A month ago today, I came back to Australia. Here are some mild reverse culture shock things I’ve noticed.

This is the future

And it looks like a dystopian fiction.

Coming back to Melbourne, as soon as the plane started descending over Victoria, as far as the eye could see was a haze of smoke. Once we got lower towards the ground I could see that everything underneath the haze was brown and dead, thanks to the continuing drought. What on earth have I come back to and why? was all I could think.

The taps in the airport toilets were out of science fiction movies, with water, soap and driers all in different parts of the one tap. Made by Dyson, which seems to be making all manner of things these days. The toilets themselves, on the other hand, were not. This is true for several public toilets and their taps that I’ve since seen, not only in airports.

In the cities, there are young people and families everywhere, of all different shapes and sizes, half of which seem to be covered in tattoos, and speaking different languages. Buildings also come in many different shapes and sizes with art and/or graffiti in places. People of almost all ages – not so many over about 60 – with or without families are queuing up outside cafes at 11am and sitting around with their coffees and enormous gluten-free brunches.

All the cafes have about 4 milk alternatives for coffee: soy, almond, oat – not everywhere – and lactose-free dairy milk, as well as plain old milk, which can be full-cream (for Americans, that’s about 3.4% milk fat) or low-fat. Versions of eggs on toast often cost around $20 in Melbourne and are cheaper in Brisbane. Brisbane used to be more expensive than Melbourne. The times, they are a-changin’.

Everywhere in the cities is selling craft beer. It’s easier to find a pale ale or an organic cider than a VB.

Story: Doctor’s visit of the future

I went to the doctor’s to renew a prescription within a week of being home and the doctor I saw seemed young for a doctor, maybe younger than me. (Yes, I know this doesn’t mean I’ve come to the future so much as that I’ve survived into the future by ageing. Shh.) She talked like my uni friends and the Australians I’ve seen on iView.

She weighed and measured me (can’t remember the last time a GP did that), took my blood pressure, printed a prescription, composed a referral letter with me sitting there, and then printed it out and handed it to me just like that, no folding, no envelope. I wandered back out to reception holding both flat A4 sheets of paper and stood in front of the desk wondering if this was what you’re supposed to do (in Japan you sit down until they’re ready for you to pay, at which point they call your name).

After a little while somebody noticed me and we confirmed that I had just seen Doctor Z, and then she got the account up on the screen and I waved my debit card at the machine. It seemed to work. Then we had to do something else so that I could get my Medicare rebate instantly put back in my account. The receptionist asked what account – cheque, savings or credit – which I didn’t know, so I took a stab at one and again, it seemed to work.

I went back out through the smoky air to the car, still holding my A4 papers. I knew what to do with the prescription, but for the referral letter I had to ask Mum. Turns out here you make an appointment with the specialist’s rooms directly and then you just take the letter along when you go to the appointment. I folded it and put it in my bag, where it later got slightly squashed. That’s not futuristic, that’s just life in Australia, I guess.

Where do I belong?

The last 4 places I’ve relocated to, it has been for work. I was always moving for the sake of fulfilling a particular role in a school or similar facility. I always knew what the role was before I arrived. It wasn’t always easy, especially when I had no car and knew nobody in Gifu, but I worked it out, and in Hiroshima, made a place for myself, which became easier as I stayed longer and got to know people. I didn’t always like the role: in most cases, it was to be the one clowny white person in the school, making ‘English’ and ‘foreign’ seem approachable and fun. But it was something to do and there were always eventually other foreigners in similar situations to meet and befriend.

This time, I’ve come back to Australia with a looser plan: study, work on the side, and be closer to Australian friends and family. I came back in time for Christmas, just after the birth of the latest human to join my family, and uni doesn’t start until March. I haven’t got a job yet and am searching in areas I haven’t before… All the friends I used to know here have of course changed, as have family members. It’s been roughly 5 years, after all. How people take their tea and coffee has changed. Half of Melbourne seems to have been diagnosed with various chronic illnesses. And that’s all fine. But it was especially odd in the first week or two, seeing all these things I used to be part of and that used to be my life, just moving on in the ways they are now.

Here’s one I never really knew, though: beer sizes.

