Cultures

We take a well-deserved pride in Australia's being one of the world's most successful countries for multi-culturalism. In large cities it is normal to find various diasporas of the world's different heritages, with their vast range of dress, lifestyles, habits and languages.

However, many groups here tend to see others as variants of their own if they cannot understand the structure of that other's language.

The syntax of all forms of speech or writing will often reveal nuances of meaning. In my own instance, my study of Mandarin has opened my mind to some minor delicacies within Chinese poetry which lie under the rigid translation of phrases.

It behoves English-only speakers to try to absorb even a minor understanding of another tongue because in so doing, many aspects of that learning reveal a degree of awareness about another kind of culture.

Think of our own particular Australian slang expressions. How would a newly-arrived Chinese be expected to cope with utterances such as: "he's a few sandwiches short of a picnic", "not the sharpest tool in the shed", "never let it be said yer mother raised a dingo"?

That kind of puzzling patois would confuse a non-fluent English speaker totally, yet to those who understand the nuances expressed by these phrases would give a subtle insight into the whimsy of many of our laconic idioms.

I consider that all nationalities have their own forms of these utterances thus it is an advantage to our cultural appreciation and knowledge that we understand that they do exist outside the staid style of literal usage.

Australia has a large number of immigrant as well locally-born Asian and Middle Eastern citizens, besides its more historic British and European forebears whose attitudes and culture played a significant role in shaping what has come to be our "Aussie" culture.

Yet it is almost impossible to define just what comprises that culture. We won't find its elements written, but most of us know instinctively when something fits or transgresses the bounds of that intangible.

Over recent years, we have absorbed from our media various negative, as well as positive, attributes of different ethnicities, particularly in the area of religious belief. Chinese as well as Muslim lifestyles feature prominently and it is subtle conditioning which can impose a desire to 'conform' to some sort of undefined Australian culture.

As I just pointed out, a considerable degree of our cultivation stems from British traditions, particularly those of England. I recall one memorable example which caused me to have this opinion.

In my early schooldays (a long time ago) I used to delight in accompanying my travelling sales representative father during school holidays on his forays around outback New South Wales.

These journeys were both a physical and intellectual change from living a Sydney lifestyle, as mile after mile of gum tree bushland, large acre farmlands, and small population towns supplanted the seemingly bustling density of Sydney's existence. In the process, I absorbed a considerable grasp of my state's geography which probably would not have happened in normal school studies, an example of moving behind the literal and grasping some of the backgrounding.

In those post WW2 years, the idea of motels had not developed to any extent, hence my father always booked into conventional hotels for overnight accommodation. The majority of these were traditional, in both an architectural and cultural sense, having been based around what was considered to be the style of customary English hostelries.

Their names tended to be drawn from a range of popular denominations such as Imperial, Station, Grand, Railway, Commercial, Palace, Union, Excelsior and so on, and their interiors also tended to be similar in layout, with bathrooms and toilets being separated from bedrooms.

But their dining rooms were remarkably similar. These large rooms were frequently wood panelled, had shiny polished wooden floors or else dark coloured carpeting, subdued ceiling lighting, many in the form of ornately fashioned fittings, tables with attendant brilliant white tablecloths and often round high-backed wooden chairs, a plethora of gleaming cutlery with large shiny carafes of water. In those days, it was most unusual, but not disdained culturally, for wines to be served at the dining table.

The aura was one of assumed gentility and diners tended to speak in more hushed tones than would have been heard in, say, adjacent bar rooms where clamour and boisterousness was the norm.

The dining rooms were usually serviced by waitresses in the traditional garb of black dresses, starched white aprons, similarly presented caps atop upwardly-styled hair, all portraying a furthering of the gentility atmosphere. In short, they offered an image of what was perceived both by management and guests as a quality setting.

I recall of one of those earlier stopovers that followed a long day on the road, driving from one remote country town to another in summertime heat in a car with no air conditioning other than vented side windows, when we made our intended evening destination in a smallish township where my father had booked into a typical hotel for the night.

Having checked in to our rooms, we adjourned to the bar where he enjoyed a beer and I, a callow ten-year-old, a chilled soft drink.

Then, we proceeded to the dining room, dressed to conform to the era's normal codes for dining, and took our seats at a small table set in the aforementioned style.

There would have been around two dozen other patrons seated for dinner, chatting quietly among themselves as the waitresses entered, bearing large cauldrons, utensils, and trays of meat, vegetables and other assorted dishes for that evening's meal.

A slight hush of expectancy fell over the assembled patrons as their hunger was about to be satiated. This was when my concept of culture was about to be shattered forever.

One of the waitresses, dressed in the dignified style I indicated earlier, faced the assembled dining cohort, and in a shrill, slightly nasal cadence proclaimed, "All youse that want soup, put yez 'ands up"

Cultural conditioning….. slaughtered savagely!