I'm doing an assignment on Australian culture, identity and design and thought that it might be useful to hear what people from other countries thought of Australia and Australian's. What do you think our national characteristics are?

It's a bit hard to see it when I am Australian. In my opinion Australian tend to build their identity on unrealistic stereotypes, like it being very rural even though most people live in cities, as well as being very white and masculine.

I have an American in one of my classes and he redesigned a logo for an Australian company. It was cool to see how he saw it compared to us.

Anyway, I'm very interested to hear what others have to say. Thankyou~

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Convicts, Beer, Kangaroos

Some of the things I think of Australia are...

Miranda Kerr
Joker
the accent
and my brother's uni at Melbourne

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Kangaroos, Accent, Croc Hunter,

Hhmm I think I set a bad precedent of people just saying the first three things that pop into their head about Australia 😛 More serious answer.

The Good:
Laid back easy going people, weather.

The Bad:
Aussie Soaps, the macho man stuff mentioned by OP, accent and crap beer.

The Ugly:
Treatment of foreigners who aren't on vacation.

It's hard to actually add more. The general image of Australia that is portrayed in the media is mainly the sunny, surf haven of laid back people. The few Aussies I know are pretty normal though they do fit in with the Aussie stereotype 😛

The treatment of foreigners the the main negative thing I continually hear about Australia.

Aussie Customs official: Do you have a criminal record?

Tourist: What? Is that still a requirement to get in?

🤣 😀

nice one lol

also they got a beef with the brits in particular

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Thankyou for the good reply.
I don't think it's so much easy going more lazy.... though we do tend to work alot of hours.
I hate soaps, dear lord, I wish they would cancel Summer Bay.
And I understand the forigener thing, not that its changed much. Personally I don't care, but if they are staying they should attempt to learn english. I CAN NOT serve you if you are not talking english and pointing at something I can't see isn't helping. But yeah, people tend to be uptight about forigeners, even though most of us have multi-ethnic backgrounds. I'm half Irish. Also, I think respect has to go both ways. There are some people who give their entire nationality a bad name.

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Interesting. What do you think "very white and masculine" is in an Australian context? Do women and men think the same?

I have met a few Aussies here in NZ. I think they were nice people. Just like anyone else, they can have all sorts of personalities and interests.

You can say the same about any country's soaps. 🤣

I think it's reasonable if someone wants to live in another country, they should at least learn the official language there. Otherwise what's the point of going there?

And why does someone who lives there have to learn various foreign languages, unless their job requires them to serve tourists frequently of course.

Agreed. They decided to come here after all and there are alot of countries that are far more strict with imigration.

When I say white and masculine, I mean it from both a historic and modern perspective. During Australia's relativly short history, during important points where Australia was developing an identity seperate from Britian, the image was white and male. The swagman and bushman, the soliders of WW1 and WW2. It is like no-one else existed. Now we are an extremly diverse country and us females are as free as anywhere else, but the identity still feels rather white and masculine. Think charcters like Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin.

I don't think we all conciously agree with these stereotypes, it's just we don't have much else to identify with. We are having a bit of an identity crisis. I know I feel a bit sad that I don't have a strong cultural background, but I have the freedom to evolve my own idenity. Just haven't figured out what it is yet.

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I was more talking about the internment camps that asylum seekers/refugees were being kept in while awaiting their case to be heard.

Also the recent hostility towards legal economic migrants from UK/Ireland... not something as stupid as broken English when trying to order a BigMac...

Yo, I'm an Australian living in Sydney and I think that the Australian culture lies between not really having one to multicultural (in Sydney anyways). From what I seen, it's like a mix of immigrants that associate with one another from the same background while almost 'tolerating' people from other cultural backgrounds. We do seem to like giving a bad image on the more recent waves of immigrant, first it was the people from Mediterranean, then the Chinese and now people from the Middle East. Again this might be just from my area and a bit stereotyping, but we seem to love the American culture and incorporate elements from it while at the same time thinking most Americans are pretty ignorant. In general though, it's pretty laid back and we are united for special days such as New Years Eve, Australia Day, Anzac Day, etc. Sometimes it's too conservative and slow in process but the freedom we have compare to other nations makes Australia a pretty good place to live in. 😎

Now for the identity that is perceived from other nation, I agree that it's pretty outback and white that people think we have kangaroos jumping in our backyard, koalas on the trees and the distinctive accent (I have mostly the Sydney eastern accent with a bit Chinese accent). I believe though this is because we want to attract people for tourism. Australia doesn't have long history in terms of a settled civilisation so the top attractive quality is the wide range environment and unique flora and faunas. The white factor is mainly because Australia is still dominantly a Western society plus it helps attract people from other Western nation.
Within Australia, Australians identify themselves as reputable people of fairness and equality and comradeship. 'Fair dinkum' and giving people a 'fair go', KRudd's speciality, are used when people wanted equal opportunity. The comradeship are elements from the war times where it is being taught at school on how our united colonial states of the commonwealth were able to work together as a federated nation.

