Taste of a Fair Dinkum Aussie Life

http://cuqldfreeblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/taste-of-fair-dinkum-aussie-life.html

(full version of photos and pictures)

G'day Mate! How are ya doing? We are fine, thank you.

I bet most of our alumni have lived in Australia for over ten, fifteen or even more years. But have we really been living a fair dinkum Australian life appreciating some of her unique cultural aspects?

First, I have to declare I am still a student of Australian culture even after 17 consecutive years of abode in Brisbane. Let me talk about some of the early experiences.

I arrived in Brisbane on the 7th of February, 1994 with a main aim of doing my three years theological study at the Bible College of Queensland. I went almost straight to the College on arrival as it was the first day of the semester. It was already late morning when I arrived at the college. The formal welcome assembly had just finished and most students had left but a couple living on the campus just got out from the door of the hall. They greeted me by a casual saying. “How are ya doing mate?” With all the jet lag still on the head and the stress cumulated after driving for the first time to the college, I made a 10 minutes speech explaining who I am, where do I come from and how stressful I was taking all the pain to come without rest on arrival. You know what; I failed the first cross culture test. I should have just greeted them with a simple reply, “I am fine. Thank you.” It is considered stupid or inconsiderate to hold up a stranger who greets you out of courtesy with a prolonged reciprocal greeting. Never do this otherwise, people will find detour to avoid you on the street or in your neighbour hood area.

About a week later, the same couple had empathy with me travelling a long way from HKG to come to study in Brisbane while they also had to drive 250 km from Bundaberg to study and live on the campus. So after class in the late afternoon around half past four, they invited me “to have tea” with them. I thought it would be fine to visit their family hostel on the campus for a quick afternoon tea. But I was left in the living room with the husband while the wife disappeared for more than half an hour. She was actually preparing an evening meal for us. So beware of the use of Aussie language, tea without qualification means an informal evening meal. They reserve the word “dinner” as a formal meal for prestige guests, which may be held in the noon time. Actually, if you look up an Aussie Dictionary, “Dinner” is regarded as a major meal of the day at lunch time.

It remained a mystery until a volunteer English teacher of my church explained the cultural background to me a few years ago. The first settlers were convicts from England dated back to 1788. It was the economy down time of England slightly before the beginning of Industrial Revolution (2nd half of 18th Century to 19th Century beginning from England). Poverty, social injustice, child labour, harsh and dirty living conditions and long working hours were prevalent in 19th-century Britain. Charles Dickens'novel "Oliver Twist" perhaps best illustrates this gloomy economic situation at that time. Ordinary people were so poor as such they were forced to steal food for survival which turned them into a convicted prisoner being sent to resettle in Australia.

At that time, all the poor people could not afford to light up candles for the evening meal. So they ate the main meal of the day early enough at hours with sufficient day light, i.e. early afternoon and ate a smaller meal in the evening in very dim light. If they forever wanted to invite guests to have a formal meal, they would have been forced to do it only at noon or early afternoon. So this eating culture for the poor social class was transplanted into Australia together with the convicts of the First Fleet landing at Port Jackson on 26/1/1788 which has since then become the Australian day. A simple evening meal is called “tea” without even tea being served on the table. Strange but this is unique Aussie eating culture.

Over the 80 years since 1788, more than 165,000 convicts were transported to Australia. It made up a significant component of the early population of the colonial states at that time apart from soldiers, administrative personnel and free settlers who started coming from 1793. The mind set of this majority defiant convicts group gave rise to the sub-culture of Australia called the “Independent Spirit”. They considered themselves the victims of incompetent governments to have created disparity in wealth both in their home land and in this new southern land. They keep that defiant attitude towards institutional authority even until today and choose to live a life of their own with least interference from any authoritative body. This sort of “leave me alone” mentality could be best illustrated by the de facto National anthem “Waltzing Matilda” written in 1895. It exemplifies the essence of the “Independent Spirit” that the poor itinerant worker (swagman) would rather kill himself to resist the injustice imposed on him the poor working class who struggle to make ends meet.

