Australian Cultural Differences

Australia is a country where relative to the US, there isn’t too big of a jump in cultural differences. From my experience, they don’t have any clashing cultural differences where a student from the US would get into trouble for not knowing about a sort of tradition. However, for the most part the culture here seems more laid back and less individualistic relative to the US. They enjoy sports similar to the US and are fairly easy going and kind people, as well as being able to go out and enjoy themselves a bit rather than focusing on work heavily.

Specifically in Sydney, there is a large amount of diversity. I’ve met people from almost every part of the world, and it seems to be quite an international hub. Sydney is also a very accepting city of all people from different backgrounds and interests. An example would be Oxford Street, which is a very well known street that spans almost across the entire city and is known for its LGBT community.

The transition into life abroad here culturally for me personally, was not too difficult. Again, the US is quite similar in their traditions and interests relative to people in Australia. However, an example of a cultural obstacle I had to overcome is recognizing the casual nature in which Australians hold conversations. More specifically, I was speaking with a professional I had just met, and although it was not a formal setting, we had just met, and he was quite casual in his vocabulary usage, and even at times cursing. Personally, this did not bother me much, although I felt it could come off somewhat disrespectful to another foreigner. This made me realize that this was just a normal means of communicating and was quite common in Australia.