fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2618 ]

[ SECRET POST #2618 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2618 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 039 secrets from Secret Submission Post #374.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I'm Australian and suddenly have boatloads of free time, so sure! I won't be able to participate much though because of the timezones - new FS posts are up at about dawn where I am. :P

I know that our summer is your winter, but does it snow in winter or is it year round beach party?

Is it legal to own a kangaroo? I only ask because I saw a gif on tumblr of a kangaroo in someone's house hopping around in clothes and that seems kind of weird to me.

Are all the animals trying to kill you?

Are women really called Sheila all the time? If I visited and called random women "sheila" would I sound douchey?

How do you feel about this video?

Who is cuter - US Americans or Canadians? (Either way the three of us vs England is not even a competition amirite)

I actually would love to learn about Australian history especially 20th century but I can find no books on it? Do you recommend any? And what is some Australian classic literature?

Is it really a rite of passage for you guys to go travelling when you're young/just out of high school? Because I have always been jealous of that.

What is currently trendy in Australian fashion?

What is typical Australian cuisine like?

Do you like New Zealand? Are they like Australia's Canada?

Do you have gay marriage? How do I get an Australian to marry me so that I can move there?

If you are LGBT, how is the community there? If you are not you can just ignore this question.

ETA: And do you know any Australian urban legends or scary stories?

Edited 2014-03-05 05:10 (UTC)

I want to try answering this so here we go:

- some places snow, especially any mountains, some bits if Tasmania, Victoria, Canberra...Sydney gets freak hailstorms with giant baseball ice every 5 years or so.

- depends in the state - some places require a license, some do not. I'm not aware if it being completely illegal but you do need permission.

- yes

- Every girl is a Sheila but we have English names to avoid confusing tourists. It is punishable by drop bear for a non Australian to call a girl Sheila.

- on phone, cannot load video :(

- Canadians I'm afraid. They ride moose and have beaver hats!

- - mandatory readings include ; snugglepot and cuddlepie, muddleheaded wombat, silver brumby and the magic pudding.

- nah you're thinking of schoolies week (not that I'm aware of but I grew up rural and poor)

- well girl wise royal blue is fucking everywhere.

- salty, fast and burnt (it's a national mix. Asian fare is common, as is steaks. Mexican not so common. Vietnamese, Italian, all kinds if stuff. Guess it'd majorly depend on your area. )

- we like New Zealand in the 'brother /sister we rag on" kind of way. There's a clause somewhere that if nz changes it's mind it can come join us anytime. Also no passport is needed to visit between us.

- yes no yes no...I'm not sure it was approved in ACT but prime ministers have a habit of overturning it. Some states have a registration where you get benefits but are not married.

- yes! Honestly it's really boring? Sure the social awareness things are fun but the circle itself is small and everyone has dated everyone else. Act was better at the social side than Melbourne though.

- drop bears, hoop snakes, the cannible family descended from an escaped convict, haunted houses based around convicts, the one about a cyclist murderer in tassie turned out to be true, stories about people riding bikes and accidentally falling under a truck and being be headed

Ok gotta get if bus :D

I am going to expand on the excellent information above to say that the only places it really snows are in the snowy mountains and parts of tasmania. Other parts of southern Australia may get a day or 2 of snow but it is never heavy and ends up as just a lot of slush. You could never build a snowman out of it or anything. Winter over here is basically just rain and cold. It can get around zero degrees Celsius at night but is usually warmer than that during the day.

Also that video is a pretty accurate depiction of an aussie soap. No lies.

Yeah I was more thinking of the snow-slush Canberra got on the roads. 'bout the closest to snow I could think of but really it was white-quickly-turned-brown slush.

Don't even really get frost where I am now....but considering I don't have a heater I am not heart broken over this.

But, one day, I will have my snowman...

Because you were so kind in warning me about the drop bear thing I will tell you something about snowmen and that is that they really do come to life if you sacrifice a magic hat to them.

(THANK YOU to all of you guys I love this and I bookmarked it)

Another Aussie here who wanted to answer your Qs:

- Re: snow, depends on the place, as the user above said. But Canberra is not one of the places that snows - it has snowed thrice here in the last two and a half decades. (Canberra is the capital city of Australia for those who don't know)

Re: kangaroos, I have personally never heard of anyone owning one (besides Vanilla Ice, weirdly). But if you live near bushland it's not unheard of them to hang out in your back garden. One came into ours once, and hid nervously in the back corner until night when it escaped again.

Re: deadly animals, you get used to it, promise.

