A bit of Australiana from a fair dinkum Aussie
October 9th, 2009 by benign0What the bloody hell. I’ll do the blackshama thing and post a bit of Australiana — a fair dinkum entitlement considering that I do live here. But unlike some people, I do it with reservation. I think the notion of regularly dishing out colloquial Australian (strine is what they call it in short), or exhibiting a knowledge of a range of Australian trivia simply because one lives (or in one notable case here, lived) in Australia, simply ain’t classy.
But I do so in this instance because I find that there is some relevance in doing so (which I shall come to further into this article). And as such, a sentiment of reservation combined with consideration for relevance translates to a bit of class.
To wit:
Being Australian is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for A Belgian beer, then on the way home, grabbing an Indian curry or A Turkish kebab, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV.
Oh and….
Only in Australia…
can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.Only in Australia …
do supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the shop to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.Only in Australia …
do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.Only in Australia …
do banks leave both doors wide open and chain the pens to the counters.Only in Australia …
do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and lock our junk and cheap lawn mower in the garage.NOT TO MENTION….
3 Aussies die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.
58 Aussies are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers.
31 Aussies have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in.
8 Aussies had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper (jacket) with a lit cigarette in their mouth.
A massive 543 Aussies were admitted to Emergency in the last two years after opening bottles of beer with their teeth.
and finally………
In 2000 eight Aussies cracked their skull whilst throwing up into the toilet.
Okay. In posting the above;
(1) There are a handful of pertinent points I wanted to make; and,
(2) Those points are relevant to Filipinos (recognising that we are, as a matter of fact, logged on to Filipino Voices).
But in the split second between the time I right-clicked on my mouse and left-clicked on it to select “Paste” on the menu that appeared, I had a major brainwave (yes, my mind works that fast). I realised, in that millisecond, that spoonfeeding everyone here with the points I wanted to make in posting the above and their relevance to Pinoys would be, well, too easy and, quite frankly, a bit patronising.
So I’ll end here and see if the crowd called “Filipino Voices” has become as wise as its founder Nick had envisioned crowds to be back when he alluded to James Surowiecki’s book at the inception of this fine blog.
You’ll be right, mate. It’s a Friday and me weekend’s chockers with stuff to get up ta.
Cheery-o.
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October 9, 2009 at 9:18 am
hey hey hey! foul! steve irwin has been sainted! LOL
October 9, 2009 at 9:43 am
“Only in Australia …
do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.”
there’s obesity in Australia too?
October 9, 2009 at 10:28 am
Good Governance practices do not exist in the Philippines…
October 9, 2009 at 11:02 am
But, there’s a seminar on GOOD GOVERNANCE PRACTICES for the promotion of HUMAN RIGHTs, DEVELOPMENT and TRANSPARENCY.
It will be very beneficial to every official in the executive branch, legislative branch , the lower house and judicial branch to attend the seminar independently.
I really believe that majority of them lack the knowledge and skills on how to govern the country. There must be a policy requiring them to organize this way.
Lawyers in our country can take the seminar too, to facilitate in strengthening the rule of law in both private and public affairs.
The media people may also benefit.
The pride of our leaders had put many in poverty. It’s no longer an acceptable practice in the eyes of the international community . To change is to accept disapproval and do something about it…
Take the seminar please.
October 9, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Leytenian:
In case you didn’t know, the requisitioning officer who places the order for the seminar has a cut from:
* venue owner – 10% or freebie accomodations
* food caterer – 10% or freebie take homes on the side
* vehicle rentals – 10% or freebie rental
Conducting a seminar on corruption wherein the organizers itself are corrupt, the owners of the venue, the caterers, and the vehicle rentals are corrupted – and the speaker on the circuit accepts the money, of which 10% has already been retained by the requisitioning officer. The speaker delivers the seminar, the attendees pretend to listen, they eat the food. And when they leave the seminar they go back to their ways.
