My flight to Cairns was diverted by a Typhoon, so instead of changing planes in Hong Kong I switched in Brisbane instead. I picked up my rental car in Cairns at around noon instead of the scheduled 8 am. I was rather tired, but I managed the drive up the hill (via the Kennedy Highway through Kuranda, Mareeba and Atherton and, after getting lost on the road leading to my mother’s house, I arrived at 3 pm or so.
I realized that if I’d driven the same amount of time at the same speeds in South Korea, I’d have nearly crossed the country, diagonally. Australia is a huge country, and very sparsely populated. I have been in a strange sort of culture shock since I got here – much stronger than during my previous two visits to Australia. I think it has to do with having come here after living a full year in Korea – my previous visits had been coming from the U.S., which really isn’t that culturally different from Australia, when you get right down to it.
For one thing, both countries have lots of ockers. But in the U.S., we call them rednecks, I think. Or some word like that… I’m not sure that’s the right translation. “Ocker” is an Australianism, and means a boorish and annoying person, from what I’ve gathered. My mother used the term to complain about the idiotic patrons in a store she’d been in, I think. I like the word, anyway. Maybe I can find an excuse to teach it to my students.
In the first picture, you see a wallaby. They congregate at the top of the hill above my mother’s house, where the driveway starts at the dead end of the road. In the second picture is a friend of my mother’s named George, a female kookabura, who often comes to visit seeking handouts and snacks.
-Notes for Korean-
외국에서 살기가 재므있을 것 같다.
=”seems like it’d be fun to live abroad”
잘 하기는요=”Ha, I do it well? Not really.” (very idiomatic translation)
