and more incomprehensible Australia…

Here I turn to the “masters” and to me they are the writers of this genre, this style of writing about day to day, making fun of day to day incongruous occurences, back in Brazil: Mario Prata (my personal master), Luiz Fernando Veríssimo, Arnaldo Jabor, among so many others.

From them I take the strength and the courage to say what I think: in capital letters and a large font.

After all, we would all be doomed without courage. Mario Prata would never have released a book about a pimp and his prostitutes, would he? Anjos de Badaró is a great book!

And the daily columns in many newspapers and media would be doomed to monotony, to what is agreeable to all and absolutely no fun!

I say all this because I was criticised for my last article {link}, because there are parts of Australia I find amusing. I will confess all I wanted to do was to hide and cry.

Instead, here I am again, smiling and all.

To prove my love for my Aussie Land here I will write a few new incomprehensible details. 

Good details, but still incomprehensible!

The ridiculously organised crowds: New Years Eve in Sydney is a good example. There is no shoving, no screaming, no mess. The people bring the sleeping kids in arms and prams, and they manage to be 1 millimetre away from you without touching anything. When the inevitable happens everyone always say sorry.

The signs in car parks in shopping centres that advise you to “lock your car” were one of the first things to get my attention when I first arrived here. 

It crossed my mind simply: how come you have to remind people to lock their cars in the car park? We would never consider otherwise back home.

The buses’ timetables: I would be dumb stricken to see written that the bus arrives at exactly 10:17. All I could think was: impressive! 

I know it is not totally perfect but just by having a time table that states time like 9:23; 10:17; 11:54 is a serious indication of what we can expect: precision. In my homeland I would go to the bus stop and someone would simply say it all in a few words: the bus comes around once per hour. The acceptable margin of error would be one: one hour more or less. 

No doubt one of the best nonsenses I have ever experienced was to be given money back from taxes by the Australian government. Only if you come from a land where a lot of corruption happens you would truly appreciate what this means. I would never believe it possible if I hadn’t seen it in my account myself. 

I can now criticise Brazil with confidence, because saying you don’t like a part doesn’t mean you do not love the whole. I love the Brazil I carry with me, I’m proud of being Brazilian and having been born there. I love Australia, the new home. I have worked hard to be its proud citizen, even if I do not like Vegemite!

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