I made a concise, overarching statement yesterday, and someone just looked at me, and somewhat articulated: "Well, DUH!" The statement: Australians have a love/hate relationship with America.
Most Australians who have been to the United States have visited New York City. Nearly all have been in Los Angeles, because that's usually where the plane lands. Third top destination: Las Vegas. For a subset of the Australian population, shopping in NYC is de rigueur (I don't normally use that phrase, but it defines the protocol of these people), and there are those who alternate between Sydney and L.A.I have heard expressed that Australians think Americans are loud and obnoxious. Never mind that a friend from the States just reported that the Australian tourists in Bali are loud and obnoxious. However, when Australians report their experiences of visiting the United States (except for the ones that get mugged or have relatives killed), they report surprise that Americans are "really friendly".
Nationalism. I'll chalk up these misperceptions and negative characterizations to the vagaries of nationalism. Because "we" have to be better than "them" and "they" are mongrels. But also, there's another factor at play in this love/hate thing. That is - America is like the rich kid with all the toys. It's a strange thing, because overall, the typical Australian is probably better off than the typical American - full-blown Western lifestyle, but the Australian is probably less in debt. They didn't have a housing boom and meltdown, so not so many underwater. There are fewer homeless people in Australia. There are crackheads, but they have healthcare, and in general, they're not stealing the metal infrastructure of the nation just to get a buck at the local scrap yard. (update - between when this was written and published, a bronze plaque was stolen from a park, presumably for the scrap value)Australia has more of a "we're in this together" attitude than does the U.S., even though Australia has its own share of billionaires and obnoxious spoiled children. But Australia's inferiority complex comes from its colonial status and resulting dependence upon export of raw materials and import of finished goods. Australia *still* illogically imports many goods from England and didn't really get concerned about this dependency until WWII, when they realized England had its hands full, Japan was headed their way. The truth is that Australia rose to the challenges of both world wars and ramped up production for the war machine. Both the US and Australia benefited economically by rebuilding the world after the war, but while the US revelled in its new post-war status, Australia, it seems, settled back into its comfortable relationship with England. "Thanks, US, for helping out, now if you could kindly leave us alone."
Ariela and I encountered a group of Australian young-twentysomethings in Istanbul in 2011. They were totally obnoxious. Not in a "Rarr, raaah!, let's get drunk!" sort of way, but in a snobbishly overconfident world-traveler way of informing us that, "Oh my god, you're *only* going to be here in Istanbul for three days? I would much prefer not to come at all, if that's all I had. We're here for six weeks, mate, and that's clearly the absolute minimum for what it takes to get the barest understanding of this great world city."
ReplyDeleteOr something.
Now I would never extrapolate this smug show-offery to all Australians. I wouldn't even extrapolate it to this guy's friends, come to think of it, who seemed less arrogant than he. In fact I barely even know what my point is. But: don't put it above anyone to be a braggart about what natural advantages his or her country confers (in Australia's case, an opportunity for vacations of a length no American could ever contemplate).
Not just long vacations, but it seems common among Australians (and at least the British) for families that can afford college for the kids to take a "gap year" bopping around the globe - time, I suppose to get a bit of drinking under their belt before they start college - rather than the American custom of beginning the drinking binge at the same time their freshman year starts up.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I should confess to a bit of smugness when I first came here, the attitude was largely from "I'm not frickin' here to take jobs from Australians nor get free healthcare - I'm American and I had a decent job that I left." Of course, being unemployed here has taken a bit of wind out of that sail.