Summer and Thanksgiving

The weather continues to warm to uncomfortable levels, and adolescent kids and university students, having wrapped up their classes and exams, are flocking to their beach-of-choice to bask in the Sun's potent, uninhibited UV rays. It's the paradoxical custom of tanning to look healthy and sexy when you're young, at the expense of looking much older earlier in life, along with a higher risk of skin cancer. The smart ones get up early to do whatever needs doing, then escape the midday heat somewhere inside, and re-emerge in the late afternoon as the off-shore breezes move back onto the city to cool things off. (The stupid ones go to the beach lathered in oil, surrounded by parabolic mirrors, while listening to Justin Bieber's "Baby" and Rebecca Black's "Friday").

Yes, the aromatic smells in the air and the electric energy of the masses are whispering into the wind: It's American Thanksgiving, the official start of summer in Australia. And as soon as I heard this calling, I knew it  must be true because I couldn't find any resources (i.e. Googe hits) that say Thanksgiving isn't the official start of summer in Australia.

I was finding it difficult to persuade any Australians to celebrate in our mythologized secular Thanksgiving holiday, where we come together as a family to give thanks for our good fortune -- just like the Pilgrim settlers of America first gave thanks to God, circa 1600, for a great autumnal bounty after receiving assistance and tutelage from Native Americans. (We returned the favor with about three centuries of epidemic diseases, slavery, war, persecution, inhumanity, and manifest destiny, and depleted their population from about 10 million to about 250,000, along with their self-worth in a White Man dominated society, and relegated them to tiny swaths of generally useless land. Amen).

But I was hungry, so, once again, I was eager to ignore the salient details of American history and gorge myself on an egregious amount of food. If I wasn't going to be with my family for Thanksgiving, I was at least going to stuff my face with food.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to find some Americans, Heather and Sarah, with which to celebrate the holiday. I met Heather and Sarah at my barista certification course in September. I'm not lying when I say that in the first five minutes of chatting the topic of Thanksgiving dinner in Australia came up. In a few weeks, a date was set and an invitation extended: Saturday 26th of November, 5pm. Bring food, drink, and a gluttonous appetite.

When I arrived at Heather's house, I met her roommates, who would be partaking in the celebrations. Our party consisted of one Australian, one Kiwi, two Germans, two Japanese, and three USAns. I was early and mostly hung out with the Kiwi Carl while we drank beers and watched Heather slave over a 6 kg turkey along with all the sides she was preparing. I managed to help a little by convincing Heather that mashing the boiled potatoes was a "man's job".

The bird fresh out of the oven and resting before Heather had the honor of carving it.

The feast was turning out to be enormous. The Japanese duo brought a platter of handmade sushi rolls -- a perfect appetizer for holding off the watering mouths as we waited. I brought corn bread pudding and smashed butternut squash. Heather had prepared mashed potatoes, turkey, roasted carrots, cranberry sauce, baked sweet potato casserole covered with marshmallows, macaroni and cheese, bread rolls, vegetarian and normal stuffing, and gravy. For desert, someone brought a chocolate cake decorated into a hedgehog with chocolate frosting and white chocolate wafers; someone else brought Tiramisu.

The marshmallow peaks of sweet potato casserole. 

Heather carved the turkey, we posed for a picture or two -- having accomplished what nay-sayers said couldn't be done in Australia-- and the chaos began. If you've ever had Thanksgiving, you know what happens. Usually the sequence of events are feast with the family, watch American football while falling in and out of consciousness from the Turkey Nap, and eventually wake up sometime later for desert. In bizarre-o Thanksgiving in Australia, where football means rugby, footie, or soccer (I'll probably never know which), we scrapped watching sports in exchange for playing them on an XBox using the motion sensor based game Kinect Sports, which was actually pretty cool. Instead of using remotes like those utilized in Wii Sports or Playstation, Kinect Sports requires you to, one, have hands and, two, not be paraplegic (I apologize to those offended). In addition, we listened to classic holiday music like Snoop Dog's Doggystyle and a compilation of James Brown screeching over musical instrument accompaniment.  The entertainment from the video game was enough to stave off napping until the party digressed into watching pop-culture videos of Wilford Brimley saying diabetes, or "Dia-beetis", such as in this awful rap video and this Family Guy clip.