Re: I have used and heard Sheila to refer to a woman in everyday conversation as many times as I have heard bonzer, true blue, fair dinkum, dinky di, cobber and ridgy didge. By which I mean I use all of those phrases in every sentence I speak aloud.

Re: video, I feel like this is a fair representation of the Aussie soap. Fry and Laurie would have been parodying Neighbours and/or Home and Away, which have both been on for yonks (heh, aussie slang) and both of which are popular in the UK for reasons unknown to either country. But feel free to judge for yourself:
Neighbours 90s intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGLEO-oqkDE
Home and Away 80s/90s intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IzdV0gJS3U
(Warning for aggressive 90s fashion and hair and terrible, terrible earworms)

Re: Americans vs Canadians, Canadians have mounties. No competition, sorry.

Re: Aussie history, I can't recommend any history books personally, but you could start at this page compiled by the National Library of Australia of good online resources about Aust. history and go from there: http://www.nla.gov.au/australiana/australian-history-selected-websites

Re: Aussie literature, the user above listed some classic Aussie children's literature - to which I would add The Adventures of Blinky Bill, Dot and the Kangaroo and Midnight. In terms of adult literature, you couldn't go wrong with starting with Tim Winton, who basically is modern aussie lit. in a lot of ways. Cloudstreet is his epic, but he has a lot of shorter books too - I quite enjoyed Breathe, personally. For early 20th century, try My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin. I would also recommend checking out the verse of Banjo Patterson vs Henry Lawson for the ultra classic colonial Australian lit experience - then follow it up with come Oodgeroo Noonuccal for a modern, indigenous perspective and palate cleanser. (Banjo Patterson wrote Waltzing Matilda, the unofficial Australian anthem, fyi.)

Re: travelling after school, the user above talked about schoolies, which is the week after the final high school/college (Year 12) exams, where lots of school leavers go to the gold coast to party and get drunk. I didn't do it, don't know anyone who did, but it definitely happens and there are always news articles about x number of accidents or arrests during it. However, I think you might actually be referring to people taking a 'gap' year between year 12 and their first year of university to work and/or travel, which is pretty common. I did it myself.

Re: fashion, rule of thumb is that Australian fashion is usually a season behind international trends - but that's changing with the internet. I wouldn't say out fashion is that different from, say, general UK or American fashion trends. A lot of people I know buy their clothes from ASOS.com, and similar sites, if that helps. We probably wear thongs more in summer?

Re: Aussie food, 'Australian' food is based on a lot of good old stodgy UK recipes, as you would expect from a colony. Hence the meat pie, Sunday roasts etc. Big emphasis on meat, and bbqs, though an Aussie cliche, are popular. The Pavlova is an all Aussie dessert. We also make use of lots of good quality fresh meat/produce, hence the cliche of seafood in summer (though I'm talking from the east coast perspective - it's hard to get fresh, affordable produce in central Australia for obvs reasons, which is a problem). Oh, and you will never find a gathering of people without a sausage sizzle nearby.

Re: NZ - sort of :) We def have a similar sibling country squabbling relationship. But I think politically we're actually a lot closer than you guys - Australians and New Zealanders can actually live and work indefinitely in the other country. A lot of New Zealanders move to Australia because there are more work opportunities.

Re: gay marriage, Not yet :( The ACT (Australian Capital Territory, the territory where Canberra is) has tried a few times, mostly recently last year - the High Court threw the act out after a week on the grounds that the ACT can't legislate against Federal law. Which sucks :(

Re: LGBT community: I'm not, but I have a few friends who are gay and know a few people who are trans and who are involved in the community. I'm from a pretty left wing/liberal city, but from my outside perspective the community seems generally friendly - the main complaints I've heard are just that it's small, so everyone knows everyone's business.

Re: urban legends, Yowies are like Australian Big Foot, and are based on Aboriginal myths. Bunyips are another Aboriginal mythical creature, usually said to live in water holes or billabongs. Apparently Australia also has one of the highest numbers of UFO sightings in the world. But other than that, most unique Aussie scary stories are originally true - red backs under the toilet seat, true if you're in the bush :( Serial killer who picked on backpackers, true :( Drop bears, true :( If you want to read a fictional creepy Australian story that a lot of people think is true, try Picnic at Hanging Rock (or find the movie). It's understated but very unnerving.

SORRY FOR THE TL;DR I HAVE TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS :(:(:(:

NO THIS IS GOOD AND THOROUGH while mine was silly and quick and riddled with my phone constantly turning 'of' into 'if' why does it do that. You are an ace Australian, M8

Urban legends - do you think Wolf Creek counts yet? Also now that I think about it there's the Harold Holt conspiracies but that's not very urban legend-y. I wanna say things like tourists will always get lost and die in X location but it tends to be true so uh...

