Cultural Impressions

Article by: Adam Karlin, January 2008

As an American, I want to thank former Australian Prime Minister John Howard for one of his last strokes of statecraft. The man was a trailblazer for backpacks the size of large children and furtive sexual encounters in filthy hostels. Howard had the American government grant its first ever working-holiday visas - to young Australians. I'm pretty happy about this turn of events. Maybe you'll all learn how to pronounce 'aluminum'.

Australians can teach Americans about working holidays - the snooze button on the alarm clock of life.

Australians have been laden with a great responsibility: to learn about my often misunderstood country, and teach Americans about working holidays - the snooze button on the alarm clock of life. Remember, Australians pretty much invented the tradition, giving untold thousands of British school-leavers the chance to support the Australian fruit-picking industry and get badly sunburned in the process. For the record it can be a crap way to have a vacation. I remember standing in a kitchen in Brisbane with a mop, drenched in sweat, asking my pommy co-worker, 'So where are all the goddamned koalas?'

Even when every other show and song on the Australian airwaves is from the USA, there seems to be a lot of misperceptions floating around about my homeland. And vice versa. First bit of advice: Americans don't really know where you're from at all. Australia, that's south, right? Got Mexicans?

I was telling an American mate (or 'friend,' as we say) about ANZAC Day, and he cut me off with this: 'So Australia has an army?'

Admittedly, he was being sarcastic (we can do that, by the way. Seen Seinfeld?), but he was genuinely surprised Australia commemorates a battle that could not, in any foreseeable way, have threatened Australia, unless there's a secret tunnel between the Dardanelles and the Great Barrier Reef.

'So they celebrate that they fight in other people's wars?'

'Dude. They're fighting in our war right now.'

The positive side of not knowing about Australians is as naÏve folk, we have a good impression of Australia, thanks still to Paul Hogan! Seriously, take every positive attribute of the country Australian cliché - frank, friendly, solid, funny, good to have a beer with - as what we think. Most Americans figure Australians are…well, Americans, but with English accents. And no, we can't tell the difference.

I know this sounds condescending, but we mean it in the nicest way. Americans are pretty convinced they do things best - we're a superpower, yo - so it's a compliment if we think you do things like Americans.

Rural Australia and rural America are practically mirror images, except we can be really, really into religion and our ruggedly individualistic farmers collect fat federal subsidies. Multi-cultural urban Australians will have no problem in multi-cultural urban America, although we do figure you're all from the Outback, and most of us have never heard of any cities besides Sydney.

Watch our sports; they're fun, and you might do yourselves a favour and ditch cricket and netball in the process. And yeah, we like guns. It's a cliché, but most Americans, from liberals (your Labour) to conservatives (your Liberals - confused?) are big on their freedoms, including the ones that harm us. That's what makes us Americans.

You'll have to learn to spell. Middling office jobs that working-holiday types apply for are usually performed by recent graduates or immigrants who already use American English. It's an easier, more phonetic way to spell, and the reason you never have to learn a foreign language is because we're shameless cultural imperialists, so frankly, you're welcome.

Unfortunately for Australians, fruit-picking, construction, landscaping, dishwashing and all the other dirt-under-your-nails jobs often sought by backpackers are already done by Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and millions of other workers from el Sud. Fortunately for Australians (and unfortunately for Americans), there's a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in the States right now, and I don't doubt many Americans would rather hire a young, English-speaking Australian than an undocumented migrant. On the other hand, a migrant can work 14 hours without a break for small change, and they're probably feeding a family, so the competition can be stiff.

Australia is more than the Sydney Opera House and Uluru, and America is more than New York and Hollywood.

Australia is more than the Sydney Opera House and Uluru, and America is more than New York and Hollywood. Come to the South to eat the best slow-smoked barbeque in the world, or out West to the Rockies to see our greener, just as ruggedly beautiful version of the Outback. Melburnians can visit Seattle and realise we're just as cappuccino and indie-rock obsessed, and Queenslanders will feel right at home in Florida, our state for lunatics, rednecks, beaches and crocodiles. If anything else comes of this phenomenon, I hope Australian backpackers will make young Americans realise life isn't a progression of high school-university-job-death. Our weakness as a nation is not seeing the world (unless you're in the military, but then the locals are never quite as friendly) and maybe you'll inspire us to do more of that.

Finally: in America there's no weariness of Australians like you find in England, no kangaroo ghettos like Clapham and thankfully, no Down Under bars (although we do have Outback Steakhouse, for which I profusely apologise).

America is a place for the more confident, multi-cultural, multi-hued Australian, but don't take my word for it. Come see for yourself. And start spelling with a 'z' - that's 'zee.'