Cross Cultural Tips

[blamebrampton]

Still plaguey. Will be fine once I can sleep without any coughing. Way behind in sending out flist love, but LOVE!!!! to all of you, especially the ones having crap weeks.

Very shortly, I have noticed that Australia and America have been exerting cultural influences on each other more strongly of late, and just wanted to share a few hints on the topic.

Things Australians SHOULD do more like Americans
* Personal and corporate philanthropy
* Respect for and interest in the arts
* Recognition of people achieving in academic fields and celebration of those achievements

Things Australians SHOULD NOT do more like Americans
* Politics (I'm looking at you, Tony Abbott!)
* Health care (Still looking!)
* Pop music (OK, this time it's whoever that crap was on 2Day that was playing in the Turkish pizza place. But I feel certain Tony Abbott's probably bought the CD.)

Things Americans SHOULD do more like Australians
* Irony. Some of you have the hang of it, but it needs wider acceptance
* Health care
* Media critique (there's not enough mixed ownership here, but there is a solid focus on cross-checking and making loud reports about perfidy when certain outlets are crap)

Things Americans SHOULD NOT do more like Australians
* Constant natural disasters
* EPIC STORMS
* Wear flipflops to work, even if they have some sparkly bits glued on. They're not professional. And I have been here too long as I originally wrote thongs and then realised the enormous potential for cross-cultural confusion.

Stay safe you East Coast kids. That earthquake looks like fun in comparison, I'll bet.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Haven't been to America but the one thing I noticed most in OZ was how many people were active and interested in art. Maybe more craft than the art you are thinking of, but I've been to a lot of homes and there seemed an individual, idiosyncratic interest of arts/crafts I haven't gleaned from the US from the countless films and books I took in.

ETA: right, I saw you meant gov spending, but also that someone else agrees with my assessment on the personal level!


Hey, you are MAKING your storms and floods? I only knew about the fires. Did you send those two months of rain to me?

Yeah, thongs. Today I noticed I was the only person in this international city suffering in skin-hurting sweaty sandals while every single other person looked breezily health-footed in thongs. Had to ask a shop assistant if the plastic bit was meant to be taken off the string. Still haven't got any (can*t buy shoes).

ETA: but since there were mostly winter boots in the shops now, the only thongs on sale were plastic - and outnumbered by Crocs or Croqus which ... yeah, even if they cover yucky toes, they are still way worse. Summer-wellies. Heavy heavy plastic shoes with holes that look like wooden clogs only heavier and less cool.

Really feel for you - can*t sleep for the cough, cough can*t better with lack of sleep. Drug yourself and get better.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I think there is a strong crafts movement here, and would agree with you on that. But I would disagree about The Arts, as I think that it ranks further down on the average Australian's list of daily things than it does on the average Americans. Even just little things like supporting community theatre and belonging to a book club are more prevalent in the US than in Australia.

I think it's because Australians work ridiculously long hours, despite cultural stereotypes, and when they get home they want to do something physical or something silly that requires no brain. So they turn to sport, craft, hanging around outside, the pub, TV (mostly imported shows) ...

Poor In's feet! You know, I think in the actual tropics, I would probably make an exception for thongs. As long as people keep their feet nice ;-)

And I got nearly seven hours last night! A record! Alas, the drugs all make me feel worse :-(

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Funny how I first imagined you talking of manual labour when that's what least do!
But even in my own case, I'm dead tired each day esp. after office work so doing crafts (let alone sports) is impossible, requires more action, much harder than taking in some art.

Except I'm in middle-eastern Europe, not the tropics. We might have heat and thunderstorms the same day, but one after the other.

Ze drugs don*t work :(