Starting from 6 o'clock, Mark, Lauren, Sarah, Julia, Carl, Me, and the two roommates from Japan (even that's a guess on the country, and whose names couldn't be remembered because I'm an ignorant white guy -- true Thanksgiving spirit really).

The next day, as I reflected on the previous evening while working at the Caffissimo Cafe at the Perth Art Gallery, I was gracious for another reason beyond the good fortune of spending time with good people while traveling in a "foreign" country. There was no cacophany of Chistmas music making my ears bleed. There weren't even decorations or faux Christmas trees in sight. People didn't talk about the holiday deals they would snatch up, or tell stories about waiting in line at absurd hours of the morning, or deals they scored on Black Friday.

Every year Christmas seems to be coming earlier -- a longer buying season means more money for businesses, especially those hurting from the recession -- and Thanksgiving, unfortunately I think, gets marred by the consumerism. The simpleness of spending time with family and friends on Thanksgiving is why I like the holiday so much (oh, and eating), but the pleasant memory of it is lost quickly as Americans get caught up with the buying season. By the time Christmas comes, the try-hards are stressed out and exhausted from trying to score good deals or figuring out the perfect gift; the apathetic, like me, feel alienated by everyone in a game I don't identify with; and then there's everyone in between. It's nice to give a gift that really makes someone happy, but that is hard to do in a society that has a lot (even during a recession), and I usually end up going through the motions of Chistmas because I feel forced to follow the heard.

I'm not saying that this doesn't happen in Australia. I'm sure it does, but at least it comes a little later in the season, with a lower intensity of consumerism. For me that means a little less second-hand stress as I think about what to get to people, who those people will be, and if I'll even be able to afford it. Time will tell. For now, I'll try to enjoy the Thanksgiving after-glow. You should too.

Ozzie Lingo

After two and half months in Perth, I think I've observed enough of the local lingo to tell you my opinion of it. I'm not a fan. I guess that shouldn't be surprising: Australian lingo is the degeneration of the English language by Irish, Scottish, and British convicts starting some 300 years ago. In that time span, the colonists on this hot rock developed a handful of colorful idioms, disguised some cockney rhyming slang, started rounding off their R's, added rising inflections at the end of sentences, and started abbreviating/nicknaming anything longer than one letter.

One of the most annoying things in adapting to the local language is using the British spellings of words. (Listen up British English-language speaking countries, American's have made an improvement here. Fall in line). One of the most annoying spellings is the word "enrol" with only one L. It looks more like the name of a Greek god than a word in the English language. I petition (to who, I don't know) that anyone who enrols in anything be shot in the face with a paintball gun -- that should quickly change the behavior of people willfully spelling like idiots (or wilfully spelling like idiots). 

I guess the spelling pisses me off the most because I was already a terrible speller long before I immersed myself in a culture that breaks half the rules and words I've memorized as a child. I'll probably never be confident in my spelling ever again. Here are some other mis-spelling examples, British on the left and American on the right:

1. Traveller or Traveler
2. Signalling or Signaling 
3. Enquire or Inquire
4. Sceptic or Skeptic
5. Analyse or Analyze 
6. Jewellery or Jewelry
7. Programme or Program
8. Aluminium or Aluminum
9. Cosy or Cozy
10. Grey or Gray

If you are trying to fit in, then here are some substitutions you can use in your daily life. But really, who wants to fit in with these bogans?

