Transcript of AE 1324 - 9 Reasons Australia is SUPER WEIRD to Vietnamese People

G'day you mob. Pete here. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I am reacting to the video Culture Shock: Life in Australia by Confused Avocado. The links will be in the description to check out the original video. Don't forget, before we get into it, you can listen to this episode as a podcast episode on the Aussie English Podcast. It's free via any good podcast app. It's on Spotify, it's on Apple Podcasts. Links in the description too. Let's get into it!

I was born and grew up my entire life in Vietnam and then came to Australia to study. So let me tell you, my first few months here was pretty wild. I lived in Brisbane, so my entire Australian experience is more like urban Queensland experience. It could be totally different in other parts of Australia, and I'm very well aware that Australia is a huge country and cities are millions of light years away. So..

I don't know about that far, but they're pretty, pretty spaced out. A few thousand kilometres between some of them. Perth I think is closer to Jakarta than it is to any other Australian city, right? But, uh, yeah, this is cool. So she's in Brisbane. She's in Queensland. Last week we did another episode where the girl was from Argentina and she was in Melbourne. So go and check out that episode if you haven't already. But anyway, let's keep going.

Australians love small talks. Coming from Vietnam, where we only stick to talking to people who we already know, I wasn't prepared to handle all those small conversations popping up everywhere, from uni, campus, to coffee shops. I was super weirded out. In Vietnam, my only experiences with those conversations with random strangers always turned out to be a scam. So when a lovely, friendly Australian said to me, Oh, I like your t shirt. My defence mechanism was like, What do you want from me? I used to have a part time job as a waitress in the first few months I was here, and the first lesson that I learned was to smile and to be chatty with every customer.

It is something we take for granted in Australia. We almost see it as rude if you don't take part in small talk when in public, around people, that may even be complete strangers, right? So like if you're at the bus stop and there's someone else sitting right there next to you, it's almost rude if you don't acknowledge that person, at least, you know, say, Hey! Because I think if you were to just sit down and not do anything, people would be like, who's this weirdo? What is like, why isn't he acknowledging that I'm here? So quite often to show friendliness, to show kindness, to be a bit social, we will just do that. Hey, how's your day going? You know, or ask some kind of a question that could lead to small talk.

That could lead to a short chat that isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. And it happens everywhere. It's going to happen at uni. It's going to happen with the police. It's going to happen at cafes, restaurants, the supermarket, with the checkout chicks. It's going to happen all over the shop. Get used to it. Typically they're not going to be scams. The ones that we Aussies will be like, Oh, here we go, is when you've got people asking for money for charity. So like, they often have tables set up outside of businesses. You know, there was one this morning at the front of Officeworks, I think it was for the Paralympics. And there was another one the other day in front of front of Woollies. That was for the Surf Lifesavers Club. Again, they're good causes, but they generally, generally get like 20 year old guys who are all, Hey, how's it going there, cobber? And you just you just sort of like, I'm not in the mood for an inane conversation where you're going to feign interest, you're going to pretend to give a shit, and then you're going to be like, Give us some cash.

[There's no cash here, Robbo! No cash.]

I have to say that Australians are the most friendly people that I've ever encountered. And you can really feel this vibe when you walk into any service. People greet you like they have known you for years.

I feel like the comments are gonna light up here, because there are going to be a lot of people who are like, Australians are not that friendly, not compared to where I'm from. Not compared to how they used to be. Not where I am in Australia. They're not all friendly. So it is gonna depend on what community you're in, where you're from, your background, how social you are. But yeah, you'll have to let me know. Do you think Australians are friendly? Do you think they are still as friendly as they used to be? I feel like we've become a lot more closed off in off in recent decades, so leave a comment below.

So like, how I would take order from a customer. Hey, how are you going? Great? Yeah. Would you like to order some cold drink for us? Today is such a hot day, isn't it? How's your kid? Ahuh, he's doing well? Yes, yes, I have the same problem. I hate summer.

It's so funny she does that. We really enjoy friendly waitresses, hospital workers who talk like that. If they were to sort of enter personal kind of information, you know, how's your kid going? Especially if they develop that relationship with you. They see you all the time buying coffee or something. If I went to a cafe and they said, Oh, you know, g'day, Pete, they remember your name and they're like, how's your family? How's your kids? Oh, it's hot, isn't it? Have you been on travelling? You've been doing anything? Like, if they were to do that, I would feel a lot more comfortable as an Australian. I'd be like, this is a friendly, inviting, nice place. These people are really friendly, so don't get weirded out if Australians do that with you or try and make small talk. It's common.

Australians are super positive. They always say things like, Oh, great, amazing, beautiful, fabulous.

