I'm going to Australia! But first I need your help...

[Missy "C"]

I'll go to the point: my uni and the Australian Embassy are organizing an English Contest and I really want to take part in it. All I have to do is talk for 5 minutes about Australia's culture, and if I win I'll go there to study at The University of Queensland for a month! I'm so excited!!! This is a great opportunity for me and I don't wanna spoil it...

The enrollment closes this Friday so I don't have much time left, and want to start thinking about what I'm going to say right now! The problem is that I have no idea of where I can find some info on the topic, and I know very little about it... and as there are many aussies on this board I thought it was a good idea to ask you, so do you know any good websites that may help me? Are there any relevant topics that I must mention? Amara, The_One, I need you! Any help will be really aprecciated!!!

Thanx in advance! :thumb:

 

[Salar]

Missy there's heaps to talk about. Just tell me exactly what you want to talk about. The history, or just current living and life style?

 

[Illuminattile]

As long as you throw in a "maybe the dingoes ate your baby" I'm sure you'll win.

 

[Missy "C"]

Missy there's heaps to talk about. Just tell me exactly what you want to talk about. The history, or just current living and life style?

I'm not sure yet... I'd like to talk a little about the history but not in a boring way, I mean, I don't wanna learn lots of dates and names by heart. I'd like to talk about the society in the present, ethnic and cultural diversity, etc, and relate it to the history and the processes that lead to it. Anything that catches the judges attention!

 

[Rukas]

Non boring history:

- Founded by convicts
- Became an official country in 1901
- Killed a bunch of Aboriginals
- It was legal to kill Aboriginals up until the 80s or something crazy like that
- There is no "Australian" culture, its all English/Irish/Scottish/American thrown into one, apart from AFL football, thats the only real Australian thing there is.


Just tell em Rukas lives here and you wanna visit him, Im sure they will understand.

 

[Salar]

don't say anything about the aboriginal killing (which is true)

Let me correct Rukas
It is said that aboriginals were living here 40,000 years ago
Discovered by Captain James Cook
Became a settlement for convicts (meaning that englad had over crowded prisons so they were sending em down here)
Became a commonwealth nation in 1901, the first prime minister being Edward Barton
We have our own sport called Australian rules football, but other sports are big here too like Rugby, Cricket, soccer and Basketball

That's pretty much it.
Today Australia is one of the best spots to live at.

 

[Missy "C"]

Non boring history:

- Founded by convicts
- Became an official country in 1901
- Killed a bunch of Aboriginals
- It was legal to kill Aboriginals up until the 80s or something crazy like that
- There is no "Australian" culture, its all English/Irish/Scottish/American thrown into one, apart from AFL football, thats the only real Australian thing there is.


Just tell em Rukas lives here and you wanna visit him, Im sure they will understand.

Thx a lot, I'll start doing some research on that items! The last one is very interesting actually, maybe I'll say something like "there's no Australian culture"... at least it sounds good.

Thxxxxx! :thumb:


Edit:

Thx a lot to you too Salar, and I think you're right, maybe it's not appropiate to talk about the aboriginal killing (though it happened here too, and it was something horrible). I'll start working on everything you mentioned, thx

 

[Casey]

Good luck Missy, hope you get to go!

 

[Amara]

I wrote an answer to this, but got logged out and lost it before it was posted....argh. lol. I'll write it again tonight...

 

[kdogg]

australian women dont shave their pits

 

[Amara]

^ no thats french i believe.

 

[Rukas]

australian women dont shave their pits

No, only The_One.

 

[kdogg]

australia just put me on probation cause i think they have hairy pits, lmao

 

[roaches]

Let me interject for a second - is it true that the government controls wages of physicians in Australia, or is that just in hospitals?

 

[Amara]

^ no it was your constant freeposting...

 

[kdogg]

dont argue

 

[linx]

lol @ kdogg getting probation over that?

 

[Amara]

He got probation for a different thread. Shit. Now kdogg stop complaining, freeposting and ruining this thread.

 

[Get In The Van I Have Candy]

^ no it was your constant freeposting...

It would have been better to reset his post count to zero since he is freeposting? No? Makes sense...

lol@ kdogg. Life goes on man.

Missy C do a google search for australia, facts, information, etc... and you will find more than enough imformation about it. I know google has helped me when I was stuck at something.

 

[HitEmUp21]

don't say anything about the aboriginal killing (which is true)

Why not? It is a big part of the history of this nation, which (despite popular opinion) didn't begin in 1788 BTW.

Discovered by Captain James Cook

I wouldn't say discovered, I mean you just said that someone else was here for 40,000 years before.

Became a commonwealth nation in 1901, the first prime minister being Edward Barton

Edmund.

Today Australia is one of the best spots to live at.

Despite its faults, this is true.

There is no "Australian" culture

And despite this, if Muslims don't adopt such a nebulous concept they are much better appreciated taking their business elsewhere...

And I honestly think that a big part of "our culture" is a direct/indirect influence from the fact that there was policy not thrown out until the early 70's effectively barring non-white people from entering the country.

But Missy, for your purposes, I would pedal the patriotic rhetoric, talking about the "ANZAC spirit" can't hurt, and actually it would be very good doing what The_One said, and omit such things is the genocide.