Will you like Aus or not - let me tell you
 

Another long post from badgers!!

I look at the people on this forum for whom Oz was not a success and I can only make the following conclusions:

If you go to Oz JUST for any of the following:

1) To 'escape' something crime, drugs, bad schools
2) Because you want to not have a mortgage
3) For weather
4) think life will be all bbqs and beer and skittles

or if you are a natural 'worrier/whinger' or if you like clothes, fashion, keeping up with the Joneses, gossiping, comparing, have 'difficult' tastes, are blinkered etc

or if you go to:
a) Perth (lets face it - it is isolated - but you can still enjoy)
b) Gold Coast (retirees paradise - the novelty of the beaches I suppose soon wear off)

It MAY not work out for you. Because these people generally buy a huge house in suburbia, spend all their time with English expats, and generally try to export their UK lives over to another country. Hardly surprising when they notice there is still crime etc and realise that they can't figure out why Aussies are not accepting them.

Aussies love Poms, but only ones that make an effort to fit in, or do happen to fit in. Someone said on this group that that's the issue with the UK we change everything to allow migrants to fit in, where they should be doing the changing.

I can't believe it when people have only been in Australia 5 minutes, and they're up all night trying to get bloody soccer on SBS, or missing marmite, or missing this or missing that. Potential expat bad experience alert!!! I spent my first 5 mins REVELLING in the differences - noticing how everything seemed 'normal.' It was like finally coming home after having been locked up for a generation. I can imagine what Nelson Mandela and Terry Waite must have felt. Australian life seemed to me to be...what I always thought life would be like when I reached adulthood as seen from a child's perspective.....

(Of course you can miss things! - I didn't miss a thing about the UK cos I had it in some shape or form in Aus - or it was better!!! I missed wearing decent clothes but I was mobile all year and so couldn't wash stuff etc change on a whim etc)

However if you are going because you like AUSTRALIA and the AUSTRALIANS then it probably almost certainly work out for you.
Any issues you have will be the same amywhere. But whilst your 'battling' along - things will be more laid back. I noticed that all my problems seemed solvable in Aus - whereas in the UK I would have got really wound up.

My view for success is to get on with being Australian and in Australia. I certainly did.

A few examples :My cousin has lived in Sydney for 10 years and admits that he occasionally finds Australians 'boring' and a bit 'vacant' - but he still loves it there. I told him to stick with it whatever and he agreed. But this is the same man that is very quiet and to be frank needs to get out of his shell a bit and make more effort. Sometimes he seems so 'English'. His Dad hates Aus - he's there too - but he is the ARCHETYPAL rigdy-didge whinging Pom - it would be embarassing if it wasn't so funny - he even talks about the cost of potatoes, paint etc. I had been there 5 mins and got on like a house on fire with my cousin's mates - because I loved their culture and shared their interests in the kind of ways my cousin doesn't.

I'm glad some of you liked my "What i miss about Aus" thread, and I particularly liked Carianne's reference to how people in shops serving you smile and are polite WHETHER THEY MEAN IT OR NOT. Someone before criticised the "how's your Day going" stuff as what kids are taught to say by their employers - BUT they still DO, don't they!!! I mean kids are taught to say hello in Sainsbury - but they don't - not consistently anyway.

anyone got any questions about culture in Aus, and worry whether or not they will fit it - fire them at me - cos I feel I really understand it over there.

One last story: I hadn't seen an English person for 3 months in Aus - I then met English people for the first time - tourists - who had every reason to be in good form and happy - and I saw them as an Australian might. Well to be honest, the first thing I noticed was how "whingy" they were and instantly realised that I never wanted to go back to England. Their accents were heavy and 'tense', they talked about 'negative' things - albeit positively(!). Everything about them seemed all subtlely wrong.

That was the day I realised I was 'Australian'!!!

yours aye badgers

PS Incidentally, if you answered YES to any of the questions
go to SPAIN..you'll love it there with the stacks of english people who have turned it in to little England living it LARGE on the costa del howsyoufather etc

cynical eh?

Your right about alot of things there i have to say , this Australia and its different but it has all the same problems as any other country . My uncle who has been here 35 years told me to be succesfull here you have to australianize yourself , guess what i was doing at the time he said that , having a good old whinge!! We are actually after 7 months settling down , which is good and starting to enjoy our new life , which is now going pretty well . Paul is known on the building site he works on " as the not whinging pom " and he gets on great with everyone . I have been asked out for coffee by the ladies in the common wealth wealth bank that i have got to know and feel we are being accepted by people , now we love it . We have tried now to stop making comparasions with UK , because this will never work if we carry on with that . You leave for reasons so you must get on and make the most of it , enjoy . I love it when people say have a good day , whether they mean it or not . Lets hope things get better and better :D We are changing our ways to enjoy our new life in a new country. Joanne and Paul and kids

Know what you mean about feeling "australian"
Having been back and fourth a lot, i have found more and more, each time, that i never miss the uk from over there, but god when i come back here, i really miss everything about oz. It takes me weeks to settle and i yearn to go back again, so this time we are, for good!!!!!

Re: Will you like Aus or not - let me tell you
 

Best post I've read here in ages. Exactly the way I feel - especially clever of you to post it on a Saturday so that there's a while before PB can call us all deluded dreamers on Monday.

Perry

So whats wrong with wanting to watch the soccer????

Boy did I need this post!:)

We've just had the first viewer round for our house .... and guess where he was coming back from. Yep Australia. They'd been in Melbourne for 3 or so years and hated it and they spent all the time looking round our house moaning about the city, country etc and then proceeded to moan about everything about the house.

Hubby immediately had him down as a whinging pom!

I felt so much better after reading this.

Thanks badgers!:)

nothing mate. To be honest soccer is the only thing I am personally trying to escape from.

The game is OK - it's just the culture. I think the social outcomes of soccer is responsible for a lot of negatives in male UK culture. The tribalism, "i've got to be a bit of a wanker/ geezer to be accepted" and "shave all my hair off" attitude of young men, prima donnarism ec.

Rugby teaches more the values of teamwork, hard graft, effort rather than selfishness, ego and flamboyancy. Do rugby players take off their shirts after scoring a try? Do they start having on field sex? Do they seperate fans at games? Notice the way a rugby professional is considerably more articulate in press conferences than the average soccer player?

I think that a country's national sport speaks volumes of its character.

cheers

badgers

Nice posts, Badgers. Good job you didn't tell us your opinion about beach volleyball though.

Cheers - Don

bollox!:p

Good post

Certainly won`t miss marmite!! Football yes but alternatives are there too be found.

footie chick

Yep keep it up Guru badger man

You are now promoted to official ozzie adviser to the poms. I showed your thread to hubby and told him that whinging will NOT be tolerated in OZ. I have advised he gets hypnotised to overcome his whinging dependancy.

BooBoo

mate Aussies:

COMPLAIN like's its going out of fashion but they don't WHINGE!!!

There's a difference!!

badgers

Thanks Booboo that made me chuckle !!:D :D

footie chick

The real diffrence between Football and Rugby is Football is about skill not just bulking up and kicking the crap out of your oppos, football fans are not all the way you portrait them I have two young boys 5 and 7 and I take them to Highbury regularly to see the Gunners and I assure you we don't have skin heads or have a lager lout mentality.
And what game were you watching when they had sex on the pitch?
I reckon you should stick to Tennis, far more gentile.

[And what game were you watching when they had sex on the pitch?




yeah, i'm kinda sorry i missed that one.....................:D[QUOTE]