Many relationship experts claim that it’s the little things that cause marriage break-ups – the toilet seat being left up, or the dirty clothes abandoned on the floor…
The same applies to the immigrant’s relationship with their new country. Even when everything seems similar on the surface – language and culture – you quickly discover that your new home is determined to leave the milk out of the fridge every couple of days just to annoy the hell out of you.
Society is oiled by a whole raft of unwritten rules. When you’re growing up, you pick up these rules as you go along. You don’t even know you’re following them. It’s only when you move somewhere else that you realise that the rules you weren’t even aware of aren’t the same everywhere. What’s worse, because no-one in your new country is aware that they’re playing by their rules, no-one will ever explain them to you. Somehow you are just expected to know.
Take, for example, healthcare. Between private health insurance and Medicare, the scope for befuddlement is huge. In the UK, you go to your doctor, get a prescription, take it to the pharmacy, pay your £7.20 and that’s it. Here, you have to pay for your appointment with the doctor, then claim most of it back by visiting a Medicare office, then shop around because pharmacies can charge more or less what they like, then remember to ask for the cheaper generic version, because it would be WAY too helpful for the doctor to have prescribed that in the first place…oh, and don’t forget to present your Medicare card at every stage of the transaction.
Then there’s shopping, which seems just like shopping at home, but which actually has a whole language of its own, which no-one taught you at school. At the checkout in Target, you’re always asked if you have any lay-bys or Fly-buys. I finally plucked up the courage to ask a local, and discovered lay-bys are a throwback to Britain of the 1950s, where you can have an item kept aside for you, to be paid off at a rate of 5 shillings, sorry, dollars a week. Fly-buys is some kind of loyalty scheme, but it’s so ingrained in society that there are never any leaflets or posters explaining what it is. Bra sizes and shoe sizes are different, and I’ve already mentioned the difficulties caused by cheese descriptions.
None of these litle irritants want to make me divorce Australia, but sometimes I do feel like yelling at it for leaving the lid off the toothpaste again.
Down under, out west 
This is a brilliant piece Val. It’s just taken us slightly longer to find this out. So many little irritants. Still – these are far outweighed by the pluses (so far).
Thanks Jim! I sometimes feel like I’m living in A Dr Who episode where everything looks the same but if you were to peel everyone’s skin off they’d be aliens underneath…friendly aliens, but aliens all the same!
Superb piece. Tells me stuff I may find useful eventually.
That would explain the problem I had when trying to find ‘cream cheese’ in London. I only realised after asking a number of people at Tesco that you guys call it Philadelphia which, to me, is a place in America.
I agree that the health system is overly complicated in Australia. I found exactly the same thing as an immigrant from New Zealand. But like Australia, it’s worth asking for generic brands of medication in NZ too. The doctor sometimes prescribes it for you, if you find a good doctor. Most doctors are themselves immigrants. I haven’t seen an Australian born doctor since I got here.
In England, I wanted to know the cheapest supermarket. I now know the scale, and I think it goes from Lidl (which we call Aldi) up to Waitrose… I don’t know the upper end of the scale. Couldn’t afford to go there.
I’ve never been asked about lay bys anywhere – are you sure they aren’t just saying ‘flybys’ with an unintelligible accent? I don’t know a single person who makes use of lay-bys, not since the widespread use of the credit card.
Clothing sizes are indeed different – but between brands there seems little sizing regulation anyway! (I prefer the British bra-sizing myself. My feet, however, are smaller in England.)
The biggest culture difference I noticed, going to London, was that people are unfriendly to strangers. Adapting back the other way is also strange – ‘over-friendly’, in fact. Sometimes you don’t want to make small talk with a shop assistant. You just want your carrots and milk.
Yet get Australians behind the wheel of a black Ford ute and the most friendly back-slapping Aussie loses all consideration for other people. In London, drivers are more considerate I think, especially of pedestrians. Take that same person, bump into them on the street and they won’t smile and say ‘sorry’. They’ll roll their eyes and groan at you.
Hi Stace
Thanks for your insights – really interesting to hear it the other way round!
Yes, Philadelphia is a pretty stupid name for cream cheese, but I suppose it’s no more daft than calling sheets and towels Manchester – one of the oddest things I found in Oz!
In terms of UK supermarkets, Aldi and Lidl are different companies but basically do the same thing, and Waitrose is the poshest, in a similar range to Marks and Spencer’s food. I really miss M&S, even though I couldn’t afford to do my regular shop there.
It was definitely lay-bys. My local Target has a whole counter dedicated to them, which amazed me as, like you, I can’t see the point when everyone uses credit cards. Why waste retail space like that? So I guess more people than we think must use it!
And don’t get me started on ute drivers…I’m sure it’ll be the subject of a post here before too long!
I am an Aussie in London and have had such similar teething problems as you describe. For instance it took me forever to understand what cash-back meant in Sainsbury’s. In the end I had to ask what the cashier meant.
I guess it is all part of the fun of living away from your roots.
That’s interesting, all of the chemists I talk to will always make a point of mentioning the generic brands. Maybe you can find a gp that bulk-bills so you don’t have to deal with the Medicare office so often?
And almost all the K-Marts and Targets and BigWs in Perth will have a lay-by’s counter; helps when you’re setting aside christmas present projects and don’t want to deal with interest rates.
Cheers Nathan! I’m mainly trying to stay healthy to avoid ever using the system…