Australians travel a lot. I know sometimes the government is concerned that there isn’t much domestic tourism because we all go overseas. But we still love Australia… Hugh was just trying to get a reaction out of me.
Yesterday’s vlog!
Category: Australia (Page 7 of 22)
Yes we have conversations about tea. Yeah Aussie girls! (With British heritage). Cuppa just means “a cup of tea”. I drink so many cups of tea.
Also, speaking about the word “tea”, when Mr Gwon first stayed with my parents, he got confused because my mum also calls dinner “tea”. And then to be more confusing, my nanna called lunch “dinner” and dinner is “tea”. And then we also drink lots of tea!
This is a topic we’ve talked about before – not having similar childhoods. Our childhoods were influenced by different TV shows, movies, trends and books. While Mr Gwon has seen many episodes of the The Simpsons and has heard many of the famous quotes from it, he saw and heard it as an adult, he didn’t absorb it when he was young. He didn’t quote it with his siblings and in the school playground with his friends. The perfect quote doesn’t come to mind in certain situations and he doesn’t pick up on the times when I do it, even if it has been explained to him, because it just wasn’t part of his childhood or teen years. Although not every western person my age watched The Simpsons, they would have been very aware of it and how it affected our generation. For example Sophie wasn’t allowed to watch it as a child but she was aware of the characters and some of the jokes and the influence it had. It is such an iconic TV show, especially the earlier episodes.
The top video that comes up from the scene I was quoting is just someone filming a TV, but look at how many views it has and how many people are reminiscing in the comments.
It’s also a kind of sad reminder that it doesn’t matter how well I can speak Korean later, there will be some things that he says that I just won’t understand because our childhoods were so different.
(Oh and why was I on that gym equipment? I was just laying on it but he pushed the button and made me go upside down… I think you are supposed to do sit-ups or something. I didn’t do that).
We were talking about respectful terms for in-laws and what my siblings should call him if they were Korean. I told him he could ask them to call him that, but he thinks they are “too naughty” and wouldn’t.
Understanding cultural differences is so important! What he deems “naughty” is pretty normal behaviour in Australia because ours values differ. Something seen as good, such as an easy and casual way of speaking regardless of someone’s age, can be offensive in Korea. He knows it’s just cultural difference, but he still likes to say they are naughty… especially when he sees my youngest brother pat my father on the head. Shock, horror!
He is very vocal about his dislike of cricket. Though… he does have an Australian Cricket singlet… his excuse is that it was cheap.
I’m sure others living in another country have had this feeling before. On days where you are missing home a little bit and there is something that is in your country and even though you never particularly liked it, something makes you start to feel patriotic.
I’m not particularly patriotic and there are lots of things I dislike about Australia but the longer I am in Korea, the more Australian I feel. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. (Obviously cricket wasn’t “invented” in Australia but it’s ingrained in our culture and seen as an important sport in Australia).
While subtitling this we talked about what actually happened to the guy in the car accident. We searched online and couldn’t find out if he ever came out of the coma, but we did find a news article about the “missing Korean tourists”. One of those being my husband! He didn’t know until today that people had searched for him for 7 hours! Even though it was back in 2006, big thank you to those who searched and were concerned.
Here is a short video about when Han and Sophie (and baby Alice) visited us and we went to some of my home town’s tourist attractions. We have been staying with my parents for a few weeks before we move to Korea.
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