It'll be interesting to see where she goes with this, but I think there is a side of us that is very positive. There is also a side of us that is very cynical, very sceptical, very pessimistic. So I think there is this underlying feeling at all times of just scepticism, being cynical about things like politics, about the economy and kind of this laissez faire laziness where it takes a lot for us to get into the streets to actually write about something or, you know. Like at the moment with house prices and cost of living and everything, no one's protesting that. But you'll see people protesting other things that I won't get into. It is just a strange thing where Aussies are kind of have this "she'll be right" kind of attitude tied in with also, "Eh, what can I do? Nothing's going to change." And this kind of cynical nature of Yeah, of course the politicians are corrupt. What do you expect? But I'm not going to do anything about it. What am I going to do?

If you're not used to this kind of expressions, you may have the feeling that they are fake or they do not mean what they say. But I assure you they are very, very genuine people. It's just a culture thing.

Most of us. Most of us. There's definitely some that aren't.

So if you come from a more conservative culture, you may take that one notch, what they say. For example, if they say, Oh, it's fine, it's okay, it means that it's pretty bad. But when they say It's good, mean it's mm-mm.

Yeah, that's that's true. I guess if someone said like, Oh, you went to a concert the other day, was it any good? And you were like, Yeah, it was okay. You know, that would definitely be Oh, it was shit. That would be what I would be reading if I heard someone say, I went to see Coldplay the other day. Was it any good? Ah, it was okay. You know, you'd be like. It was awful, huh? That's not shitting on Coldplay. I know they rock it. I'm just. It was just an example. Okay, guys, don't freak out in the comments.

Number three. Aussie vocabulary. I swear my English wasn't so bad when I first arrived here. However, I had a hard time getting used to all of the words that people use here on a like, daily basis. Accent wasn't so big of a problem for me because I live in an urban area. And for those of you who don't know, there are three types of Australian accents. Um, broad, general and cultivated.

So she's probably seen my video on this, although I've looked it up and perpetuated this stereotype, that stereotype that in terms of probably the sort of like Anglo-Saxon white Westerner accents back in the day, there were these sort of three broad kind of accents, right? The really broad sort of Crocodile Dundee one, the general kind of Australian one that I would have, and then the cultivated one. That sounds a lot more like British English, um, that people like Malcolm Fraser, you know, an ex prime minister would have. There are loads more accents. We've got loads of different indigenous accents. We have ethnic accents from communities that have backgrounds like she does, where they're Vietnamese migrants that have been there for decades, Lebanese migrants, Arabs. There are actually loads of these different ethnic accents all over the country as well in different places. So it isn't as simple as just. There are three different accents in Australian English.

[Holy bruh, if you get back to the shop before I do, man, just let Bobo know I'm running a little bit late.].

And it's one of those funny things. She mentioned the vocab being really hard. This is one thing my students often tell me. They're like, God, I didn't realise Australian English was so different. And it's not just the accent. The accent is different and it takes a little adjusting to. But then beyond that, there's vocab that's used all the time. That is like slang that we don't know that we have to learn. There's different expressions that are used. There are different words that are not as frequent, like saying things like I reckon, do you reckon, does he reckon, reckon.

[So what do you reckon? Love it.].

That isn't used by American speakers very often at all, right. Unless they're saying something like There's going to be a reckoning. There are so many layers to Australian English that make it more complicated to learn for English speakers who have been learning British English, or American English, their entire lives. So my heart goes out to you, mate. But she sounds great. She's got a pretty Aussie accent for some of the words she's saying. You know, I can hear that she's been working her butt off trying to develop an Australian accent. So good stuff.

In big cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, General Accent is the most common one. And it's a very mild, international accent that kind of mix between American and British. And if you go a bit further away to the outback, then people speak with Broad Accent and it sounds like this.

[Oh yeah. Australian? Oh, mate, it's like. It's like, you know, coming home is easily the best thing. I was in America. We did like.]

This clip! I'm pretty sure this is from the video that I did on these different accents. That's Steve Irwin talking there, right? He definitely has this very broad accent. And there is this kind of like association with the further away from the cities you go, the more people speak with a broader Australian accent that has like different vowels. And.

[Kimmy? Look at me, please look at me. Look at me, look at me. Kimmy?].

But it's not that different. It wouldn't be like going to Great Britain and hearing so many of the different accents where, you know, you throw a rock and you're in a new town that has a different accent.

Aussies love shortening words. McDonald's, Macca's. Breakfast, brekkie. Afternoon, arvo. Service station or gas station, servo. Mosquitoes, mozzies. Barbecue, barbie. Kangaroo, roo. Conversation, convo.

Every single one of these, I use. Every single one of them, I use. So she's hit the nail on the head. We do this a lot. We use shortening as a way of expressing our identity as Australians, but also just making it easier to talk quickly about certain topics that are frequent that come up in conversation.

