Yes, yes, I know.
Recombobulation is not a word.
And you are wondering where part 3 is …
On balance, my more than 17 years in Australia has been a sheer delight and a joy and I continually consider myself blessed to live in a country where everything just runs smoothly, where social services, infrastructure, transport and the like all work so well. This is not an article on Australia but were it so, I would delight in page after page of accolades and praise. It truly is the lucky country and I am truly lucky to be living here.
Since I now live in Australia, I want to write about some of my own head-bumping here. I write cautiously since my own experience is that people the world over find great difficulty in hearing, with a modicum of equanimity, anything about their own societies or societal norms. They instinctively and viscerally become defensive on just about anything which they perceive as negative comment, and my experience has taught me that the only thing I can get away with in my comments, without any fear of an emotionally-loaded backlash, is to comment on which side of the road cars drive on. So, I am safe to say: “Its quite difficult getting used to driving on the left”, or even “you guys drive on the wrong side of the road”. Anything more that that invites all sorts of reactions.
I invite readers to understand this post as a reflection of my own difficulties. It is not meant as a criticism of anything I notice here in Australia.
Well, here goes.
To offer the Australian reader some flavour of what I am trying to convey (well, I actually live here), I still cannot understand aspects of privacy laws in Australia. In some of the modules of my Masters Degree at University, we were asked to give our names and phone numbers for distribution amongst the students of the course. We were given the assurance that these details would be held confidentially for the duration of the course but would be destroyed after the end of the module. It all made perfect sense in terms of Australian norms and accepted practice, but it made no sense to me at all since one needs only to phone 1223, the local Telco directory enquiries, and one can get the very same telephone numbers in respect of which such solemn confidentialities are promised.
So, too, equally un-understandable to me is the fact that all escalators in Australia are different to escalators, the world over.
The difference?
Escalators in Australia have large yellow warning signs saying: “Stand between the yellow lines”. Actually, it is not possible to ride an escalator standing outside the yellow lines (perhaps you could try to balance on the moving hand-rail!!), so the signs make no sense at all to an outsider – they are as rhetorical and hollow as a sign saying” “Please breathe”. But Australians never notice the seeming rhetorical illogicality that they see every day as they travel escalators, until such notion has been pointed out to them. And even then, generally they do not experience this new insight as more than a perhaps charming observation by an outsider. but no logical reason is ever offered.
As a contrast, escalators in Japan all have big yellow signs saying “Hold the handrails”. That notion is understandable to me because people have a choice as to whether to hold the handrail or not and holding the handrail obviously is safer than not holding the handrail.
But not standing between the yellow lines is an impossible feat to begin with … (Can I indulge in my fantasy here – shortly after arrival, one night at midnight, I break in Grace Brothers Store in Bondi Junction, switch on the escalator and ‘have a go’, balancing on the handrail or precariously balancing ON the yellow lines?).
So, too, a seemingly innocuous activity which I used to enjoy with my sons in our previous countries of residence, is a criminal offence here in Australia. We used to go to the petrol station every weekend and I would buy the cold drinks while one of my young sons filled the car. As someone under 15 (or 16), it is an offence here in Australia for a child to operate the petrol pump! Oh, and no petrol pump in Australia has the facility to pump automatically. Consumers have to squeeze the pump manually during the entire delivery process – the little automatic trigger latch just under the handle is always disabled here in Australia. In other countries, you insert the nozzle into the tank, squeeze the pump handle and it locks in the delivery process until full, when it self – releases. Go on, have look next time you fill up – what exactly is that squiggly thing near the bottom of the handle which seems to do nothing at all?
Little things, but they, too had to be learned, internalised, introjected, taken on board. And then there are the expressions which have such strange meanings (as do all local expressions in every country).
In Australia, if I bump into someone and turn around to apologize, what will come back to me is ‘you’re right’ which is the Australian expression of ‘no problem’ or ‘no sweat’, but it always sounds odd to me to be told that I’m right. Damn,
Did I mention that Australia is mired in the past? Before explaining myself, I should mention that my question above is logically correct. I am asking whether I have previously mentioned that Australia is mired in the past and so I ask – ‘did I mention … ‘. There is however a curious Australian lexical mannerism which is similarly mired in the past despite current, present ongoing circumstances.
Confused?
Me too!
Australians are simply unable to ask for anything without cringing behind some linguistic distortion. So you will always find an Australian saying ‘what was your name?’ in place of ‘what is your name?’ or ‘did you want sugar in your coffee?’ instead of ‘do you want sugar in your coffee?’ or ‘would you like sugar in your coffee?’
Similarly, when shopping, you get ‘did you want a packet (bag) for your goods?’ in place of ‘do you want a packet (bag) for your goods?’
I sense that this distortion is a form of politeness – it is somewhat less confronting in the past tense that it would be in the present tense. It has the flavour of an apology – the name has already been asked but has been forgotten and the question seems to be something like ‘please remind me – did you want … ‘.
Oh and when an Australian requires you to do something, for instance, to sign something, it is never ‘please sign here’ or ‘sign here’. It is always an ‘if i can get you’ request such as, ‘if i can get you to sign this’. And it always comes out distinctly in two parts. The first is a garbled or mumbled ‘if i can’, followed by the clear ‘get’ part. So what I always hear is ‘fnyun get you to … ‘ as in ‘fnyun get you to sign this … ‘.
