Lately I’ve had several conversations with friends about how they should celebrate their 21st. I am also turning 21 this year and while it still can’t really get my head around it all, I’m not nearly as freaked out as I was last year before I turned 20
Last year a I worked in Sydney for a bit just to earn some extra cash and try my hand in an industry I’d never worked in before. At the time I wrote the following piece about age and being an “adult”…
But whilst I was doing some work experince in Sydney I discovered that maybe turning 20 doesn’t really make you an adult and it definately doesn’t mean you are mature. It occured to me because of this coversation,
Girl: so how old are you?
Me: 19
Girl: Oooh I though you were a young one!
Me: (surprised) well how old are you?
Girl: 20
WHAT?? Sorry, I’m a young one becuase I’m 6 months younger than you? For serious, do you honestly feel older than me?
As I got to know this girl I find that she was actually one of the most immature people I had come across. It was almost as if she was determined to assert herself as and adult but still had a primary-school girl mentaliy. In many instances with her she spoke to me like I was 12 and basicly liked to assert that because she was that little bit older than me she was the boss.
It was infuriating, but I held my tounge.
Of course when I got home I left me furstration free by whinging to my mum. She suggested that maybe this girl has self esteem issues. It seemed apt. This girl was very concered with her appearence and even confided with me that she was very insecure about the tiny barely visable blemishes on her shoulders, she was distressed by the fact that she was working as a receptionist and was unsure if she’d be able to progress in her job and he relationship was falling apart. At the times when I got fustrated with her I forgot this stuff, not that it excuses her behaviour but she was just unsure of herself.
It’s not unbelievale to suggest that she felt the need to assert power over me because she felt like she couldn’t control any other parts of her life.
![I’ve winged about the concept of “UnAustralian” before but this year’s Australia Day campaign from Meat & Livestock Australia has brought it to light again.
Each January MLA front man Sam Kekovich rants to the citizens of Australia about the importance of eating lamb through a series of amusing advertisements.
This year Kekovich has supposedly got a bad case of “Lambnesia”, the result of being hit in the head by a cricket ball. Lambnesia is a condition which, “makes you forget what makes [Australia] great and fills your head with unAustralian bull dust”. This is demonstrated by a tour of Kekovich’s damaged head which is filled with images of AFL players in tutus and even Kekovich dancing to Gangnam Style. At the end of the ad viewers are invited to take the Lambnesia test to see how unAustralian they are.
The test is just a series of pictures which you have to define as Australian or UnAustralian.
I took the test and, for all intent and purpose, failed. According to the MLA I am 59.5% “UnAustralian” which puts me at a high risk of contracting “Lambnesia”.
Now, I get that the quiz is just a bit of fun. It plays on stereo types as comedy often does but I can’t help thinking that the “UnAustralian” concept is a dangerous idea.
Patriotism, is not always a good thing.
Yeah getting excited about your national team at the Olympics is ok, but going around thinking that you are somehow more Australian than the people around you isn’t.
I’m only half Australian, I have an Australian passport, an Australian accent and often speak in Australian idioms. (In a conversation about Australian stereo types in foreign media I said “Austrlians are always portrayed as some bloke in an akubra, stubbies and a wife beater. Driving a yute out in bloody Whoop Whoop with a kelpie in the tray”).
I love my country but I also love the country I was born in. I love being half and half. I don’t need to feel more MORE Australian but I also don’t appreciate being told I’m “UnAustralian”.
Besides if we only limit ourselves to what is Australian, we would miss out on a variety of awesome things that the rest of the world has to offer. For example, Australia has become a big coffee drinking culture. Coffee is not an Australian thing. It is not even a British thing. It, in terms of Western culture, is an American thing. Isn’t that unAustralian?
Cricket, is considered Australia’s favourite sport (side note: I hate cricket), it’s an English sport.
Rugby league, Australia’s most watched sport, also not Australian.
Aussie Rules is based on Gaelic football…
I could go on.
Modern Australian culture is built considerably on it’s British heritage and then a bunch of things we pulled from other cultures.
We’re multicultural enough that we’ll eat everyone else’s food, but not enough to accept when someone talks, looks or acts different from us.
We go on about “our country, our rules” but it’s not even “our country”. We stole it and if we’re going to invite others to come here we can’t tell them to live by “our rules” when we didn’t (don’t) live by the rules of the people who were here before us.
I want to enjoy my country the way I want to enjoy my country. It’s not for anyone to say if I’m Australian or not. I am Australian, maybe not by birth but it is my home and that should be good enough for everyone else.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/35ea97db437254606097c64bc9f7758e/tumblr_mgm6ifT3fS1ql6x1xo1_500.jpg)
