SapientBonbons

Foreigners tend to assume that the big cultural confusions between Australians and most other countries are gonna be based on our food, or social services, or weather, or weird animals. But it’s never that. In my experience, the real cultural confusions re: Australians are about The Respect Thing almost one hundred per cent of the time.

? I realize im proving your point but what

I have long noticed that Americans have absolutely the same cultural attitude to the President as they would to a serving monarchy. They just think they don’t on a technicality.

Can confirm that if I call someone ‘Sir/Madam’ I generally mean ‘asshole’ (unless talking to an animal or tiny child) and that if I get called Ma’am I feel like I’m being called the asshole, which made time in Atlanta, Georgia suoer weird.

Australians have a very good attitude to respect

…so this explains why I have spent the last fourteen years low-grade pissed off at nearly every Australian I meet, because every time I try to be American Polite at them it pisses them off. And, for that matter, why my second boss here, the one I was so careful to be Formally Respectful of and always called “sir,” took such an intense dislike to me.

Yeah, even if that boss understood that you were American and what that meant, their instincts would’ve been screaming at them the whole time that you were being a dick. It’s a difficult thing for us to get used to even when we know the culture is different’.

As a Brit visiting Australia, the most vivid experience I had of this is: in the UK it’s really uncool to get into the passenger seat of a cab - you’re expected to get in the back. In Australia the reverse was apparently true.

… I am only just now realising that inAmerican and British movies and stuff, people don’t get in the passenger seat of a taxi.

covid update: you’re now meant to get in the back seat for social distancing and IT FEELS SO RUDE. sorry taxi person I AM NOT TRYING TO SHUN YOu just I know there are rules and we’re protecting each other. let’s be intensely awkward for a while.

Reblogging this because I just remembered the time Molly Meldrum absolutely horrified Prince Charles by describing meeting the Queen as “I saw your mum last week”.

One of my favorite travel books described humanity as, broadly speaking, having two types of culture: one where formal is respectful and informal is rude, and vice versa. Australian culture sees formality as hostile or unfriendly and familiarity as warmth. It’s decidedly not the case in USA as a whole, though as with any broad category the dichotomy changes as the group gets smaller.

YOU PUT THE THING INTO WORDS!

Different cultures are fascinating.

This is interesting as hell as an American raised in an Active Duty environment. As a kid I called everyone Ma’am or Sir and I wonder how jarring that child would be in Australia

Whenever I watch an American show and a kid calls their parents ‘sir’ and/or ‘ma'am’ I immediately assume that the intention is to clue the audience in on the fact that that child is being very severely abused. Addressing an elderly neighbour or something like that would be seen as charmingly respectful from a kid, but doing it to all adults would set off alarm bells in the heads of any Australian adult who wasn’t familiar with your past. They’d get it once they learned you were raised around American soldiers though, and expect you to grow out of it.

I hate to be the fly in the ointment, but while Australians are generally less formal and stratified than other places, there is a MASSIVE hierarchical attitude just lying under the surface of most Australian culture. Look at almost any corporate workplace and see how shitty management get if someone in an entry level job or thereabouts becomes friends with a person in a higher powered job. My whole career in Australia was spent dealing with bosses who thought I was getting “above myself” by being friends with other management in the organisation, or councillors etc. The number irritated of “Why were you chatting with *high ranking role person at lunch time?” I had to field over the years. Well because they’re a person and I like talking to them. One boss got irate that a recently retired executive manager called by my desk while he was in visiting for a catch up chat. The same person called me one day asking for info/a connection and the same boss got shitty at that too. Yeah you can say hello to the Prime Minister and ask him to hold your beer while you tie your shoelace, he might not mind but there’ll be some bitch nearby who will be FUMING that you got above your station.

Sometimes it is your fault.. Sometimes you don’t listen well enough, you’re selfish, you’re rude and you aren’t always right. Sometimes you fucked it up and tbh that’s okay. It happens, learn from it, apologize and keep it moving. Just because you fucked up doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Don’t dwell on it

my friend's discord server has a "proof of touch grass" channel where they post pics of them doing regular activities outdoors/in public. i think many online spaces could benefit from such a thing

writing tip they don’t tell you is that in addition to reading good books you should occasionally read one really bad one so that it inspires you to write something better out of pure rage

We’re trying this tonight!

It’s about time someone got around to uncovering all the cheat codes for this “human being” software. It’s only been out for like 10,000 years.

?????????????

I’ve used this technique for about a year, and I can safely say that it has efficiently transformed my sleeping habits from several hours of struggle to fall asleep, to passing out in a matter of minutes.

It’s a form of Alexander Technique. It’s a technique that was designed for actors to keep their body in ready working condition and give it the best way to perform. This is the method used to calm, and center the body. Once the body is at that point it can perform anything you want it to.

me gonna try it

dont wanna reblog but insomnia is a bitch for some ppl so heres for my mutuals having trouble sleeping.

when I was a kid I thought the weather guy on TV controlled the weather and he was just telling us what he was gonna do for the next few days. when he said "30% chance of rain Thursday" I thought he was just guessing how likely it was he'd wake up in a rain mood that morning

I feel like I need to explain. there was a whole internal logic here. there was fucking worldbuilding. I knew there were different weather people on the news in different places and I thought each one was the weather decider for their local area. I knew the word "meteorologist" and thought it was a scientist who had expertise in weather control technology. I never questioned why there was bad weather sometimes because "bad weather" was subjective, after all, I liked cloudy days and snow. and the plants need rain, right? so I figured the weather guy probably had regular meetings with local farmers and gardeners to make sure the amount of precipitation and sunlight we were getting was working out for the crops. I never spoke about this to anyone, because I thought everyone knew. at some point my parents had said "this guy on TV tells us what kind of weather we're going to have" and I misunderstood exactly one fundamental point and built out an enormous set of logical conclusions from there. this lasted from like age 3 to age 6 btw

I am whatever gender has the shortest line at the bathroom

​I see this one going places

Yeah. The bathroom

ah but which bathroom

the one with the shortest line did you not read the post

hey guys do you want to circulate the heirloom dancing spiderman again i feel like we could stand to do that