Susginoo – yang seminars are also sources of corruption.
Nothing beats firing, convicting, and jailing the errant. And putting in new people, instead of retaining the same stupid corrupt old dogs.
October 10, 2009 at 9:59 am
I bet it wont matter a bit to most of out public officials particularly the elected and appointed ones and most of the lawyers as well. Graft and corruption is well entrench. We need to do something with our MORAL VALUES. Good Practices and just laws wont do any good if our sense of right and wrong is out of tune…
October 10, 2009 at 8:57 pm
bongv,
i’m talking about international convention thru the IMF, World Bank, UN and other internationally credentialed organization.
Of course, sending them to jail is better but how? our lawyers are the same. They may be lacking the necessary ingredients to deliver their cases. Because it they have been an active professional and ethical Judiciary, this country could have been better.
The seminar focuses on corruption and ethics. Also Human rights and liability of National government to its people.
Can you share HOW to prosecute the old dogs? short term approach with Long term positive result?
You may take the seminar too, it’s good for you.
October 9, 2009 at 3:26 pm
If you’re into stats here’s another one. In the 2009 UN Human Development Index, Australia ranks #2. The Philippines ranks #105 (out of 182).
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
October 9, 2009 at 3:45 pm
The point, or at least a point, that Benign0’s trying to get across I think is that the character flaws that inevitably exist in any society do not necessarily condemn that society from being generally flawed. Just because some idiots die because they lick 9 volt batteries does not mean that the entire population has to accept licking 9 volt batteries as a unique Australian trait and defend it. They can have their quirks and laugh at them, but they still know how to get the job done when the time comes — if there’s a meeting at 10, they show up at 10, not at 10:35 and say “oh, that’s just how we are.”
Apologists for Filipino society seem to have forgotten that cute quirks only can be regarded as such when they are not the ordinary pattern of existence and development. When everybody does them, they stop being cute or quirky or worth defending, and become crippling social flaws.
October 9, 2009 at 7:03 pm
“Just because some idiots die because they lick 9 volt batteries does not mean that the entire population has to accept licking 9 volt batteries as a unique Australian trait and defend it. ”
of course ,was the idiot who licked the battery one of head of state or just an ordinary aussie?
the idiot was not a role model. nowadays, the idiot can also be you or beningo.
maybe you and benigno may benefit from going to the seminar too…..
Lastly, when Estrada licked his women, the result is overpopulation. LOL….
October 9, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Seminars are a substitute for actually doing something.
October 10, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Benk,
Seminars are not substitute. Seminars are requirements. A strong indication that a country has a sound policy.
In progressive countries, a senator who is a lawyer is required by law that in order for the senator to maintain his professonal license , he must take ” 30 credits” equivalent to 30 hours of seminar, every two years and thereafter… for example.
If one is a manager/leader in an organization and he/she suspect that his/her employees are not productive enough. A manager/leader has many options to encourage employees ( lower level of management) to grow. Incentives such as $1000 allowance for CEU yearly or the company may choose or suggest the type of seminars according to areas of weaknesses.
Connecting it to pieces, Mang Juan can be guided and can be trained with many options and strategies on how , what, when and where….
Criticizing the people by way of talking and discussing its flaws consistently is not the right way to HELP the country. It is an excuse or an individual’s way or a bloggers of transferring his own denial to another.
Just accept the fact that there are many poor Mang Juan.. let’s move on from there by blogging using the right information…
October 9, 2009 at 11:21 am
Australians originated as a bunch of convicts shipped off from England, many of them Irish, I am convinced, for the same wicked twinkle and fun-loving honor exists both places, not to mention the beer. Australia was almost as racist as American for a time, but somehow wisened up, not to be confused with wizened up, as some former Aussie Filipinos appear to have done, being well along the road to calcification.
There is honor to be found in not taking oneself over-seriously, as it opens the mind to other ideas and the soul to a bit of fun now and then.
