3. understand the daily life habits, popular culture of the community, diversity of values etc.
I wanted to know the daily life habits of Australians, what are the popular culture of the community and what are their values. For example, what they do over the weekends, what they do after work/school, how do they greet each other, what advertisements they would focus and what are their values of life.
Daily life habits
Greetings
According to The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help--or Hurt--How You by Goman, C. 2011, she states it is customary and appropriate to greet with a firm handshake for both genders. I found it wrong, when I see Australians meet their friends, they do not greet with a handshake, they just wave or say hello and then walk close to each other and start chatting and/or walk along. I think the book is referring the formal or working contexts, if I have not been to Australia, I would not query about what Goman has said. Besides, I think the greetings vary from ages and how close the people are and how long they have known each other. |
Few people at night on the street
Not a lot of people are on the streets, especially at night. Only a few people could be found on the street when I walked from a Korean market back to the hotel, which is about 5 minutes. As observed, people do not tend to go out at night on the street and even at day time, there are not many people on the street. I asked the Australian girls I met on the train of where they go at night, they said they mostly hang around in the cyber world: Facebook, twitter and instagram. This is one of the reason that could explain why the street always have so few people. |
Shopping time
According to the places I went, supermarket (Woolworths) there closes at 8pm, mall (Melbourne central shopping centre) at 6pm; cafe at 3pm, and open supermarket (Victoria Market) close at 2pm. Isn't that too early? How could people enjoy coffee or buy fruits from the cafe and open super market on weekdays if they have to work/ go to school? I asked the shop keepers in the Victoria Market upon this question, they told me that this is because Australian value the time with their family and would like to use the time after work at home. For weekends, they said this is a time for leisure and recreation, and/or for religious activities. It is also a method of regaining sleep lost on weekdays. |
Diversity of values
Chinese culture
Chinese words could be spotted everywhere on the street, mostly restaurants, currency exchange shops, pharmacy and beverage shops, but not in the malls. This can show that there is a likelihood of many Chinese shops in Australian. Outside YHA, there are three chinese shops
Click to enlarge |
Daily food
Fast food like burgers, sandwiches, kebas, tacos are everywhere. The size of their food is much larger than Hong Kong's. From observations, no matter what age, adults or teenagers, they all eat these food. Moreover, they do not just eat Australian cuisines, but also eastern cuisines, like Indian bean and rice, Chinese noodles, Japanese sushi, Vietnam noodles. They also buy Taiwan bubble milk tea. It was amusing to see all the eastern and western food are accepted by the Australians. |
Advertisement
Their advertisements tend to present natural elements, even soft drinks like pepsi, they still include the word "naturally" in the headline. There are also advertisements on sun block/ sun tans. These advertisements conveys the message that these products are used throughout Australia, and that means Australians thinks that nature is important. |
I have achieved my aims and I have performed them through observation and asking people around. I was able to discover the greetings of Australians, they value their family a lot so they do not spend time going out on the street and stay home instead, they have a laid back life where shops close early, they eat food from different cultures and there are many Chinese shops. Lastly, they stress on nature/ natural products.