Nobody hands you a manual for Australian culture when you land, so you learn it the way I did. One awkward lift conversation, one Tim Tam and one children’s book at a time. The first time someone asked me “how’s it going?” in a lift, I froze and started to actually tell them. (Wrong answer. The right answer is “good, you?” and then silence.) Here is the shortcut I wish I’d had.
How to Understand Australian Culture
1. Eat the food
The fastest way into Australian culture is through your stomach. Start with the classics. Vegemite on buttered toast (spread it thin, I am begging you), a Tim Tam slam with hot tea, fairy bread at a kids’ party, a lamington, a pavlova at Christmas and a sausage in bread from a weekend Bunnings sizzle with onions on top. Then go further and try native ingredients like wattleseed, finger lime and lemon myrtle, which have been part of this land’s food for tens of thousands of years. My favourite surprise was kangaroo baati at a Rajasthani dinner with native Australian flavours. And remember that modern Australian food is also pho, dumplings, souvlaki and kottu, because this is a country of immigrants.
2. Learn the lingo
Australians shorten everything, then add an “o” or “ie” to the end. Arvo is afternoon. Brekkie is breakfast. The servo is the petrol station, Maccas is McDonald’s and thongs go on your feet. “Heaps” means a lot, “reckon” means think and “no worries” answers almost anything. My favourite is “yeah nah”, which means no, said politely. Once you start saying “ta” at the supermarket without thinking, you’re in.
3. Learn about Indigenous culture from kids’ books
This one changed how I see the country. Australia’s First Nations peoples have cared for this land for more than 60,000 years, and I knew embarrassingly little when I arrived. Children’s books turned out to be the gentlest place to start, written simply, beautifully illustrated and often by First Nations authors themselves. Try Welcome to Country by Aunty Joy Murphy, Our Home, Our Heartbeat by Adam Briggs and Respect by Aunty Fay Muir and Sue Lawson. Then look up whose Country you live on. For me in Melbourne, that is the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Boonwurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation.
Learning Australian culture as an immigrant isn’t about giving up who you are. I still carry chilli in my bag and still can’t stand the sourdough. But somewhere between my first Tim Tam slam, my first “arvo” and my first picture book about Country, this place stopped feeling like somewhere I was visiting. You don’t become Aussie overnight. You become it one snack, one word and one story at a time.
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