Come Down Under! Living the Australian Life

Feature Editors:
Shanasia Bennett, 15
La’Mekia Mervin, 16
Shatara McDaniel, 17
Massachusetts

Small World - Gabriella Casares, 19, Massachuetts

G’Day, mates! Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live “down under” in Australia? What do teens there do for fun? What slang do they use? What’s their favorite holiday? Australia is more than a country filled with kangaroos, deserts, and crocodile hunters. Nicknamed ‘Oz’ by Australians themselves, it’s a country with unique people, special holidays, and a very colorful way of speaking the English language!

Being an Australian Woman
Hannah Monagle, 19
Melbourne, Australia

Living in England for a year, I was often met with surprise when I revealed I was Australian. “But you don’t look Australian!” was usually the initial response followed by disappointment over my pasty complexion and refusal to use the phrase ‘G’day, mate.’ Thanks to a new breed of advertising—think Fosters beer and Subaru station wagon commercials—the international perception of what it means to be a young Australian female seems significantly skewed*.

I can only speak for myself, but being a young woman in Australia does not mean being blonde, tanned, or surfing everyday. For me, being Australian means multiculturalism, food, and education. It means being careful with water and cooking from a stove that’s not made out of tin foil. It means being able to walk down the street showing my face, marry whomever I please, and swim in the ocean wearing an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weenie-yellow-polka-dot bikini. It means eating Vegemite* (not Marmite*!) slathered on toast and icy poles* at the local pool. Most of all, though, it means freedom: freedom to come and go when I please, to be protected by the law against rape, persecution, and hate crimes. But right now, because of the actions of the Australian government, to me, being a young woman in Australia also means feeling ashamed.

Ashamed because when I wrote to a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, who my country locked up for four years for immigrating illegally, I didn’t have the answers.* She had fled a country where she could not gain an education or could be arrested for walking down the street with a man to come to Australia. I couldn’t explain to her what makes the two of us different, why I can have icy pole juice running down my pasty skin while she must plead and be locked away in detention centers just for seeking a chance at a free life like mine.

A beautiful life of freedom, that’s what being a young woman in Australia means. Our political reputation, as well as being tanned and surf-prone, has us dubbed ‘the lucky country.’ Hopefully, we can one day open our doors and share this life with others who are not so lucky.

*The 14-year-old girl in the story currently lives in a housing project on a temporary protection visa, constantly in fear of being returned home to Iraq.

*Skewed: Biased or distorted.
*Vegemite: the brand name of a salty vegetable spread used on bread or toast; it is very popular in Australia.
*Marmite: a similar spread marketed in the United Kingdom and New Zealand .
*Icy pole: like an American popsicle

Another Australian State: Living Queensland Style
Amy Taubenfeld, 18
Queensland, Australia

Brisbane is a major city of Queensland, a state of Australia. I haven’t traveled much outside of Brisbane. I went to New Zealand when I was 5 or 6 but I don’t really remember anything about it.
My parents are separated and I live with my mum. I only see my dad on special occasions and holidays. I have a couple of really close friends that I can talk to about anything, and I also have a larger group of friends in my social group.

Last year I finished high school in a Brisbane public school. This year I go to a vocational school called TAFE and am studying Animal Science. Our high school hours are 8:50 am until 3:10 pm. In grades 11 and 12, you can choose other subjects to take, but you must take math, English and history. After high school, getting into a university depends on your Overall Position (OP) in your class, based on a scale of 1-25.You don’t have to take a test to get into a university, but there are OP cut-offs for each university course. For example, a course might have an OP cut-off of 14, meaning that to get into the course you need an OP of 1 through 14.

Other hobbies I have are reading, music and anything to do with animals, my dog and horseback riding. The school puts on two dances a year, including a formal in year 12, musicals, and sports games every week.

The fashionable things at the moment are layers and buttons. This means wearing leggings with mini shorts over them, or short dresses with leggings under them. Also, buttons seem to be very popular, and most dresses have large novelty buttons on them somewhere. Bags are really big and colorful. Shoes are either patterned flats or stilettos.

Popular music is forever changing. Just a few months ago rap was the big thing but now rock bands like My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy are pretty big. We have concerts pretty often. International bands come on average once a month, but sometimes bands skip Brisbane because it isn’t as big as Melbourne or Sydney.

Cricket is one of the biggest sports here. Other major sports are football (soccer), and rugby. Most people celebrate by getting dressed up in their team’s colors and painting their faces, then they either go to the game or have a big party at someone’s house. In high school, teen girls can play hockey, softball, netball* and football. But the female sports are never as promoted as boys’.
Australians really like to eat meat. All of our advertisements say “We Love Our Lamb,” but I think just any meat will do because Australians love barbecues. There are never any ads saying “We Love Our Tofu.” Australians really like the barbeque meat-eating image.

The age limit for drinking and smoking is 18. For driving in Brisbane, you have to be 16 years and six months to get your learner’s license. You have to have your learner’s for at least six months before you can get your provisional license. Then you have your provisional for three years before you go on your open license.

Abortion and same-sex marriage are big issues here. Abortion in my state of Queensland is allowed only if the health of the woman is at stake. So, if having the baby would kill the woman, she would be allowed to get an abortion. I don’t know how I feel about abortion. On one hand, I feel that if you don’t want to get pregnant, either don’t have sex or take all the right precautions to prevent pregnancy instead of getting an abortion. But if a woman is raped and gets pregnant, she has to have the baby. I think that’s wrong; you should be allowed to have an abortion for that. Same-sex marriage is not allowed anywhere in Australia. I think it doesn’t matter who you love, you should be able to marry whomever you want!

Australia is always seen as multicultural. It’s a fair statement. There were racial problems 30 or so years ago, but there isn’t much racial tension these days. Everyone is very polite here normally, and there isn’t a lot of violence. We’re pretty lucky to have a country away from everything else. If I were to leave I would miss the security that I feel here. I’d also miss my friends, because I doubt I’d find anyone as great as them anywhere else. They’re typical Australian girls and I’d miss them heaps.

*Netball: Tennis

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