1. Use 'whilst' instead of 'while'. I presume this word was adopted so that even if your accent sounds stupid, you can still use smart words. 
2. Use 'keen' for 'interested'. 
3. Use 'reckon' for 'think', especially when you are seeking approval from someone. 
4. Use 'my shout' for 'my turn to pay for drinks'. Okay, definitely points for brevity, but 'shout'? What are you shouting at, the bartender? Based on a few real-life observations of Australians in their natural habitat, then yes, because said person is drunk twice-over and its not yet noon.
5. Use 'heaps' for 'a lot'. This is the classic Aussie adjective. If you're trying to mimic an Aussie, this should be the first word you add to your repertoire.
6. Use "ute" (said 'yute') for "truck", as in utility truck. 
7. Use 'till' for 'cash register'. 
8. Use 'serviette' for 'napkin'.
9. Use 'bottle shop' for 'liquor store'.
10. Use 'chemist' for 'pharmacy'.
11. Use 'servo' for 'gas station'.
12. Use 'Mackers' for 'MacDonalds', but it's said more like "Maccas". 
13. Use 'Ta' as an informal 'Thanks'.
14. Use 'Tucker' for 'food'. As in, "Grab some tucker at Mackers". 
15. Ask 'How ya going?' instead of 'How are you doing?'
16. Warning, NC 17 material here: Use 'arse' for 'ass, and 'bloody' for 'fuck'. 
17. NCinfinity material: Australians use the word 'cunt' way more casually than other English speaking countries. Two friends (i.e. 'mates') might even refer to each other affectionately using that word, as in "He's a real good cunt." It can be a little jarring at first because, in America, you just don't say that word in public, and even in private you need a good reason. 

Now that you got the lexicon down, assuming you're practicing (maybe you're a n-th generation convict too and keen to befriend some like-minded company), then its time it work on the accent. If you really want to sound Australian, throw together a sentence with a bunch of R-controlled vowels and then round off all those R's. Tack on a few extra vowels here and there too, just to be silly; or hack off a few consonants, just because you can. For example, if you want to say, "It's a nice day for a walk in the park", an Aussie might phonetically say, "It's a noice day for a wok in the paak, eyh?" That last "eyh" bit there is sort of pronounced like the Canadian "eh" (speaking of sounding stupid), but the Aussie version is more of a middle-mouthed "eye", as opposed to the back of the throat "eh". Also, if you ask someone if they are "Aussie", make sure you say it "Ozzie" -- if you say the "au" like a hyper-pronunciation of "ou" in "out", or say the "ss" as S in Snake, you are likely to get whacked in the head with a didgeridoo. 

Now for some idioms:

1. My favorite is "Bob's your uncle", which is like saying, "There you have it."
2. "Fair dinkum" is an adjective that means 'genuine' or 'true'. 
3. Say "bloody oath" if you strongly agree with someone. 
4. A "Dag" might be someone who doesn't fit in socially (as in faux pas) or someone from the fringes of society (nerds, geeks, self-absorbed scientists). The word can be turned into an adjective with "daggy", as in "daggy clothing". I was called a dag once, right to my face, and it didn't hurt my feelings because I didn't know what it meant. But then I made the stupid decision to ask what it meant, and received in a long-winded, ego-crushing explanation. Sigh. 
5. Although not truly an idiom, if an Aussie disagrees with someone, they use an affirmative-negative tag of "Yeah, nah."

To polish off the act, you'll need to start abbreviating and nicknaming things. However, it's acceptable to abbreviate a word and then add a suffix, like an -o or a -y, even if it results in a word with the same amount of syllables as the original word. For example, one of my travel friends, Hollywood, didn't even skip a beat when I told him my name was Adam. He immediately started calling me Ads, and the next minute he had created a new iteration: Ads-y. I was totally thrown off by how quickly he had given me a nickname. I think he could see the consternation on my face, and then asked me if it was okay for him to call me that. (He was the first to explain to me that that is how Australians roll with names).

Some other examples of abbreviations I've picked up (of which some are local to Perth):

1. 'Avro' for 'Afternoon'
2. 'Rotto' for 'Rottsnest Island'
3. 'HJ's' for "Hungry Jack's", Australia's name for Burger King (it was previously trademarked). 
4. 'Cott' for 'Cottesloe' or 'Peppy' for 'Peppermint Grove'; the names of the suburb where I live.  
5. 'Didg' for 'Didgeridoo'
6. 'Sess' for 'Session', referring to Perth's "Sunday (drinking) Sessions" at the pub. 

So if you are trying to pick up Aussie lingo, study this blog post a little and, bam!, Bob's your uncle. You'll be talking like a fair-dinkum Ozzie in no time. 

(To be honest, I don't harbor any ill sentiment for the Australian accent. Sometime it sounds just as silly and stupid as people from South Boston or Staten Island in the USA. However, after more than a year of Brits, Aussies, and Canadians telling me how stupid Americans sound, this is fair game).