In Brisbane, where I’m currently visiting, you can buy 4 sizes of beer on tap (aka draught beer). The smallest is a pony, then a pot, then a schooner, and the biggest is a pint. I know everyone in Melbourne and Sydney likes to complain about the other city and how it’s got weird drink sizes, but 4 seems like a lot. The young man offering tastings of the draught beers (and I’m glad he was – some of them were not my cup of tea) was happy enough to explain them, and in a way that was very easy to understand. According to some sources I’ve found, a pony is 140ml, although in this pub it was apparently about 200 (which apparently in some Australian states is called a seven?). A pot (or apparently a middy in NSW) is around 285ml. A schooner is usually 425-ish ml, whereas something around 500ml is called a pint, depending on what measurement system you’re using. Even though a pint of other liquid is usually 600ml – again, depending on your measurement system.

My friend has just asked her friends from Queensland, NT and Victoria about this and all the Victorians have never heard of a ‘middy’ or a pony. Ponies seem to be rare.

Most Australians don’t move between the parts of Australia with enough frequency to be able to navigate the lingo with any reliability. If you’re coming to Australia, you can check the terms in the place you’re going, or just ask for ‘small’ or ‘big’ and gesture with your hands. You’ll work it out. People can be surprisingly accommodating, I’m discovering.

Environmental awareness

A Japanese friend came to visit when I’d been back about 2 weeks. It was just after New Year. We took him and his daughter to Healesville Sanctuary, which is like a zoo but exclusively for Australian animals. All the animals were sleeping because it was the middle of a hot day. In the car on the way there we talked about the bushfires and how so many of those afflicted were so unhappy with ScoMo and his reactions – or lack thereof – to the fires. This meant that we talked about the drought and the environmental problems going on in Australia, and global warming, and Australia’s backwardness in climate policy. We also talked about what animals are native to Australia, and how we wouldn’t be seeing pandas and cats at the Sanctuary.

At the Sanctuary there is plenty of information about Australian wildlife and what the various animals’ needs are, and when you go to the bird show, they show you the kinds of old tree stumps and hollows that many birds need to live in and explain how when these trees are cut down, those birds don’t have anywhere to live and can die out. They ask you to pledge to use 100% recycled toilet paper to help preserve the remaining bush.

They used to recommend the Who Gives a Crap toilet paper, but they’ve stopped mentioning this brand name. I have noticed that at my friends’ houses and also some trendy eating and drinking places, they have this toilet paper, though.

After the Sanctuary we went to a nice winery with a restaurant and did a tasting and had some lunch. My Japanese friend commented that people seem very aware of the environment in Australia as opposed to Japan, and seem to care about it a lot. I hadn’t really noticed this before but I think it’s quite true, especially now. There is a lot of conversation about it in Australia, and there are more and more products becoming available that are at least marketed as being environmentally friendly. Plastic bags are much less prevalent than in Japan, for which I am glad. People are actually using those plastic wrap alternatives you see on Facebook advertising.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that people aren’t at all aware of these things in Japan, nor that Australia is plastic- and carbon-emission-free, not by a long shot. But as one of my ex-Japan-dwelling friends pointed out to me the other day, people seem more inclined to take personal responsibility and try things in Australia, whereas in Japan that’s not such a prevalent viewpoint. Yes, we should use less plastic, some people might say, but not to the point of taking their own bags to the supermarket or of refusing individual small plastic bags for pieces of fruit. And people changing their diet to be better for the environment doesn’t seem to be on the radar in Japan. I think sustainable fishing is beginning to be a thing, maybe, but I have never heard a Japanese person talk about anyone trying to cut down on meat. (Carbs, though…)

On the other hand, though, Australia is covered in litter. It’s by the side of any major road. I pointed out to my ex-Japan-dwelling friend that the streets are cleaner in Japan because people a) don’t really litter and b) go around picking rubbish up off the streets. But that’s only retirees volunteering because they want to show their community spirit, she said, or because they want their street to look nice, rather than because they are trying to stop plastic getting into waterways and disrupting ecosystems.

I don’t know the intricacies of volunteer street cleaners’ motivations, but I do agree with my friend that people generally seem more actively concerned about the environment in Australia than in Japan.

So, next, in Melbourne’s future-dwelling dystopian society, to get a casual job where I can speak Japanese. I will do my best. I will remember to make an appointment for the specialist whose referral letter is somewhere in my room at home now. Wish me luck, reader. Until next time, take care of yourself. And if you made it this far, thank you!