There's a shopping mall called Garden City, and they often call it Garbo. Besides shortening words, they also call things in different names. For example, candies, lollies. Lemonade is actually Sprite or 7Up. I was super confused when a customer came into the cafe that I worked in and ordered a lemonade, because I understand lemonade, as in when you squeeze the lemon and you put some sugar in it. Pharmacy is chemist. Liquor store is bottle O. And then the container where you put cold things in there to keep it cold, I don't even remember the American, but here they call it esky. Americano, long black. Espresso, short black. If you talk to one Aussie, you're fine. But if there are two or more Aussies, you're going to have a hard time figuring out what the hell they're talking.

I reckon this happens no matter what your cultural background or language that you speak. If you're talking, if you're learning a foreign language and you talk to one person, that person is probably going to adjust to your level in that language, and they're not going to go crazy with how quickly they speak the type of slang they use, the advanced vocab. They're going to make it relatively easy because they want to communicate. They want to communicate. But when you've got two native speakers there and you're there as well, those two people are quite often going to interact with one another, and it's just going to go back to native level craziness with the language. And also you suddenly have to be able to kind of keep up with these different trains of thought, people interrupting each other, everything like that. So yeah, it definitely gets harder when there are multiple people that you're having a conversation with. And Australia is no different.

Number four. Wages and rent are in weekly terms. Here in Australia, if you have a part time job, most of the time you will earn your wage on a weekly basis and you also have to pay rent on a weekly basis. Now, I'm kinda used to thinking about my expenses on a weekly basis, so when I talk to my parents or my friends in Vietnam, I have trouble thinking in monthly terms.

It's gonna depend. I remember I paid rent on a monthly basis when living in Melbourne. I got paid, I think on a weekly or fortnightly basis. Bills and stuff would usually come in on a monthly basis. It can be a mix of those things. I think it's going to depend on who you're renting from, what the rules are that you've set up, where you're working, and again, what the pay rules are.

Number five, health care. In Vietnam, if you have some kind of common illness, for example, cold or fever or some kind of infection, you can go straight to the doctor and they will prescribe you medicines. And if you know that you have a more serious problem, for example, your bones or your blood or your brain or whatever, you will go straight to the hospital. However, in Australia, whatever illness that you may have, even depression, you have to go to a general practice.

You don't have to. You can go to the hospital, to the emergency department with anything at any time. However, there are so many people there usually. So if, if you go to the hospital with something and you think it is severe, that needs help, 100% go. But prepare to wait hours and hours and hours. If it isn't life threatening, if you're not going to die on the spot, you're going to be waiting quite some time. So I think that is quite often why, if we do have something that isn't life threatening, but, you know, it is relatively serious, you may go to a GP instead. But you can just go to a hospital.

If your problem is a bit more serious, then they would refer you to a specialist or a hospital. So it could take a couple of weeks for you to get the right diagnosis and also the prescription. At first, I wasn't really used to this system because I felt like, man, I know that I have some problems. For example, let's say depression. Why do I have to go through such a route? Why couldn't I just go straight to a psychologist or a psychiatrist? But yeah, now I just get used to it.

It's an interesting one. Like, to be candid with you guys, I'm on antidepressants, I'm on Prozac, and I have been for probably ten years now. It's probably time that I got off. Although having young kids doesn't help with, um, stress levels and anxiety. So it's probably doing its job. But I remember when I had to get these, I went to the doctor to get prescribed these and he's like, well, I'm gonna send you to a psychiatrist because I don't want to just hand these out. Anyway, fast forward a few years, and I was with a girl who wanted to get on antidepressants at the time as well. For whatever reason, I can't even remember. And she just went to a doctor and got prescribed the antidepressants. So I think doctors can. But responsible doctors quite often won't just do it off the hip. They won't just randomly prescribe things like anti-depressants to you. They will send you to a specialist, a psychologist, psychiatrist to diagnose you and come up with some kind of medical plan for how to treat your issue, whether it is medication, whether it is therapy, whatever it is.

Number six toilet paper. In Australia, you can flush toilet paper. However, in Vietnam you cannot. I guess because of the sewage system in Vietnam is not designed to handle such thing.

I have to tell you guys a story. This is a funny one, like my wife's Brazilian. I've mentioned this many times before in Brazil. I think you use the paper and then you put it in the bin next to the toilet. It's a similar situation here where the sewerage system and network isn't set up to deal with anything besides faeces and wee in the toilet. Here, it is. However, it is just toilet paper.

The other day my son's on the toilet. He finishes the roll of toilet paper and he's like, Can you wipe my bum, dad? You know, he's like 4 or 5 years old. So I come in and I'm like, mate, you can do it. You can do it. Anyway, he's like, There's no toilet paper, I need help. So I get some more toilet paper. He pulls the roll off, shoves it between his legs into the toilet, and I'm like, mate, you- mate, you can't, you can't put that in the toilet. And he's like, Yeah, you can. And just flushes it. Watch! It goes, goes away! And I was like, No! It's gonna- you're gonna block the toilet. Too late. It was too late. And that's cardboard! So you would think yeah no that'll be fine. But no, it doesn't break down well enough.

