enough of them, after all) chime and in and fill in the bits I’ve missed.

If one tires of this rule, sit around and tell a story instead

It would be ignorant of me to expect a foreigner to know anything much about my country when I don’t know an awful lot about theirs, but I think on the most part, most Aussies have a decent understanding of city, state, place names, customs, languages of a fairly wide range of countries around the world such as Western Europe, Southern Africa, parts of Asia, and North America. Maybe I’m wrong, and as I said before I can’t really talk, as I’d know next to nothing about Germany apart from what was taught about the World War II era in high school history class.

I’m surprised at just how funny concepts such as Canberra, White Australia or double pluggers are to people who haven’t heard of them before.

It’s amazing, everyone seems to know what aborigines are, but have vastly different perceptions of their history or current situation and people seem enthralled at the notion of dry communities, un-sniffable petrol or the dole day rush then two day long spending spree. As further perpetuated by last weeks episode of Top Gear (whilst searching for the worlds best driving road, Australia was passed over for the fact it was full of dangerous spiders), Australia is indeed perceived as being a massive desert where its occupants face death around every corner due to our snake/spider/crocodile problem and our shark/jellyfish/poisoned fish infected waters.

The placid, yet ever vengeful killer drop bear

No wonder people are confused by the danger of our wildlife when we’re graced with:

• the perpetually stoned sloth like, yet amazingly agressive when upset, koala bear (the animal behind the infamous killer drop bear myth).
• the platypus, a duck-billed, beaver tailed, web footed otter like creature with a stinger (one of only a few venomous mammals), otherwise known as the duck-billed plat-a dog. (As if the duck bill wasn’t strange enough, this abomination of animal kind has a barbed spur on its back foot capable of causing severe pain to humans).
• the tasmanian devil (extinct), bunyip and the yowie; or
• the fact that until 1967, the aboriginal population was considered part of the Australian fauna, The “Yes” vote allowed amendments to the Constitution so that Aboriginal people could be counted at the census (they were no longer considered part of the ‘Flora and Fauna’ portfolio!)

The Platypus – Look at it, how is that even possible. It’s like assembling a car from a parts bin, someone must have been having a joke.

If only I knew more, I could pass on my wisdom to enrich the knowledge of others, or at least smile as people piss themselves laughing. I sign off with a completely unrelated, but thoroughly funny take on stereotypes from around the world: Breaking Out Stereotypes

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 14th, 2007 at 12:31 am and is filed under Life, UK, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.