As a response to this social injustice in the past, a very important Australian value has evolved especially in the labour social class that every one should “have a fair go”. It indirectly explains why local Australians, the descendents of the convicts, all feel comfortable to invite people to come for a BYO meal such as barbecue at their home. BYO means bring your own meat, food and drink. The importance is not the food or the meal but the mateship to share the tough life experiences with a care free attitude.

By the way, In Australia, if your whole family are invited to a barbecue gathering, make sure that no women is to touch the barbecue stove. It is the exclusive task of men, especially the host. So all the good wives from the Orient, sit back and relax to enjoy your barbecue. It would be a serious offence if you insist to give them a hand.

Let’s have a look of some findings from Beef Eater Barbecue’s annual in-depth study exploring the what, when, where, why and how Australians cook outdoors.

50% of Australians think the smell of barbecue puts them in the mood for love…

72% believe cooking on a barbecue is calming and reduces stress…

62% of women say they’ve been discouraged from taking charge of the grill by a male…

33% of men said being able to show off their grill and barbecue is the most enjoyable aspect of entertaining outdoors.

Perhaps the whole truth is, males seldom take part in daily cooking. There is no skill required for burning meat on the grill. So this is the best opportunity to show off their head of the family status in a barbecue gathering. Anyway, barbecue has become an important part of the Aussie family as well as social life.

One interesting cultural difference you may have observed in outdoor cooking is that, native Aussie seems not troubled by the flies while we the Chinese people will all be busy in waving hands with an “Australian Salute” to expel flies. I have no clue at all to this strange difference in behaviour only until lately that I have learned a model of the formation of culture.

Culture can be viewed as successive “layers” of behavior, value, belief as one moves into the real heart of the world view of the culture. To explain a behavior in any culture, you have to trace up the thinking process of value, belief and world view.

* What you have done is determined by what you think is good.

* What you think is of good value derived from what you believe is true.
* And your belief ultimately is determined by what you think is real in your personal view of the world.

I accordingly construct a listing comparing the said behavior of eating with flies around in the Aussie culture and the shoot to kill policy against flies around the meal table of the Chinese People. I hope it is self explanatory.

Culture of Fly: The difference between a) Aussie & b) Chinese：

1. Behaviour

a. Aussie : Don’t expel flies while eating

b. Chinese: Keep expelling flies while eating

2. Values

a. Aussie : Flies are clean & harmless, so it is OK to have them as company for meal

b. Chinese: Flies are dirty with germs, they should be extinguished from eye sights.

3. Belief

a. Aussie : The sanitary system is reliable nation wide. They have the best quarantine system to prevent foreign viruses. The garbage disposal system is reliable. all garbage bins are tightly closed to avoid contact by flies. Even the men urine basin has flushing to keep it clean all the times. So, flies are just part of the wild life from the bush, which is clean and green.

b. Chinese: The reliability of sanitary system is not guaranteed every where. For instances, in some Asian Communities, garbage bins are overflown with wastes exposing to open air which attract flies. The images of the dirty open air sewage system in their home country still are so vivid that they just cannot imagine flies will have no contact with dirt and germs.

4. Worldview

a. Aussie : Australia is a clean and green country

b. Chinese: Australia is no different from rest of the world, sanitary system is not a guaranteed insulated system against flies.

The harmonious co-existence life attitude with flies and other wild life shapes the culture of local Aussies. They will never attempt to snatch or kill a fly. They just use hat lined up with dangling corks along the rim of the hat to expel flies and prevent them getting too close to get into their mouths, noses or ears. They even take all the trouble to change their speaking habit by using short phrases and abbreviated vocab so that they can keep a tight lip most of the time during daily conversation to avoid inadvertent swallowing of fly.

OK, I think I have written too much already for every one to digest. Let’s take a break and will talk more on the cultural differences for Chinese to get a taste of a fair dinkum Aussie life. Ah, in case you don’t know yet what “Dinkum” means. It is the Chinese word of “真金True Gold” that a Chinese Gold digger yelled out in their own Chinese dialect on discovery of a piece of gold nugget during the Gold rush period (1851-1986). It was the beginning of Chinese migrants flocking to Australia for a living. The word becomes a unique Aussie expression of complete genuine of something. It signifies the beauty of cross culture influences that we should treasure most as a multicultural country.