“There’s a lot of building going on everywhere.”
“They should build a big town and put all the refugees in it.”They have. All over the world. They’re called refugee camps.
This folksy racism is starting to grate a wee bit, to be honest.
There is a strong white-colonial-settler mentality which
dominates the political landscape. It’s
of the classic English-speaking variety: an unspoken,
only-recently-challenged-in-any-serious-way type of superiority complex. It’s completely understandable in a nation
founded on racist ideology, supremacy and genocide. (Aren’t white people just the worst?)
We’re a long way from America here, but everyone’s favourite
TV character Donald Trump is still on the news.
Unlike some observers, I can see the appeal of a man who steps into a
complex world of shifting sands, interdependent relationships and global
machinations, a changing culture, and says: This is all someone else’s
fault. It’s someone else’s fault, and that
someone is a poor immigrant. Or a
terrorist far away. And we can stop them
easily enough. The world is simple, and
anyone who disagrees had better watch out.
Get with the winning team.
It’s all been said before, but dangerously ignorant TV characters
are not known for originality or subtlety.
Australia has a track record for being very unwelcoming to refugees,
asylum seekers and immigrants. As in the
UK (home, sweet home), these three designations are used interchangeably for
undesirable foreigners. We built all
this, and now they want to come here and get it for free. (There’s a reason British children don’t
learn that Britain is a world power because it stole most of its wealth and got
rich off the backs of slaves and then used its military might to dominate the
world for centuries using violence. One
result of this lack of (honest) education is the kind of attitude described
above.)
The appeal to simplicity goes right to the heart of the
human condition: we would so desperately like a simple life, wouldn’t we? (How would I know, my experience is my
own. Frankly, most of the time, I personally
don’t want a simple life. More on that
later.) Well, some of us would. (The old, the frightened, the change-averse,
for example.)
“We’ve lost the country” is a phrase and a feeling that I
have encountered in America and Australia.
Like the US comedian Chris Rock pointedly asked, “If white people are
losing the country, who’s winning?”
The bitter irony of a settler colonial nation with a chauvinistic,
strongly anti-immigration political discourse is not easily lost on those who
think about it for a second.
I have always thought of Australia as distinct but also
inextricably linked to British and Irish culture, due to its history (you know,
all the forced settlement penal colony and genocide stuff). But it is actually more like America, for the
same reasons. (Although fish & chips
seem to be a pretty big deal here.)
Like America, the people are very friendly and
welcoming. (But then, we are palewhite
and our English is very good.) There’s
such an easygoing charm and informality about people.
So, you know, two sides to every coin.
And, of course, as in the US and the UK, there is plenty of
opposition to the above-mentioned ignorance and racism. It’s a kind of morphic resonance: the same
species on different sides of the world, are learning the same things at
roughly the same time…at both ends of the political spectrum (I’d rather
describe it as a political sphere, but I can’t, because of Political
Correctness Gone Mad. I would like to
describe it as a sphere because extreme elements on all sides are far more
alike than they want to admit, and therefore closer together in attitude than
those who politely disagree. Unless you
disagree with that, in which case I’ll threaten you with violence on the
internet.)
Some more general observations:
It’s very hot (February is the warmest month of summer); the
sun is an absolute bastard, and we Northern Europeans would do well to stick to
the shade, slathered in Factor 50.
Everything is really big.
People are very friendly.
And everyone is happy to recommend several places to go for food and
drink. I write most of them down. We even go to one or two of them.
The most common greeting is “How you going?”
People say “eh?” at the end of a sentence, like Canadians
do, according to every American comedian ever.
No one takes the piss out of Aussies for it, but lots of them do it all
the time.
People also use the word “awesome” a lot. Not as much as Americans. Or Brits under 40. But a lot.
(A few people have said “random”, but a lot less than back
home. (And I’ve only heard the word
“literally” once. Literally once. Which is
another good reason to stay here and never go home. Also, the weather is nice.))
The word “bogan” is used like “chav” is in the UK. I take against it immediately, because I hate
the word chav. Because it seems like a
shorthand for middle-class and working-class people to get a vicarious
oldschoolupperclass thrill by demeaning others with less money/more problems
than them. Hahahaha, it’s just a word man, get over yourself. Like, Literally.
Everything comes in “heaps”.
Bars, restaurants, people, water, shops, traffic, tourist sights…there’s
heaps of all of them.
The traditional diet is quite British, heavy on meat and
carbs, but there is also “heaps” of very good Asian food available. Which is a bonus.
Food – and coffee – are taken seriously here, especially in
Sydney. But especially in Melbourne.
The suburbs of Melbourne look exactly as they do on
Neighbours. Or Kath & Kim.
This is an expensive place for visitors, especially
Sydney. Especially if you drink and eat
as much as we do. But it’s not too bad
for locals: the minimum wage is $22 per hour, and a beer costs $8-12. So it’s not like London, where breathing
dangerously filthy air is charged to your credit card and rent is 95% of the
average wage. People can afford a
reasonable standard of living here.
Toilets are quite good, even in pubs. Most of them.
The traffic in Sydney is very bad because everyone drives
everywhere all the time.
Sydney byelaws prohibit convenience, so there’s an
Oyster-style top-up card system for transport – but you can’t top up your card
at a station. Which is brilliant. When we arrived at a ferry port and swiped
our cards, we were about 35c short for the journey (which was a different price
each of the four times we made the same journey on the same ferry). So, the only way we can get topped-up is with
a ten-minute walk to an ironically-named “convenience store”.
I wonder why everyone drives everywhere in this city…
On the plus side, the ferry took us to Circular Quay, so we
had a great view of the bay, with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge right up
close. (But more on that later.)
We walk past a building site in the blazing sunshine of
central Sydney, while builders take a break from working in the heat. Their radio is blasting out Land Down Under
by Men At Work. So, they are men. At work.
Listening to Men At Work. Specifically,
Land Down Under. In the Land Down Under.
It couldn’t have been a more Aussie scene if they were
eating meat pies and drinking beer under a street sign with a swearword on it.
The wildlife may be less welcoming, from what I’ve been
told. There are lots of animals here
that can kill me soon as look at me, and some of them are really small. So, I’m on Spider Watch, but I don’t take it
seriously. I’d quite like to see a
spider the size of my thumbnail that could kill me. I’d have to respect that kind of power,
especially coupled with the knowledge that if I leave the thing alone, it will
leave me alone and only use that awesome power on other wee animals it wants to
eat.
(But more on that later.)
In the suburbs of Melbourne, a wee spider runs in to E-girl’s
bag. She calmly passes the bag to me and
asks me to dispose of the spider. I
calmly walk outside, calmly lie the bag on its side on the grass, calmly give
it a gentle tap on the bottom and watch the spider run out. I casually pick the bag up, casually go back
inside and casually hand it back to E-girl.
She casually thanks me.
When Cousin G casually asks what I’m up to, I calmly assure
him I’ve dealt with the harmless spider, and describe it to him. “That might be a white tail. They’re really
dangerous.”
I retrospectively shit myself. Got away with it, mind.
Turns out most of the animals are either used to people or
at least will leave alone the people who leave them alone. (More on that later.) And we’re mostly in the city, so we don’t see
anything too wild. (More on that later).
Sydney is a very sporty city; there are people out jogging
in the searing midday heat, which seems like absolute lunacy to me. I’m struggling in this heat, at times – and
remember that most Australians are descended from Irish rebels and British
criminals, not groups famous for their ability to tolerate exposure to heat and
sunlight.
Mind you, we’re on holiday, so the main thing we get an
impression of is the inside of a lot of bars.
But more on that later.
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