Ah, I ranted on, sorry for the long text 😛 I hope this help your assignment even though most of it are just my opinions. 🙂

Edit: I just read your recent post, the identity crisis is sort of true. It does feel like we latch on to popular people and things that came from Australia when it is known in other country to put Australia on the map.

Auro-Cyanide, you actually mean there's a lack of representation of the arborigines and women for Australian history, don't you? They are part of the nation's history. Are Australian mainstream media and books really that bad?

I think it's not hard to find some important women figures in New Zealand historical books. And there's a popular academic subject called women's history.

Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin are the white and masculine ideals. They look so funny! 🤣 🤣 🤣 I am sure some do like their types.

Definatly, I agree with what you say. I think hostility towards migrants is a given no matter what country you are in, so I think we aren't very different in that respect.

In terms of the boat people, I'm not so soft. I understand that they are in a tough situation and are in a dangerous position in their own country and are driven to desperation, BUT, and this is a big but they need to understand, it isn't all suns and roses here. We are not a paradise island. The fact remains that tax payers will be supporting these people and if they have to be stuck on Christmas Island until they are clear then so be it. I mean, we have to check who these people are, do they carry any diseases, what skills can they offer the community, are they a danger to the community? You can't just let people come in willy nilly. It could cause serious problems.

As for other aggression, though I don't agree with it, I can understand it. Alot of Australians get frustrated when immigrants don't make attempts to intergrate into the community. Personally, I don't care what you wear, what you eat, what religion you practice, but I demand that same right from you. Respect goes a long way. Not that this issue is going to be solved any time soon. It's just not.

Edit: And, yes, base_coat, that is what I meant. Both women and aborigines and migrants are underrepresented in history and in the formation of our identity. History books do acknowledge them, but that's retrospective. Back then, they didn't matter, and so the identity became white and masculine because those were the people in politics, literature etc.

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Quote from Auro-Cyanide

In terms of the boat people, I'm not so soft. I understand that they are in a tough situation and are in a dangerous position in their own country and are driven to desperation, BUT, and this is a big but they need to understand, it isn't all suns and roses here. We are not a paradise island. The fact remains that tax payers will be supporting these people and if they have to be stuck on Christmas Island until they are clear then so be it. I mean, we have to check who these people are, do they carry any diseases, what skills can they offer the community, are they a danger to the community? You can't just let people come in willy nilly. It could cause serious problems.

I agree with you. I understand that the boatpeople are in a tough situation and something must have happened to make them that desperate to try and get to Australia on overcrowded and unsafe boats, but at the same time the Government needs to conduct thorough tests on each asylum seeker in order to separate those who are in fact being persecuted and whose lives are in danger if they return from those who are trying to, for a lack of better words, merely trying jump the immigration queue.

On Topic -

I think we (Australians) do suffer from an identity crisis from time to time because of the fact that we have such a short history and the fact that our history was built on a shaky foundation (convicts). Yet at the same time, I feel that we have our unique-ness as well - I think we're laid back and we do try and give a fair go to everyone (maybe you could mention the HECS system we have in our universities - sure it's technically a loan but it does allow people from any socio-economic background to have a crack at uni).

I also think that in recent years we've been trying to separate ourselves from our old colonisers, England, and attempting to establish a more concrete "connection" with our country's native heritage (e.g. KRudd's historical "Sorry" speech to Aboriginals; recent battle to keep Australian Literature courses on at universities; etc). Yet at the same time our pop culture is heavily influenced by that of the US so there's another paradox. And the point you raised earlier about how Australia promotes its (tourist) image in terms of the outback/kangaroos/the bush is quite jarring when compared to reality. The majority of Australians don't live in the bush - they live in metropolitan/urban areas no different from most other cities across the world.

And multiculturalism is another big point. We're not exactly a melting pot alá USA, but at a cross-roads, I think. We have a variety of ethnic mixes in our society but we still are very much "white".

And finally, you can't forget sports. I think another big part of Australia's cultural identity. Rugby League/Union, cricket, swimming, AFL...and of course, our never-ending sporting rivalries with England. 🤣

Kangaroos, accent, ay~ mate~ xDD
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