I'd have to look into why that is. If you guys know, why can certain countries not flush toilet paper when I imagine toilet paper is the same everywhere. Should disintegrate the same way. Is it just the pipes are smaller, you know? What's the deal?

Number seven. Bus culture. In Vietnam, when you get onto the bus, you have to be very quick. You have to be kinda even barge on the bus at the same time with other people. Many times the bus can't go slowly like this at the stop, so people have to run after the bus and jump onto the bus. However..

That sounds dangerous!

In Australia, it's pretty chill. You have plenty of time to get on and off the bus. And the thing is, you have to line up to get on the bus.

This is something that will potentially be a culture shock for a lot of countries, especially, I think, Asian countries, the way that we will line up and take our turn and wait patiently. There are many countries where this is not the behaviour that is done, and it is more a free for all where you just push to the front or else you will not get served. China, Indonesia. I'm looking at you guys. In Australia, that will not go down well.

Another thing is that when you get off the bus, you often say Thank you to the bus driver.

Yes!

Some people, instead of saying Thank you, they can just say, Cheers, mate.

This is true tram drivers, bus drivers. Anytime you use public transport and you can talk to the person they are in earshot of you, they will hear you. You say thank you. It is a respect thing.

When I was growing up, there was always that like you would see a bus driver and you would think, Oh, it's not a great career, it's not a great job. And there was that stigma attached to it. But Australia is very egalitarian, where even if you have jobs like that that aren't necessarily considered like, you know, surgeon or whatever, people deserve respect. They've done a good job, they're taking care of you. They're driving you from A to B safely. Give them some respect and say thank you.

Shops close very early in Australia. Or at least in Brisbane. Besides supermarkets, which open till 9 p.m. during the weekdays and 5 p.m. on Sunday, other shops close very, very early, like 5 p.m. You don't go out at 10 p.m. and expect to have some food store open. This is kind of sad because I kind of miss that bustling nightlife in Ho Chi Minh City.

It's going to depend where you are. If you go to malls, they have late nights. I can't remember if it's Thursday or Fridays around here near Geelong. So the stores will be open a lot later on certain nights of the week. But generally, yeah, things close at about 5:00. Besides things like supermarkets and fish and chip shops and pizza shops and all that sort of stuff. It's just a common thing. Obviously they've done the maths and there's fewer people around.

They're not making as much money. So they're kind of like, Well, we're paying all these wages for these people to work here whilst there are no customers. So let's just shut early. It's led to a cultural thing where we where we just don't expect certain shops, mainly cafes and retail stores.

Cafe culture. In Brisbane, besides Starbucks, I feel like a lot of coffee shops don't welcome you to sit down for hours to work. I don't know about Sydney and Melbourne, but here in Brisbane people walk into a cafe or a coffee, then sit down for like maybe one hour, finish the coffee and then leave.

This is very common. There's multiple reasons. A big part of it is obviously they could be earning more money. So if you're not buying anything and you just want to sit there and chill out and hang out and do your thing for hours on end and work there the entire day, it's a bit of a faux pas. You're going to piss off the owners, you know? They're going to be like, Can we help you? Do you want anything else? No. Just water. Thanks, mate! Ehh, you can get out. It's something I'm very hyper aware of, overstaying my welcome in restaurants or cafes. Especially when it's busy and other people could be buying stuff. The other thing is that a lot of cafes and restaurants aren't making that much money.

The margins are really, really low, especially with the cost of living crisis. So if you're taking up a seat and not purchasing anything, you're preventing them from earning potentially more. The coffee culture we have here is brilliant. The food is amazing. Usually the coffee is absolutely amazing. Typically depends on where you go. And we're used to going to these places on a regular basis, although it's getting more and more expensive. I think they've just said that coffees could get to about ten bucks for a cappuccino at the end of the year, because of the price of coffee beans and everything else going up.

And another thing is, not all cafes here have wifi. In Ho Chi Minh City, you can just literally go to any place and then you will have WiFi. But it's not the case in Brisbane. And if you go to boutique cafes here, they often close very early, like 2 p.m.

If they're selling mostly coffees, their traffic is probably coming in between, you know, early hours of the morning during breakfast and then lunchtime, and then after that it's probably going to really drop down. Whereas if they're selling loads of food, they're probably going to stay open and be like, well, we keep making heaps of money through dinner.

Cool guys. So you'll have to let me know what you reckon down below in the comments. Youtube reckons you're going to enjoy this video next. I'll see you then. Tooroo!