The Aussie humour is the reverse of what you find in America. The people here like to stir others by getting you to believe nonsense. The more gullible you are the more you are 'owned' by them. The Yanks tend to make jokes about the truth. Aussies make jokes about falsehoods. I have been here for 37 years and I still don't appreciate the humour here. I always feel there is a bit of resentment towards foreigners who aren't fair dinkum.
I will give you an example of Aussie humour. I knew this old guy from Sydney who was travelling in America with his wife. He always wore his Aussie leather hat like Dundee wore in that movie. Often people would ask him if he was Crocodile Dundee and he would say yes! The wife would go hide in the bathroom while her husband told some stories to the gullible Yanks. BTW Sydney is a modern city. You don't see anyone but backpackers wearing those 'Aussie' hats.
Another time this same old bloke was in Tennessee and got to ride in the engine on one of those steam trains. A local asked him how he managed to do that and he said he merely asked the engineer if he could. The local picked up that this guy had an accent so he asked him where he was from. The Aussie said he was from Arkansas and the Yank replied, "Gosh, I would never have picked that!" To the Aussie he was fooling another dumb Yank so he told this story back home to appreciative audiences. The Yank couldn't imagine why a foreigner would even claim to be a Yank. That was crazy and not funny at all.
BTW, if Yanks come to Australia they will never detect this animosity or whatever it is. That is another trick the Aussies have. The locals here knock all foreigners. If foreigners knock Australia they will be hated for it. If you are a celebrity and get off the plane in Sydney and are interviewed by the media just say you love Australia and have come here to buy some property. You will be welcome with open arms then. If you comment on the differences here you won't be considered cool.
I was invited to go up to Brisbane to give a seminar on judging contests. While I was there this guy asked me where I was from. I replied that I was from Canada. No, he wanted to know what state I was from so I said New South Wales. There is a lot of rivalry among the states here. You don't see much of that in America or Canada. BTW, NSW doesn't look anything like Wales! Anyone who visits here would know that but Captain Cook visited a few places like Botany Bay that didn't have many trees around so assumed the rest of the state looked like South Wales. There aren't any gum trees in Wales that I know of but there you are. Plus, Wales doesn't have even one beach to compare with any along the coast of Eastern Australia.
Would you believe that there is no national football code in Australia? They have two major games played here. One is Aussie rules and Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth specialize in this game which is mainly about kicking the ball to others. In Sydney and Brisbane they play a type of rugby called Rugby League. It involves a lot of tackling and the guys play it without wearing faceguards. No way the Yanks or Canadians would play tackle football like this. In recent years both codes have spread to the other states but when you are in Melbourne the ovals are built for Aussie Rules while in Sydney the ovals are built for Rugby League but also can be used for soccer. It seems everyone calls his sport 'football' but it differs depending on where you play it. Can you imagine my dismay way back in 1971 when kids asked me if we were playing League of Union re football. I taught PE in high schools in Sydney for 10 years and quickly learned a bit about sports like cricket and local football codes. I have always felt that Rugby League was a mugs game. Most of those players have broken noses. I mean, who in their right minds would play this rough-house sport? I must say the kids I taught all wanted to play with tackling and not touch football. The Canadian kids I taught wouldn't play tackle football in PE. Aussies call American Football 'Gridiron' but few understand the game down here. They broadcast the Super Bowl every year live but need Yanks to interpret the game for them. On the other hand, few Yanks comprehend what cricket is all about.
Which leads to a real story about Sergio Oliva when he first came to Australia to do a show way back in the seventies. I was at Sydney airport and they had a press conference for him. You should have seen how huge Sergio looked in a suit. Everyone noticed him and thought he must be someone important. Well, they ushered Sergio into a room and then reporters started asking him some questions. First of all, Sergio had no idea how big Australia was and he had to fly another hour to go to Brisbane. Some Asian reporter asked Sergio how much he paid for his custom made suit. He said he paid about five hundred. The reporter asked if those 500 were dollars and Sergio said, "Yeah, we deal in dollars." I found that a very funny answer. Imagine how dumb that reporter was to ask a Yank if they used dollars. Heck, didn't they invent dollars?
