|
|
Most Yankees know very little about Australia. Two years ago, the knowledge of the average American was limited to the following icons:
With the advent of the Sydney Olympics, a whole new chapter was added to the average American sports fan's (and Television viwwer's) repertory a Ozzie places and facts. NBC over-hyped the Olympics enormously and built up a fantastic expectation - only to blow it in the programming end by insisting that all coverage be shown during America's prime time (8 to 11 p.m.) - on average 14 - 18 hours AFTER the actual event had run, and AFTER the highlights (and results) had been shown on all of the competing TV stations' 7 PM newscast.
By contrast, Canadian television showed all of its coverage in real-time, and it was no big deal for devoted Canadian sports fans to set his or her alarm clock for 4 a.m., get out of bed, turn the TV on, and watch a favorite event before sunrise.
Anyhow, until the glory in excitement of the Sydney Olympics fade away, the average American now knows five things about Australia, the fifth one of course being the fact that kangaroos roam wildly in the Outback.
Americans generally consider the Australian accent "charming" - in contrast to the pure British accent which is generally perceived as put on and phony. Not many of us in fact have met Australians in person but those who have, agree that Australians as a whole are fun-loving good-natured people.
My wife Bobbi and I spent some time in Hong Kong where Australians are found in droves. Quite a few Australians live and work in Hong Kong, and loads more come to visit. One my favorite bars in the world is called Ned Kelley's Last Retreat and can be found in a somewhat seedy section of Kowloon. It is by choice one of the preferred local watering holes for Down Unders, and the joint was always jumping to high-decibel, drunken Dixieland music. The owner (who would toot his own horn)had assembled a rag tag team of jazz musicians collectively referred to as the Kowloon Honkers, and the band would keep up a pretty steady beat throughout the evening, exhibiting far more raw enthusiasm than concert hall perfect pitch. Nonetheless, the bar was always full, noisy and in need of a good sweeping, but the atmosphere there couldn't be beat. Most of the nice and really fun Australians I ever met, were Ozzie drop-ins at "Ned Kelley's".
I happen to be an avid stamp collector and have accumulated a lot of postage stamps going back to the days when Australia consisted of seven independent states. I am probably one of very few Yankees who not only can name all seven original Australian states but can draw a map of them AND name their capitals. The town cancellations of these old stamps always are fun since so many of them have aboriginal names. Therefore, I was very happy when the National Geographic magazine published a couple of in-depth articles about Australia and in this year's July issue included a large, very detailed fold-out map of Australia. Unfortunately, my wife who is a minimalist when it comes to keeping old magazines around the house, immediately discarded the map, quickly read the magazine and passed it on to her parents for further use and ultimate disposal. By the time I recovered the magazine from my in-laws' house the map was gone.
I have since visited the famous Strand Bookstore in New York City were one can find almost anything published imaginable under the sun, both new and used. A fter spending a half an afternoon there, cocking my head 90 degrees so I could read the stack book titles, I left with a very detailed National Geographic world atlas which included a full-page map of Australia, plus a delightful book entitled "Cold Beer and Crocodiles".
All of the map companies have made out fabulously recently, what with the world changing almost daily. Russia is a whole new country (technically what used to be called the USSR) - many of the African nations have been renamed or had significant border changes, and Germany, of course, is now ONE country, not two. As a result, everyone who prides himself of owning an up-to-date World Atlas, has had to purchase a new one, and the old ones are considered, at worst, useless, or at best, antiques. To me this doesn't matter - I am quite happy to look at a 80 year-old map of Australia - it is the location and spelling of the old towns I am interested in. Luckily, they haven't changed.
The second book I purchased is the travel account by an American journalist (Roff Smith) who spent close to 20 years in Australia and decided to write about his experience circumnavigating the entire continent on his bicycle, a 10,000 mile trip which took almost an entire year (his last year in Australia - no cause and effect, from what I can gather - just a timing coincidence). For anyone who wishes to visit Australia this book is a MUST read. It details so many things one would never expect to pick up from ordinary travel brochures one would be apt to get from a hotel, airline or travel agent. The book was published in Sept 2000 by National Geographic, by coincidence. Small world.
I understand Perth is called the "Loneliest City in the World" - the closest large scale cities, Adelaide to the East and Jakarta to the North, both more than 1000 miles distant. Few Australians ever manage to visit Perth. For Sidneysiders it is a 2500 mile trek, across desert mostly, so few would choose to drive, an airline ticket being the sanest alternative. Certainly no-one in his right mind would bicycle to Perth.
I only know one person from Perth (up until now) - I worked for a Bill Wyllie when I was in Hong Kong. At the time, he was Chairman of BSR/Astec - an electronics manufacturer with a pretty good chunk of the world market for power supplies for the personal computers. In those days, Astec was the sole supplier of power supplies to companies such as IBM, Apple, Wang and a host of smaller players in the burgeoning PC business. I handled Astec's legal affairs in the US and later was brought on board as Director of Operations, stationed in Hong Kong; subsequent to that I worked in Silicon Valley as MD of Astec's sales arm in the US.
On the other hand, I know DOUBLE that amount of people from Sydney. Both of them are "cyberfriends" (as Bobbi calls them) so I have never met them in person. They are some of my favorite on-line bridge players - both of them female - although that is not the reason. I find that there are more female bridge players in the world than men, and certainly many more COMPETENT female bridge players than men. With the extensive time zone difference between New York and Sydney, we only have a narrow window in which we can play. Generally, my Sydneysider cyberfriends play in their evening time - which means I have to get up early to catch them. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that the Northern and Southern hemispheres have opposite winter/summer seasons and henceforth daylight savings times. During our summer, the time difference is 14 hours - this stretches to 16 hours during our winter.
That's one reason I have suggested to my cyberfriends they spend their summer in Perth since that would lower the time differential by 4 hours. So far, no takers. No-one wants to live in the loneliest city on Earth. (That's actually not true - they would both LOVE to live in Perth - but the logistics would be staggering, with job hunting, apartment location etc etc.)
And it is a BEAUTIFUL city, I hear. One of my Sidney cyberfriends was one of the 75000 volunteers for the Olympics and she has regaled me with stories about the DUMB tourists who visited Sydney - most of them Americans. On THREE separate occasions, a group of Yankee visitors asked her the following question: "We have heard so much about Perth. Is it within walking distance?? Which way is it? Can we take a cab to there?? Etc. etc." Her initial instinct always was to point in a generally western direction and say "Sure - and ask somebody else again in a half an hour for more detailed directions" but her better sense always prevailed - besides, the volunteers were instructed ALWAYS to be nice to the tourists.
So much for the aborted American death march across the Nullarbor desert.
Just a bit of insight into the American psyche and general scholastic level.
Cheers
Paul
