About Australia
I have had occasion over the last few months to say a few bad things about Australia, and I have to pause when people here ask me "which do you prefer", but my experience of people`s reactions to some very (I think) Australian aspects of my personal behaviour have given me cause to reflect positively on my home country. I have also heard stories from others` home countries which make me think, "wow! Australia is cool." The best one that springs to mind is from Bangladesh: in class, our Bangladeshi student was asked the number of the police in Dhaka and replied "We don`t call the police, it creates more trouble, so I don`t know the number." I don`t think people would say this about Australia (not since 1996, anyway). In Bangladesh, according to this chap, people steal your shoes when you leave them outside the Mosque ...
The main properties of Australia which distinguish us are, I think, the amount that we travel, the amount we know about other countries, and our willingness to try their ideas (which makes us a lot like Japan!) For example, the Mongolians in my residence and all Japanese I meet are blown away when I use chopsticks, cook with kimchi, or make a stir-fry. This is not something they are familiar with in foreigners. The Africans are stunned into silence when I tell them I know what Halva is, and the Moslems (when they are not stuttering with blue-faced horror at me being an atheist) are quite stunned to discover I have read a third of the Quran. I don`t think these are properties so much of me as they are general consequences of life in Australia. Australians are interested in foreign ideas and (to my surprise after recent events in Australia), quite welcoming to foreigners in comparison to some countries. In class, when asked what Japanese foods they like, my African/Moslem fellow students cannot think of any, because a) they only like their own food and b) they don`t know any Japanese food in any case. Which, after a month in Japan, is a little staggering. (See my post on Japanese myths for some of the reasons for this). The Japanese, on the other hand, are very eager to learn about other countries. So our teachers know all about Ramadan but the Ramadanians know nothing about Shinto worship. Two of the three in my class are not even interested in visiting a shrine - whereas I, an atheist, have already been.
This might explain why everyone in Japan knows where Australia is and what its main properties are, but know nothing about much more populous countries elsewhere in the world - e.g. Bangladesh. Give and you shall receive.
Having said that, i suspect right now somewhere in Australia a Japanese person is busy typing a long essay on all the myths Japanese people have about Australia...
The main properties of Australia which distinguish us are, I think, the amount that we travel, the amount we know about other countries, and our willingness to try their ideas (which makes us a lot like Japan!) For example, the Mongolians in my residence and all Japanese I meet are blown away when I use chopsticks, cook with kimchi, or make a stir-fry. This is not something they are familiar with in foreigners. The Africans are stunned into silence when I tell them I know what Halva is, and the Moslems (when they are not stuttering with blue-faced horror at me being an atheist) are quite stunned to discover I have read a third of the Quran. I don`t think these are properties so much of me as they are general consequences of life in Australia. Australians are interested in foreign ideas and (to my surprise after recent events in Australia), quite welcoming to foreigners in comparison to some countries. In class, when asked what Japanese foods they like, my African/Moslem fellow students cannot think of any, because a) they only like their own food and b) they don`t know any Japanese food in any case. Which, after a month in Japan, is a little staggering. (See my post on Japanese myths for some of the reasons for this). The Japanese, on the other hand, are very eager to learn about other countries. So our teachers know all about Ramadan but the Ramadanians know nothing about Shinto worship. Two of the three in my class are not even interested in visiting a shrine - whereas I, an atheist, have already been.
This might explain why everyone in Japan knows where Australia is and what its main properties are, but know nothing about much more populous countries elsewhere in the world - e.g. Bangladesh. Give and you shall receive.
Having said that, i suspect right now somewhere in Australia a Japanese person is busy typing a long essay on all the myths Japanese people have about Australia...
posted by Sir S at 6:07 PM
3 Comments:
What's halva?
Halva, my dear boy, is a crumbly sweet, looking muchn like ground nuts and packed into plastic containers - a delicacy of our darker skinned colonials from the orient.
How's about a bleedin' update?
Hippy.
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