Hadn't realised the High Court had thrown the marriage out AGAIN but I shouldn't be surprised :(

AYRT

Lol, no YOU are an ace Aussie M8! (Plus, you get points with me for being from Canberra!)

And yeah, it sucks about gay marriage. *Shakes fist at High Court*

AYRT again, because I can't read.

I always heard Wolf Creek was roughly based on Ivan Milat/ Peter Falconio's murder, so I maybe it does count? Or maybe Australia is so terrifying in and of itself we don't actually need urban legends :/

Omg no this is wonderful! Thank you for the book recs! When I look up Picnic at Hanging Rock all I can find is the movie so I guess I will watch that when I can get my hands on it!

true blue, fair dinkum, dinky di, cobber and ridgy didge.

This is so fucking cute but I have the feeling if I said it out loud I would summon some kind of Australian demon.

Schoolies sounds like our Spring Break, which I've never been to either, but yeah I was thinking of the gap year. People do that here too ("backpacking in Europe" is the cliche) but from what I've heard it's more common in Australia. And I think when people do it here they get reactions like "Ugh, she's not going to college?" You're pretty much expected to go to college right after high school, get a job, get a house and then you can go on your vacation. :\ I also would not have been able to afford it right after high school (can't now, either), but it would've been nice and probably given me some good life experience.

We probably wear thongs more in summer?

Sandals, right? Flip-flops? Not butt-showing bathing suits. Right? Right?

anyway ty this is great <3

Edited 2014-03-05 14:25 (UTC)

This is so fucking cute but I have the feeling if I said it out loud I would summon some kind of Australian demon.

You have already summoned the demon by mocking our fine language. It muttered angrily "Fair suck of the old sauce bottle mate," and glared at you for a few moments. Then it guffawed, slapped its thighs, declared it was just "Playing sillybuggers" with you, pinched you on the cheek, slapped you on the rump, and wandered off to the nearest pub to bet on the hermit crab races. Such is life in colonial Australia.

Oh, and gap years are definitely very acceptable here - some people even take more time off in the middle of their degree. Some of this is probs because we have a student benefit called Youth Allowance that you used to be able to get while you study fulltime if you earned a certain amount of money in 12 months (that's why I took a year off) - but they've changed it to 18 months now. A lot of people work for the first 6 months to save up the money they need for travelling the next 6 months. Backpacking in Europe or a working holiday in the UK are definitely the usual travel choices.

Sandals, right? Flip-flops? Not butt-showing bathing suits. Right? Right?

Maybe we wear both.... *cackles maniacally*

Glad you enjoyed my ramblings :)

Gah, by the time I got here your questions have already been answered! Nooooo.

I can answer a question for you, though - no, you are not allowed to own a kangaroo like a pet, but you ARE allowed to foster them. You basically care for them until they're old enough to be released into the wild. The most commonly fostered animals are marsupials because it's easy to keep them in a warm pouch, like so:

As for calling women 'sheila', if you're a tourist people will just find it amusing that you're adopting our slang. However, there are regional accents and vocabularies, and sheila mostly comes from the 'occa' accent - think Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee. If you talk occa then no one will think twice of you saying sheila. But if you talk more of a coastal or 'british' Australian then people will think it's kinda weird. Think of it as someone from San Fran randomly dropping Brookyln slang.

As for urban legends, there is the story that the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo bought some lang in western australia and may or may not have accidentally detonated a nuclear device. Yeah. I doubt tha it's true, but I think it sums up Australia that a bunch of nutbags could accidentally set off a nuke and the rest of the country barely even notices anything happened.

Also, YOU AMERICANS KILLED PHAR LAP. The greatest racehorse in Australian history mysteriously dies en route to racing in the US?

do you like cricket?

no one around here likes cricket

where is "here" for you, nonnie?

USA. West Coast.

(I am an American, and also enjoy baseball, which is much easier to talk about)

Cricket's pretty popular here, especially around christmas when the boxing day match against england is played. We have a fierce rivalry with the brits and play a competition against them every year called the ashes. Whoever wins gets bragging rights for the next year.

I see, I see. I am an East Coaster. I do not like baseball but I can follow conversations about it. When people start talking football is when I completely zone out.

Australian here: No I do not like cricket. But I am definitely the odd one out on that one.

No, I do not. It's so goddamn boring to watch and to play.

Unless we're talking about some casual beach cricket, then I'm all for it, because that is an Australian Christmas tradition.

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[ SECRET POST #2618 ]

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