I’ve never been to an Aussie city or town that did not have class, in its self-styled way. Kings Cross or Darwin, Sydney for sure. They don’t have to compare with anyone. I suppose it is that they are among the most psychologically stable bunch of people on the planet.
And there are no clams like the giant clams, lips of neon coral, along the Great Barrier Reef.
Joe
October 9, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Joe, back in those days, you could be jailed for as simple as stealing a piece of bread. Likewise, people hardly received a fair trial so I don’t think that one can label the convicts then in the same category as the convicts of today.
October 9, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Ilda,
Right, which is why such a good and progressive society developed in Australia. They were rid of the oppression that made them criminals.
As for age, my personal research says people split two ways. Some go the way of wine, richer and wiser with each passing day, and some go the way of vinegar.
Joe
October 9, 2009 at 11:58 am
If that be true, then Aussies ought to be as old-fashioned as the Britons?
Apparently, the trivia enumerated by benigno appears to cast the Aussies in that bad funny light, but leave it that way.
That supposed-to-be summer in Sydney remains an experience to look foward to if only to vet how true benigno’s trivia accounts are. I should not have likewise going to Northern Ireland from Scotland which can be a few hours of land travel.
October 9, 2009 at 12:47 pm
You have to board an airplane to get between Pinas and Australia, so it shouldn’t be a surprise if Pinoys in Pinas would not get all of benign0’s unexpressed thoughts. And even having lived in Australia for a couple years is no guarantee of being on the same wavelength. I say this because Australia’s bigger than the Vatican and its croweaters, sandgropers and banana benders likely not to talk same language nor even think alike. There is Sydney and then there is everything else, and Australia should have some of Pinas where promdis differ in language and outlook from Makati or Alabang dudes and dudettes.
October 9, 2009 at 1:22 pm
that’s the positive side, for surely, there is always the other pole. what about the other side of “only in australia”…the negative side?
oh, that’s where the rub is; while in australia, benigs is always looking up, while in the Philippines he’s always looking down. most probably he’s hiding something in the closet, heheh.
October 9, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Congratulations! You are now a True Blue Aussie but you need more practice in cutting down the tall poppy because that would mean lessening the worst in your Pinoy traits. Methinks I will buy an AirAsia cheapo ticket to Sydney when you take the Australian citizen oath on January 26 when the Governor of NSW may serve you American owned Vegemite.
You have correctly described what globalisation has brought to Australia. You haven’t described what going with the American agenda on the War on Terror has done to the average bloke and sheila especially in army towns like Townsville. That accelerated in the Howard years and now bedevils Kevin Rudd.
BTW, Australia really grips you where ever you are. BTW, I’m not classy. That ain’t Bananalandish! Being classy is one of the first Pinoy traits I chucked in the rubbish bin!
You forgot Queensland! Mike H gets the reality. Queensland is another country from the rest of Australia. Only in Queensland where you have a granny bus driver hit a euky tree and claim damages from the euky tree which happens to be in a protected area.
BTW I am in Australia at least once a year very rarely in Sydney but more at home in the bush! I am not fond of Sydney at all. I keep my ties to this southern country even more than I keep my ties to Louisiana. Both I consider my home aside from Inang Bayan. I have my personal reasons in opting to choose to “have lived” in Australia. In fact it is in my will that a part of my cremains will be sent to Queensland.
But where ever we are, we have to earn a crust!
Ciao from Ingham!
ta!
October 9, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Aha! The truth has finally emerged. Blackshama is trying so hard to be a better Aussie than Benign0. He keeps harping about how b0 is a traitor but the above is proof that his loyalties lie elsewhere. You speak ill of Australia and its people and yet you want your remains to be buried there – what a hypocrite! You have a truly Pinoy mentality and your responses to Benign0’s articles are getting so tiring, it’s just all about you exercising your Aussie slang which no one else gets but you!
Just because you are in Australia once a year doesn’t make you an expert on the country and your dislike of Sydney is a good indication of your taste – bad.