And no mention of my first weeks in Australia would be complete without my relating how I was brazenly sexually propositioned by the woman who took my cash, the first time I drove through a toll booth. She took my money, looked deeply into my eyes and said ‘Siya lider’ which i later understood to mean ‘See you later’. Did we somehow have a date? The cheek of it – a married man propositioned so brazenly.
There is more.
Baths in Australia can never overflow.
That’s right.
They are simply not manufactured with little outlet holes near the top of the bathtub like in other countries. But Australian bathrooms have small outlet drains on the floor, unlike bathrooms elsewhere which don’t. Very very strange the first time you notice it. No hole in bath or basin, yes hole in floor.
There is another anomaly which I find difficulty coming to terms with and it is the following. When I learnt to drive, there was an absolute rule – you may not cross an unbroken white line. and it is absolute in all countries in which I have driven. It is viscerally known and accepted everywhere. And this rule is doubly reinforced with a double white line. When I learnt to drive, crossing a double white line was a serious infringement of the road rules. Really really bad. But here in New South Wales one is permitted to cross a double white line if one turns into a driveway. Although it is legal, I still cringe every time I do it.
Another little gem happened very shortly after arrived. I went to the bank to open a bank account and furnished my passport as identification. The person who served me informed me that my passport was not sufficient identification. Before I finished this little passport vignette, try to imagine my experience when being told that my passport was not sufficient ID. Try to imagine that I was 51 years old, with a lifetime of travel on my passport. Each border crossing and each hotel reservation and each bank transaction whereever I was, fully accepted and validated just by my passport. It is the defining identification, the world over.
But not in Australia.
Were the bank officials stark raving mad? I had just entered Australia on my passport. That was enough to identify me as someone who was entering as a permanent resident. Border Control/Protection accepted my passport as my definitive identification? I was yet to learn that to open a bank account one needs 100 points of identification of which a passport only counts as 80. Makes perfect sense to them but to foreigner me it felt like I was Alice in Wonderland.
Dear reader, do you think you know what a postage stamp is? Guess again because here in Australia things are not so simple. There are different stamps for internal postage and for international postage. I made the egregious error of trying to send a letter overseas with the correct postage amount but using the wrong stamps. I had pasted $1.80 worth of local stamp stamps on the envelope which is the correct amount to send an international letter. I handed it in at the counter while I was doing another transaction and was sternly told that the postage was incorrect and that I had to afix $1.80 worth of international stamps on the envelope. National stamps are different from International stamps.
Yep. It all made sense to them – something to do with the gst component included or excluded in the international version of the postage stamp.
Go figure.
My final little tale concerns something someone said me about 2 years after my arrival.
Here is what I heard:
Norny Norny Norn was the yee papel started thinking about y2d.
I was sure that whoever said this to me was absolutely correct but what did it mean?
And what is an egg nishner?
Stumped are you?
Here is the translation.
1999 was the year people started to think about y2d.
And an egg nishner is an appliance that keeps your house cool in summer.
I am constantly reminded of the charming song “Let’s call the whole thing off” – Fred Astaire (words by Ira Gershwin; music by George Gershwin) Introduced by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the film “Shall We Dance?”
You say eether and I say eyether,
You say neether and I say nyther;
Eether, eyether, neether, nyther,
Let’s call the whole thing off!
You like potato and I like potahto,
You like tomato and I like tomahto;
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!
Let’s call the whole thing off!
But oh! If we call the whole thing off, then we must part. And oh! If we ever part, then that might break my heart! So, if you like pajamas and I like pajahmas, I’ll wear pajamas and give up pajahmas. For we know we need each other, So we better call the calling off off. Let’s call the whole thing off!
You say laughter and I say lawfter,
You say after and I say awfter;
Laughter, lawfter, after, awfter,
Let’s call the whole thing off!
You like vanilla and I like vanella,
You, sa’s’parilla and I sa’s’parella;
Vanilla, vanella, Choc’late, strawb’ry!
Let’s call the whole thing off!
But oh! If we call the whole thing off, then we must part. And oh! If we ever part, then that might break my heart! So, if you go for oysters and I go for ersters I’ll order oysters and cancel the ersters. For we know we need each other, So we better call the calling off off! Let’s call the whole thing off!
Things in a new country often do not make sense at all to the immigrant and I mention the above local Australian vignettes in an attempt to offer some glimmer of understanding to the reader but in truth, all they illustrate is some Rashomon effect – some quaint diverse observation on local differences and perceptions. They give no clue as to how lack of sense, of uprootedness, of reliance on known certainties no longer certain, of an identity which is progressively rent until suddenly there is the epiphany of the realisation that the old identity no longer exists and one knows yet not what has taken its place. All this is alienating, infantilising, threatening and a frightening dimension of immigration.
Today, some 17 years into our life here, things have worked out and we all feel a lot more at home. And I have to say that the journey has been great – challenging, wonderful, frustrating, exciting, frightening. But above all, it has been a privilege and an opportunity – for which I will always be grateful and thankful.
Michael 16th January 2015
