Social Australia

Here's a snippet of social commentary about Newcastle, New South Wales. Please take my opinions with a grain of salt as I am just one person with one perspective.

At 3:15 every day, I wait with all the other parents at the gate at the Newcastle Waldorf School for them to let our kids out. At the gate, I get to meet people, find out about goings on and start to make friends. There are some very good people at this school and I'm enjoying getting to know them.

Truth be told, however, it is a very tame group. I'm missing the irreverence of my friends in Colorado. I haven't laughed uproariously in a very long time. Everyone is very friendly here but you can smell the British influence in the air. Hard to get past the:
"How ya goin'?"
"Yeah, good (rhymes with lewd) And yourself?"
"Good, yeah."
"Beautiful weatha?"
"Yeah, gorgeous. How an Australian summa is supposed to be?" (most of their sentences end like a question) "Yeah?"
"How are your kids finding it he-ah?"
"Good, this is a wonderful school."
"Yeah, good."

Smiles all around. And that's about it. I try to tell stories about things and I'll get people to listen and then they'll tell stories too. But the energy feels like it's being held back by some omniscient parent instructing it to stand by quietly and politely. Shhh. Just smile.

Mark has a much more animated experience with the 5 other men and one woman in his math department. They, apparently, laugh most of the day. Because Mark understands their accent and language much better now, he isn't a wall flower any longer. I'm glad Mark has that.

On Fridays, we have been joining a couple families at the beach after school and we stay and have dinner together. That's been the highlight of our social lives. That's, actually, been the extent of our social lives.

People here are really, truly friendly. But they are very distant. I was expecting something very different. I was expecting back-slapping and beer sloshing. You know--Aussies, rebellious and party, party, party. But it feels much more like England here to me than Australia with significantly betta weatha.

We were talking to this dad from the kids' school a week ago. He says he is very fond of Americans and that he chats with them quite a bit online. So he feels like he has a good sense of the differences between the cultures. It was quite interesting listening to his take on things.

He agreed with me when I shared my experience with Aussies as having this invisible wall up. You have to somehow get their attention before they will engage but once you've knocked, they're happy to talk or help if you ask. But where Americans will ask if you need anything just because you look a little lost (excet in New York), Aussies will ignore you until you come right up to them and say, "I'm lost, can you help me?" It's as though they didn't even see you there until you said something and then suddenly, no worries mate, what can I do for you? Funniest thing.

He said he imagines the people I pass on the running paths must see me coming at this point and think, "Oh, no, here comes that crazy lady who's going to say g'day," and then they must hide their faces and try to run by me unnoticed. I haven't actually seen anyone do that but I have tempered my enthusiasm out there and have learned how to spot the ones who will say hello back to me and let the rest go on their way without pressure.

He says it has a lot to do with the concept of "mateship." It's all about the mates. If you are someone's mate, then you are "in" and they will go to the ends of the earth for you--including taking the heat for you if you get stuck in a bind. (The convict mentality is still apparent in some circles.) And it isn't hard to become someone's mate. All you really have to do is say hello and start a conversation and suddenly you are old pals. But if you aren't in the door yet, you basically don't exist.

Another interesting difference he notices is that Americans are extremists while Aussies are much more happy with mediocre. He pointed out that in America, you have the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor but in socialized Australia, you don't have much of either extreme. Even the families "on the dole" are still watching satelite TV, he said. And doctors aren't making millions. He said that Australians are happy with mediocrity--no tall poppies--and that may be some of what Mark is seeing in the schools. The goal isn't to outshine one's peers and fight for admission into Harvard but to stand by your mate, get through year 10 and find a blue collar job that will allow you to get by. This is just one man's take on things but I don't find it far-fetched.

I asked if there were any Type A personalities in Australia and he said, "Yeah, they're the ones running everything. But the rest of us are happy to just do what we need to do to get by."

He actually said that 'liberals' like the families who send their kids to the Waldorf school (the one our kids go to) were the ones most likely to hate Americans because of our materialism, extremism and capitalism. He, personally, thought it was actually an issue of political envy but again, one man's opinion.

He'd asked if everyone had been welcoming to us and I told him that interestingly enough, everyone was very friendly, once we got to talking, but that no one had invited us to get together. I said I was planning on inviting people to our house but that I was, frankly, surprised that no one had attempted to welcome us in that way. In America, I said again, we'd be so interested in having an Australian around that we'd be inviting them over and finding out if they needed anything, etc. (I think Prue is having a bit more active of a social life than we are.) But here, not so much. Not a week later, he called and invited us over--very kind. However, it was the weekend Mark's parents arrived so we couldn't make it but I'm sure we'll get together with them soon.

I also want to make sure to note that I'm not complaining about any of this, just observing and finding the whole experience fascinating. Like I said when I first got here, I feel like I'm in the perfect position--I would love to make friends with people here but I'm not going to be here forever. I have the most amazing friends I could ever ask for back home both in Colorado and around the country so my social life does not depend on making close friends here. If feels similar to when one goes on a job interview for a job one doesn't really need. It's a good position to be in. So please read all this as observation and reporting rather than whinging (whining) about how I wish it were different.

There is one woman who feels like an angel sent here to help me find my way. She is a mom at the kids' school and she has done what most Aussies don't seem to do. I think she is very intrigued with the adventure we are on. She gave me free hand-made hair conditioner when mine ran out and our shipping hadn't arrived yet, invited me to a Japanese drumming performance, told me about the women's night out, gave me craft supplies to make some Easter presents for the kids, invited me to the Friday avo (afternoon) beach get together, gave me the number of her herbalist (pronounced with an audible "h" like the man's name) when the kids got sick, showed me a way to get to another more secluded beach and the tracks (hiking trails) up the hill from there, and a number of other little things. She has been wonderful to me. And when I have questions--like how to invite kids to Gabe's birthday party when Gabe doesn't know their last names, the school doesn't provide phone lists as it is illegal to give out personal information in a school, and I don't know all the parents at the gate yet--she tells me how to go about it.

Our social life is interesting--never a shortage of conversation about the differences between how people behave in America vs. down here in Oz. I'm grateful for my family, once again, as I know some of the single people who are here on exchange have let it slip that they are a bit lonely. I can only imagine. And, all of this makes me ever more grateful for the friends we will be returning home to at the end of it all.