In your writings you never fail to mention you are well travelled and yet you have failed to widen your horizons- what a sad, sad man. Start being a part of the solution ok, not the problem.
October 9, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Of course I am Filipino! I don’t like Sydney because it is too fast for me. And I have never spoke ill of Australia at all. And choosing to be in the Philippines is part of the solution.
October 9, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Besides I caught an Australian virus that has to an extent disabled my joints. Sending my ashes there is a personal expression of how I have been part of that harsh environment WHICH I HAD GROWN TO LOVE. Now how hypocritical is that?
October 9, 2009 at 6:45 pm
We can clearly see that the virus he speaks of is entirely psychosomatic.
October 9, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Eh Benigs?
Your blog post is actually an Australian private joke like Waltzing Matilda.
Like all private jokes only a certain demographic will get it.
But in telling the joke, you spoil it by becoming preachy. Must you always?
Next time analyse Waltzing Matilda in terms of globalisations hegemony. You have alluded to it in your post.
Ta! ta!
October 9, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The kind of replies to this post especially the ones noting the 9 volt battery licks is evidence enough that Benigno has ruined the Australian private joke!
The major Aussie flaw I believe is “cutting down the tall poppy”. It isn’t quaint or quirky. While Australian society has gone a long way to remedy this, it still pops out now and then. It is a thing of the convict past.
This is one bad Aussie disease that I got infected with (aside from the Ross River virus). I cut down tall poppies in the Philippines too. Here in this country, we worship them and isn’t politic to do so. I cut down tall poppies even in the blogosphere. Like what I do at FV!
October 9, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Wish we could believe it but you got cut down as a tall poppy yourself not too long ago Blackshama, not to mention here as well.
One other point benigs had that was lost on you was that if and when there are societal and cultural dysfunctions that exist in common with ours, they don’t cancel each other out so that we could say it isn’t an actual problem that needs to be addressed or even acknowledged. Be part of the solution, for once.
October 9, 2009 at 6:21 pm
@ blackshama:
You know I realised something just now, mate. You consistently present nothing that I can make a counter-argument against (or for that matter even be in agreement of).
So now I wonder what is it really that you stand for…
October 9, 2009 at 7:39 pm
It should not be a challenge for you to find it mate! Well some people who reply to our exchange have a problem seeing honesty at face value. I think we can agree on one thing. Life Down Under can befuddle people since how we look at things become rather strange. I do salute you for honesty and we exiles in some way cannot return to our own countries because of that. But my consuelo de bobo is that Rizal had it worse. And like Rizal, we can cut down tall poppies and get cut down ourselves. But that’s our lot.
:-) Since I have chosen to go back to the Philippines you may say that the load is heavier. I still keep the email message that I got from then UP president Dodong Nemenzo condoling with me for my choice!
I have been accused here of speaking ill of Australians! Dinky di I have spoken ill of Tasmanians among my Tassie mates as “in bred” but that again is an Australian private joke never to be taken seriously. I’m sure you get the joke!
BTW, I will be in Cairns early next year. I hope to swing by your side on the way to Canberra to meet with some disaster and environmental experts and perhaps we can have a cuppa near the Australian Museum. Off topic, I have heard that there have been major renovations along that area recently.
BTW I do agree with you on many issues such as the Ondoy response we have here. We need a platform for the response. Scientific plaform plez! Again that is a reason why I have to link up with the Aussies once more. I would like to ask your support for campaigning for a science platform plez now that we are in a disaster mode. One of my colleagues was so exasperated at the response and on the phone from Canberra she wasn’t angry (as many Pinoy columnists have been) but she was in a real way sad.
Who else can weep for our country except those who are away from it?
BTW I can’t resist to write that in Oz we can get workplace compensation from pyschosomatic illnesses! I knew many Pinoys who bludgered for that.
