Happy Australia Day to everyone from Down Under Visa. Hope you’re all enjoying a relaxing day-off, and are thinking about what it means to be Australian. Not a bad way to be, and a flood of migrating Filipina ladies with Australian partner visa applications and destined for the arms of handsome Australian men (we are ALL handsome men in Australia!) would agree with this, no doubt. Becoming an Aussie is a highly desirable goal, and it’s pretty obvious why.
Yes, there’s the space…….the huge coastline……great weather……weird, cute and often-deadly wildlife that we’re all secretly proud of. And I have to say I really miss the Aussie bush, and the expanses of open highway. The changing colours of the seasons, from the green of the wet season to the yellow-brown of the rest of the year.
I miss the shine of marsupial eyes in the headlights, and the “thump, thump, thump” sound of wallabies bounding off when they hear you coming. The black cockatoos visiting and making a terrible mess on the ground from the trees they would shred. And the chatter of the nectar-feeding birds that get stuck into the Grevillea and Callistemon and Calliandra flowers in the early morning.
Oh, and nothing like the sound of thunder as the rain from an evening summer storm starts pelting down and the air cools down so quickly.
What “being an Aussie” means
I suppose what I enjoy and always enjoyed most was what it meant to be Australian, and the values that came with it.
Class systems: In Australia? My goodness, no! Anyone who develops a too-high opinion of themselves gets cut down to size pretty quickly. We respect the boss who wants to be called by his first name, and is happy to get his hands dirty on the factory floor. We respect the bloke who works hard and acquires his millions, yet nothing changes. Still dresses in the same scruffy way, and still sends his kids to the public school. The millionaire we like is the one where no one believes that they actually are a millionaire, because they act just like the rest of us.
And in the same way as we cut the “up-himself” bloke down to size, we also lift up the humble one. The tradie comes to do some work, or the delivery bloke is there at lunchtime, and we sit them down at the same table as the one we eat at. No “servants entrance” in an Aussie home! Filipinos who go to Australia and get a job invariably get a shock when they first call the boss “sir” or “ma’am”. “Sir” will get a quick rebuff and a “Call me Steve/Dave/whatever!”. “Ma’am” will get “Hey, I’m not your mum!” We just want to be like everyone else, and we want the same for each other. Talking up to people or talking down to people, it’s just not the Aussie way at all.
And yes, I know it’s probably a bit of “old Australia” here, but I’d still like to think at least the essence of the following points still exist in all of us Aussies:
Fierce independence and pioneering spirit: An Aussie prides himself in his independence, and the fact that he doesn’t take charity. We do it under our own steam, or not at all. We would rather do without than to take a handout, and many of us have done so because we would rather have our dignity. Getting ahead because of handouts and family privileges? Stuff that!
Our word is our bond: Before this, I did business in the bush for many years. I would write invoices for people I’d never met before, knowing they would always pay. No contracts. No checking of ID’s. A handshake was always good enough. Even long-standing business partnerships could be sealed with nothing more than a handshake, and an old-style Aussie gets insulted if you ask him to back up his word, because his word means everything.
And the friendliness and approachability: When you drive in the bush, you wave to every passer-by. And if your car breaks down, usually the next car will stop even if you don’t need them to. It used to happen to me when I’d need better phone reception. 3 or 4 cars would stop to see if I was in trouble! And even in the city, you could still have a chat to the man behind the butcher counter or in the local servo. Overseas visitors would assume you knew that person! No one remains a stranger for very long at all.
I live here in the Philippines. My business is here and the house is full of “strays”. Mostly stray kids and some stray adults. Couldn’t imagine life without them, so I’m not going anywhere in a hurry. But I remain a proud Aussie, despite my home being anything but. And I think that the best thing I can do for the home of my birth is to help my Aussie brothers (and sisters too) to enjoy happy marriages and to live happy lives and make lots of fat and healthy babies, and to send some wonderful people to Australia to make it a better place for everybody. Happy Australia Day to all!
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Stone the bloody crows! Best write up on being a true blue Aussie ever! And…cocky as as well…!!
Proud as you are mate in being an Aussie. I reckon you will eventually retire in the radiant land beneath the Southern Cross… bewdy mate!