October 9, 2009 at 10:07 pm
@ blackshama
I don’t find living in Australia as big or befuddling a challenge as you make it out to be. And even if I did, it’s not something relevant to what I write about as ‘benign0′.
I think those who accuse you of ’speaking ill’ of Australia probably allude to your habit of citing various Australian quirks in response to or even as counter-arguments to the my assertions regarding the serious cultural dysfunction in Pinoy society. BenK I think put it quite well here:
We’re talking here of the difference between little quirks (such as what is laid out in this blog article) and seriously crippling cultural flaws. Don’t for one minute mistake the sarcastic style or dry wit I apply to my writing about those serious flaws as a sign that I consider these a laughing matter, dude.
Be a bit more clear on where you stand. The goal here is not necessarily to get along (although that would be a bonus) and have an on-line love-in. The goal here is to arrive at The Truth and what is Real.
October 10, 2009 at 7:34 am
as long as its not filipino people/persons, i’ve no problem with this.
a society is more than the sum of the attitudes of the people living within it.
October 10, 2009 at 1:04 am
An Aussie is like anybody else. Only the country was settled by
convicts from England. Like the Iwahig Penal Colony. It was also
settled by women of questionable reputes from England. Anyway, we have many beautiful Shielas now; like Nicole Kidman. Aw Shucks!
October 10, 2009 at 7:55 am
the problem with Ben’s comment here:
“Apologists for Filipino society seem to have forgotten that cute quirks only can be regarded as such when they are not the ordinary pattern of existence and development. When everybody does them, they stop being cute or quirky or worth defending, and become crippling social flaws.”
is that he ascribing causality to something every culture/country has.
if everyone has it, how can it be causal?
benk’s solution to the logical conundrum is simple: coz for the rich countries, they are “quirks” while for the poor countries, they are ” crippling flaws”
thats incredibly convenient, a super theory if you will (from good will hunting).
its like that story of women in the work place:
a successful woman is a leader, and is able to marshal her knowledge confidently to become successful in the workplace.
an unsuccesful woman in the work place is a bi*ch.
October 10, 2009 at 8:23 am
Actually, Gabby, this is how “something everyone has” can be causal: Australia’s “quirks” do not necessarily cause Australia to be what it is in the bigger picture — your earlier comment that “a society is more than the sum of the attitudes of the people living within it” is in that sense correct. The product (not the sum) of Australian attitudes is still positive, despite some people’s or even entire segments’ individual quirks. There are many countries for which the same would be true.
Causality is an outcome of choice, not an involuntary function. The majority of Australians do not choose to behave like Chopper Reid and lick 9 volt batteries. Although I’m sure Mr. Bencard would strenuously disagree, the majority of Americans (at least at present) do not choose to behave like racist yokels who think they can run the world. The majority of Filipinos, on the other hand (present company excepted, I’m sure), do choose to be lazy fatalists, with the unfortunate outcome that the product (not the sum) of attitudes is negative, and has caused the country to be a dysfunctional mess.
And that bit about women in the workplace is actually true, most of the time.
October 10, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Hmmm, all these talk about people and racial stereotypes reminds me of small talk I heard in the American melting pot that is New York.
“Why is Manhattan quiet on Sundays?”
1. The Jews are wheeling-dealing in Staten Island.
2. The Blacks are in jail in the Bronx.
3. The Italians are attending a funeral in Queens.
4. The Irish are sleeping off a hangover.
5. The Poles think its Tuesday.
Where do you think are the NY Fil-Ams?
October 10, 2009 at 9:00 pm
rubbing their noses on their cellphones…texting.
October 10, 2009 at 10:25 pm
at their desks, doing overtime?
October 10, 2009 at 11:09 pm
At the World Trade Center site, touching their handkerchiefs to the ground to get holy power? hehehe
October 10, 2009 at 11:54 pm
They are enjoying lavish dinners at Le Cirque, dummy!
October 11, 2009 at 11:34 am
working, on their second job….